Several summers ago, a volunteer group from Arizona came in town to help rebuild after Katrina. When we met them we tried to tell them about everything deemed perfectly normal in New Orleans that might seem utterly preposterous in the minds to a foreigner (someone who lives more than 40 minutes from downtown or uptown New Orleans.) Of course, as normal tourists ask, someone in the group from Arizona asked about Mardi Gras, and to us, who can fully explain the extent of Mardi Gras without mentioning King Cake?
"King cake: a round-ish, braided dough cake that is iced and can sometimes have colored sprinkles or filling on them. Kind of like a better cinnamon roll. After it's served, whoever gets the baby will bring the next king cake."
"Wait. Whoever gets what?"
"The baby of course. There's one hidden in every king cake."
"You guys put BABIES in your cake!? What kind of crazy city is this!?"
This illuminated half-scared, half-confused response to our simple New Orleanian tradition made me stop and truly realize how unique the traditions and customs of New Orleans really are. New Orleans is the only place where it is perfectly normal to boil more than 40 pounds of crawfish (not crayfish) at a time, where Mardi Gras is not the Gay and Lesbian Parade like it is in Sydney (as my Australian cousins informed me), where the new hip nutria fur fashion can make the front page of the Living section, and yes, we hide small babies in our cakes.
Only recently were the true originality and outlandish ways of the New Orleanian world reassured when I went to Caesar ball to watch one of my close friends who was a maid. As another friend and I waited in the giant ballroom where all of the maids were preparing to don their 60 pound feathery, sparkly backdrops that attached to their waists, I realized that I had become accustomed to certain kinds of events that to others might seem strange.
Me: "Oh hey! Someone dressed up like Marylyn Monroe! (short pause) Oh wait. That's an old man… (another pause) Let's go take a picture with him!!!"
Friend: "Sure. I'll just watch and take the picture."
It seems to me now that in New Orleans, it is perfectly normal to dress up in public, and it is even more normal for hundreds of straight men to put on black and gold dresses and parade down the French Quarter in honor of a deceased radio announcer who promised to dress like a woman in public if the Saints made it to the Super Bowl. But of course, this mini-parade was most definitely not the strangest occurrence in New Orleans after the Saints won the Super Bowl. To tell tourists that people were running, jumping, and screaming "WHO DAT!?!" in the middle of traffic only to get an even louder group response of, "WE DAT!" from unknown distant strangers would be an understatement. This type of action was the complete required norm for living in a city where the action never sleeps.
Sure, it takes less than 35 minutes to get from Kenner to the West Bank without traffic but, New Orleanians scoff at the showy volcanoes, Eiffel towers, casinos, and simply say, “Eh, who needs Vegas anyways?” If it is one thing that being in New Orleans has taught me, it is that it is our differences from the rest of the world are what brings New Orleans together as a family.
Amy, age 16