Mad Fun and Feasting for Mardi Gras in Los Angeles

You’ve packed away your Halloween masks and Christmas lights, thinking you’ll not need them (ho, ho, ho) until next year.

Well, dig them out again. Mardi Gras has finally come to Los Angeles and you’ll need every bauble, bead and doubloon you can unearth. While you’re at it, unwrap the confetti, hire a Dixieland band, jugglers and jesters and start cooking jambalaya, gumbo and crawfish boil. Turn your backyard into Bourbon Street and put out the green, gold and purple banners that say Mardi Gras. Call the dancing girls and fire-eaters and have a balloon drop that will make everyone drop-dead delirious.

That’s how crazy this holiday is.

“There is a lot happening with American regional cuisine today and some of the great regional holidays, like Mardi Gras, are spreading across the country. And why not? Mardi Gras is a happy, mad and wonderful holiday to adopt,” said Mary Micucci of Along Came Mary, one of the several party-planning firms in town throwing huge Mardi Gras bashes this year.

Pre-Lenten Rites

“It’s a time for letting out inhibitions before Lent,” said Mark Uddo, a New Orleanian who is the food and beverage manager of Filmland Center in Culver City, where Louisiana-style Mardi Gras celebrations will begin March 1. Indeed, Mardi Gras is the culmination of a period of feasting and festivity before the Lenten fast for Roman Catholics from Rome to Rio. (Mardi Gras is the French translation for fat Tuesday--Shrove Tuesday--before the beginning of Lent.)

So you have permission, dear party-givers, to go slightly mad and do things to your Mardi Gras party you might not dream of doing to others.

How crazy can you get?

Plenty, but first a few practical words.

Because of the nature of a Mardi Gras party--this is not a sit-down affair--food stations where guests can stand while eating work best, according to Cathee Hickcok, party coordinator of Rococo, a Woodland Hills catering company. “It’s interesting to have three or four different buffet areas where food can be eaten with a fork only,” Hickcok said. Otherwise use the colorful disposable plastic plates on the market today.

Saving by Doing

“Your Mardi Gras party can be expensive if you get involved with renting oversized masks, carts and entertainments,” said John Lavine of Wonderful World of Fantasy, a party service company in Los Angeles. “But you can do a lot of the work yourself, if you are so inclined. You’ll get a lot of mileage from balloons in Mardi Gras colors with hot pinks and strong yellows and limes added. And you can make your own centerpieces with masks purchased at any party store and glue-on glitter and feathers. They can even be attached to a pole, broomstick or dowel,” Lavine said.

Hickcok suggests bouquets of spring flowers, such as purple iris mixed with daffodils, marigolds and greens in keeping with the Mardi Gras color scheme.

And don’t forget, Mardi Gras calls for hoopla, and costumes add to the pageantry. “Ask your guests to come in mask and costume, and the host and hostess can act as king and queen,” suggests Micucci. (In New Orleans’ traditional Mardi Gras, a celebrity and a current debutante are invited to preside over festivities as king and queen.)

A Doll Within

Uddo suggests using a huge version of King’s cake, the traditional New Orleans bread, as the focal point for a buffet. The cake is an oval sweet-bread loaf with a baby doll inside to commemorate the visit of the three kings to Jesus in the manger. The multicolored frosting is applied in alternating green, gold and purple strips. You can cheat by asking a bakery to prepare it.

Mardi Gras parties offer a great opportunity to use New Orleans regional foods such as those being featured at Filmland: creole gumbo, traditional crawfish bisque, shrimp and okra salad, crabmeat stuffed avocados, assorted Louisiana sausages (now available at many gourmet food stores), oysters bienville (baked oysters on the half-shell topped with cream sauce), oysters Rockefeller (topped with Pernod and spinach sauce) served on a bed of rock salt and redfish court bouillon (red fish broiled and topped with tomato sauce), plus jambalaya made with seafood or sausages and favorite New Orleans’ desserts such as bread pudding with whisky sauce, cherries jubilee, sweet potato pecan pie and bananas Foster.

Bananas Flambe

Bob Ehrman, owner of Rococo, prepares chicken with peanut sauce to serve with rice, to which raw, finely diced red and green pepper are added for a sprinkling of color resembling confetti. For dessert, bananas flambe is served with vanilla ice cream and praline sauce. To make it, saute the bananas and sprinkle them with brown sugar. Splash with rum or brandy and ignite. Let the flames die down and serve with vanilla ice cream and caramel or praline sauce. If possible, a station cook can be assigned the job of making them to order.

Micucci, who traveled to New Orleans to research the food and fanfare of Mardi Gras there, came up with a menu including authentic favorites such as crawfish and Lake crab boil, shrimp in their shells, corn on the cob, hush puppies and creamers (baby roasted potatoes boiled with spicy seafood seasoning). At one performing chefs’ station, pasta is topped with a spicy sauce covered with a confetti of vegetables (zucchini, mushrooms, green and red pepper). Poor boys and muffelata (New Orleans sandwiches whose recipes are usually available in basic cook books) also were on the menu. In fact, most of the regional recipes mentioned are easily found in basic American cookbooks, and many restaurants and gourmet takeouts have them for sale.