The Christian tradition of Lent starts March 5th, 2025, which means that today is Fat Tuesday! And while many people may have heard of Lent, or of Fat Tuesday, it may not be overtly obvious that these things all have intrinsic historical ties to Mardi Gras.
Mardi Gras, of course, is a name we all know and love, whether you’re a New Orleans native or a Floridian celebrating the two-month-long event at Universal Orlando Resort. Most people know of Mardi Gras for its parades showcasing breathtaking floats and live entertainment, as well as the tradition of catching beads thrown by performers during the parade, both at the traditional NOLA parade and the tribute parade performed in Orlando. But Mardi Gras itself is a tradition hundreds of years old with some surprising origins!
Fench for “Fat Tuesday,” Mardi Gras is the celebration of the final day before preparations for Lent begin, during which many Christians from various sects and walks of life abstain from fatty red meats – the ‘fat’ in Fat Tuesday – as an act of religious penance. Revelers will enjoy lavish feasts and red meats galore on Fat Tuesday, as a last hurrah before the forty-day period of fasting and prayer that follows.
Mardi Gras has been a part of Louisiana culture since colonial times, when explorer Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville (Bienville for short) christened a spot 60 miles due south of what would soon be New Orleans as “Pointe du Mardi Gras” after the day this spot was founded – March 2, 1699, the Tuesday before Lent. Bienville would go on to found several other historic Louisiana cities, like New Orleans in 1718, and Fort Louis de la Louisiane, which is now Mobile, Louisiana. It’s in this city, Fort Louis de la Louisiane, where the very first Mardi Gras celebration was held in 1703, just a year after the settlement’s founding.
This first Mardi Gras celebration looked drastically different from the party-like atmosphere of the parade we have today, and in fact was a religious ceremony signalling the coming of the Lent season, as members of the Boeuf Gras Society (after the Boeuf Gras, of ‘fatted calf’ traditions in France, representing the final meat eaten before Lent) paraded down the streets pushing an enormous fake bull’s head, which was carted down the street by a procession of handlers. Later iterations of this ‘parade’ would feature an actual bull draped in white cloth, but both signaled the abstinence that observers would undergo in the coming weeks.
Shortly after the establishment of Fort Louis, New Orleans was established, and the Fat Tuesday revelry took root in the city with lavish society balls organized by the city’s governor at the time, Marquis de Vaudreuil. While Mardi Gras balls aren’t as talked about nationwide as the parade, they are still held today!
By the late 1830s, Mardi Gras was starting to take shape as the parade we’re all familiar with; street processions of masked performers, elegant carriages, and gaslight torches called flambeaux were popular at this time. In 1856, a small group of Mobile natives brought Mardi Gras’ first Krewe to the scene with the Mistick Krewe of Comus, adding to the festivities with tableaux cars – rolling stages that depicted festive scenes, which would eventually evolve into the floats of today.
Mardi Gras continued as a lavish street procession marked with intrigue and excitement due to the mysterious nature of the Krewes and the scenes constructed for the parade, but it wasn’t until the early 1870s that the iconic colors of Mardi Gras were introduced. Purple for justice, Gold for power, and Green for faith, these colors were chosen to honor a special guest visiting New Orleans who had come to witness the parade: Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff.
Yeah, talk about left field!
Purple, Gold, and Green were the royal colors of the Romanoffs at the time – and after introducing them to the Mardi Gras parade, they became the official colors of the celebration. It was around this time that the whole celebration became a lot less French, and started taking on an identity of its own, with more and more floats being constructed entirely in New Orleans instead of being shipped in from overseas. Today, one of the most famous float builders is Kern Studios, which has been designing and building Mardi Gras floats since 1932, and has since expanded its family-owned business to building parade floats for celebrations all across the world!
Never heard of Kern Studios before? If you’ve been to the Mardi Gras parade at Universal Orlando, you’ve seen their work! Check out their body of work at the link above – if you live in Central Florida, you’re sure to recognize some of their work, with some sculpted pieces commissioned by the biggest theme parks still on display today!
But eventually, Governor Henry Warmoth signed the Mardi Gras Act of 1875, making Mardi Gras an official, legal holiday in Louisiana – which it remains to this day. Today, Mardi Gras, or Carnival, is held across the globe, with pre-Lenten celebrations taking place in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, and Russia – all with their own traditions and festivities.
Today, Universal Orlando Resort takes traditions from the most famous Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans and fuses it with the culinary traditions of the various countries that celebrate Carnival; while good old fashioned New Orleans cooking can be found at the food booths scattered across the park, you can also find traditional foods from many of the celebrating countries, like Canada, Colombia, Germany, India, and Italy, among many more this year at Universal’s Mardi Gras Celebration.
And while Fat Tuesday may come and go in the wake of Lent, guests can continue to experience the festivities of Mardi Gras all the way through the end of March at Universal Orlando Resort. Next time you’re there catching beads and snacking on some beignets, enjoy them knowing you’re taking part in a global tradition hundreds of years old, and let the good times roll!
