Getting into the carnival spirit

I was lucky enough this week to be asked by a local primary school to take part in their Mardi Gras celebrations.  Their celebrations lasted the whole school day and the cross-curricular style learning incorporated art, music, geography and cookery.  The children had made masks and costumes and then took part in a Mardi Gras parade that parents were invited to.  Many of the parents then stayed to lunch with their children – Mardi Gras themed of course.

During the week leading up to the parade, the children had learned to play samba instruments and had samba lessons which I am sure featured heavily in the parade.  The school hall was decorated in purple, green and gold which I learned are the traditional colours of Mardi Gras; purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power.

My involvement was to demonstrate a couple of typical Mardi Gras recipes to the children.  For the Reception and KS1 children, we had chosen the King Cake.  This is normally made from sweet dough (that needs time to rise) but as we were pushed for time, we had found a recipe using pre-prepared croissant dough which worked beautifully.  I made one King Cake in front of the children so they could see how the filling was made and the cake moulded into its typical ring shape.  I had however prepared two King Cakes in advance which the children were able to decorate which they did in style.  The typical design of purple, green and gold stripes had a few interesting variations but they looked fantastic and the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

For the KS2 children, I demonstrated how to make a Chicken and Ham Gumbo.  The children were really interested and almost all of them tried this the dish even though there had been quite a few “eeews” when they saw the green pepper and celery going in.

Doing food demonstrations like this is a great way to help children find out about new food and get them trying new tastes.  I find they are much more likely to try things when they are with all of their friends and in a “food” environment.

The children had a fantastic day and because of the different experiences will remember this day and what they learned.  I can still remember having a Malaysian festival and feast when I was 10 and that was a very long time ago!