Mardi Gras In Western Europe

Blini for an Entire Week or Pancakes for Tuesday?

Ongoing festivities and feasts preceding Lent are the events that many families in Europe look forward to. In Western Europe, where the majority of the population is Catholic, the celebration of Shrove Tuesday differs greatly from the traditions of the holiday Maslenitsa, the Russian equivalent of the Western European Mardi Gras. The food rituals and the festival traditions of Shrove Tuesday and Mardi Gras vary between the Eastern European Orthodox church followers and the people influenced by the Western European Catholic church. The customs depend on the branch of Christianity and the role that religion played in the historical development of the country.

The Russian week-long carnival preceding

As a matter of fact, the actual origin of the name ‘Carnival’ is “from the Latin, carnern levare `to put away the flesh as food' or…in Italian carne vale, `flesh farewell'” (Feil 142). The meaning of the carnival describes the act of eating meat and dairy right before Lent due to the restriction placed on meat and dairy during the Lenten fast. Today, there are many traditions that are practiced during Mardi Gras in Western Europe. In terms of food, the reason for the consumption of heavy foods before Lent is to use all the butter and dairy that is left before the start of the Lenten fast. This how the name ‘Mardi Gras’ was attributed to Shrove Tuesday (Johnson). Over the years, the importance of the festival has increased in Western Europe. The carnival of Venice is of increasing importance in Italy. Today, the carnival “lasts for more than two weeks [and] includes dozens of lectures, concerts, plays, opera, ballet, art exhibitions, parties, pageants and other events, all of which are connected…to the historicity of Venetian carnival” (Feil 151). Thus, it is now evident, that the festival Mardi Gras is as important in Western Europe as in Eastern Europe. It is especially important in Italy, where the Carnival of Venice manages to attract many visitors every year to participate in all the

First, the believed origins of the holiday are different between Maslenitsa, whose roots come from Slavic tribes, and the Venetian Mardi Gras, originating from Roman and Nordic Germanic populations. Second, the restrictions on food the week before the Great Lent play an immense role in the food rituals practiced during this festive time. In the Orthodox branch of Christianity, the consumption of meat is forbidden during Maslenitsa, the week before Lent. In comparison, there is not such restriction in the Catholic branch. Thus, in the Russian tradition, the focus on thin pancakes blini exists, in Western Europe, the food eaten during Mardi Gras is usually not as specific. Even if these differences are taken into account, there are still similarities that force people to debate on the right way to universally celebrate the week preceding the great Lenten