Food and drink is just part of the Mardi Gras parade experience. It’s not called Fat Tuesday for nothing, after all. But what if it goes beyond catching a Moon Pie or grabbing another cold one?
For a pair of small, spirited marching krewes, food and drink are also inspiration and founding principles.
Let’s start with the Krewe of Cork.
It all started with a wine-soaked Friday lunch that turned into an impromptu procession in the streets, the way these things can happen in New Orleans. 26 years later, the Krewe of Cork is an offbeat fixture of the New Orleans Mardi Gras parade schedule.
Its day is this Friday, Feb. 6, always starting at the Court of Two Sisters restaurant at 3 p.m. and marching through the French Quarter.
There are no floats, but wagons are tended by what they call “wine police,” or stewards for the procession who keep members’ signature goblets brimming.
Spectators line the route angling for signature krewe medallions shaped into grape clusters. Don’t be surprised if you catch one from someone dressed as the Blue Nun, Champagne foam in female form or a mythological god.
At the foundation of the big day are connections woven through the greater world of wine. Many krewe members work in the hospitality and wine industries, and the grand marshal is always a big player in the wine business. This year, that’s Jody Bogle of Bogle Family Wines.
Now let’s consider the Krewe of Lafcadio, also in the French Quarter, starting outside Antoine’s Restaurant the Saturday before Mardi Gras, Feb. 14 this year.
It’s named for perhaps the first New Orleans food influencer – the 19th century writer Lafcadio Hearn. Satire is the theme and cuisine is the vehicle.
Marchers dressed like chefs, Creole “trinity” ingredients or perhaps Zapp’s potato chip wrappers dole out wooden kitchen spoons.
The monarchs are drawn not from high society but from hard working New Orleans restaurant kitchens. King this year is Micheal Nelson, executive chef at the innovative seafood restaurant GW Fins with his fish butcher Michael Perkins as duke.
Will you get a spoon? Will you catch grape beads? Either way, you’ll get another dose of this city’s irrepressible hospitality culture and epicurean obsessions at these delightful pageants on the French Quarter streets.
