Downtown Mardi Gras by Leslie A. Wade Robin Roberts Frank de Caro

Author:Leslie A. Wade, Robin Roberts, Frank de Caro [Leslie A. Wade, Robin Roberts, Frank de Caro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Folklore & Mythology, Popular Culture, Customs & Traditions
ISBN: 9781496823816
Google: Ns-gDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Published: 2019-08-01T05:30:07+00:00

CHAPTER 4

The Red Beans Krewe: An Iconic Dish and a New Parade

Robin Roberts and Frank de Caro

Another new parade that has success and visibility, created by a transplant who moved to New Orleans in 2006, also first ran in 2009. The Krewe of Red Beans parades in the neighborhoods of Marigny and Bywater. Its first year, as Devin De Wulf recalls, there was virtually no audience. In 2017 the audience was estimated at ten thousand people. In a sign of the group’s importance and reputation, De Wulf was contacted by the Arthur Hardy’s Guide to Mardi Gras for inclusion in its 2018 edition. The krewe began with a small group who pay varying dues, but by 2017 increased to 165 participants. Red Beans has been so successful that it has created a second parade, marching on the same day, but in a different neighborhood (Mid-City), known as the Dead Beans krewe.

Perhaps this rapid expansion has occurred because it has been so instrumental in letting newcomers to New Orleans participate in the city’s great festival celebration. The parade’s policy of open participation, effective leadership by De Wulf, and eccentricity has made it a highly popular event. Krewe members decorate (with beans and rice) a car; the most recent car had a Louis Armstrong theme, including a side which featured his famous sign-off, “Red Beans and Ricely yours.” The car has been provided by the Camellia Brand, which commercially packages red beans and has become a sponsor of the group; it will be used in an upcoming parade (unless there is rain) and the company also uses it for other public relations purposes.

This chapter explores the ways that this new parade draws on New Orleans culture, from its signature red beans and rice dish, to the Mardi Gras Indians’ costumes, to the second-line tradition. Like the other new Downtown parades, the Red Beans parade fosters artistic expression (and competition); displays whimsical and political humor based on local culture; and valorizes the domestic (a common meal and foodstuff), and thus the feminine. And like the other new Mardi Gras parades, the Red Beans krewe wrestles with the changes in New Orleans and the role of transplants to these changes. In addition, like the ’tit Rәx organization, the krewe has had to deal with rapid expansion, due to rapidly increasing interest in the parade. The krewe’s unique focus on red beans as its material for costumes typifies the innovation and creativity of the Downtown Mardi Gras scene.

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