? for francophiles
 

My daughter needs to make a snack for a Mardi Gras celebration in her French class. Can anyone give her a suggestion for a snack teens might enjoy?

French cheese and good bread <BR>tapenade (olive spread/dip) <BR>onion pizzafruit tarts <BR>

Popcorn or potatoe chips. What the hell is this question all about?

Onion pizza and fruit tarts should be separate. I cook better than I type, fortunately.

Little cream puffs are always popular and easy--she can stuff them with pudding or ice cream if there's a place to refrigerate. Drizzle a little chocolate syrup on top or sprinkle with powdered sugar.

A King Cake is the proper "snack" for a Mardi Gras Celebration. Ice a sheet cake with purple, green and gold icing(use food coloring) and add small trinkets across the top redily recognizable as not to be swallowed. Donuts can be arranged in a circle and decorated with the Mardi Gras Colors in edible sprinkles. Add some beads in those colors to decorate the edges.

Another traditional Mardi Gras snack in New Orleans is the Cowboy Cookie.(Not a French thing, but I think the French might like them if they tried them, since choc. chip cookies are hot there right now!) <BR> <BR>"Cowboy cookies" are the N.O. name for oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies, usually with pecans added in as well. They are often on the parade picnic menu for N.O. families. (These would be a little easier to make than a King Cake for most people, I think.) <BR> <BR>BTW: If you would like to see what a real King Cake looks like, here is a link: http://www.gambinos.com/images/cake1.jpg <BR> <BR>

I attended a French parochial school as a child. On Mardi Gras we had cupcakes. The blue frosted cupcakes had a pea in it, The pink ones had a bean. Blue for the boys, pink for the girls. Whoever got the pea and bean were named king and queen of Mardi Gras. Boy, that brought bake old memories. Thank you

I am from New Orleans. This is what our kids do in preschool to make homemade kingcakes: buy Pilsbury(sp?) cinnamon roll dough, cut each roll in 1/4's, arrange in bundt pan and bake as directed. Pop it out, ice it with enclosed iceing then decorate with purple, green and gold(yellow) sugar. You could unroll the dough and braid it into a circle if you want. After baking put a small plastic baby underneath. Whoever gets the baby has to bring in the next cake and is king for the day. <BR> <BR>P.S. I never heard of cowboy cookies. Is he from New Orleans?

I forgot to mention that kingcake tastes just like cinnamon rolls. The sheet cake isn't very similar at all.

Many N.O. area bakeries ship kingcakes if you would like to order one for an authentic Mardi Gras treatt. Please e-mail me directly if you'd like specific information.

I lived in N.O. until I was 27. I learned to love these cookies in the traditional way, at parade picnics on the St. Charles Avenue neutral ground. (I had to give up the tradition when I was 12; from that point I was always IN the parades, not watching them!) I have over 20 Junior League cookbooks from all over Louisiana, and I think every one of them contains some variation on an oatmeal choc. chip cookie recipe. <BR> <BR>I've heard lots of stories about why Cowboy Cookies are called that; the most logical one is that it is because parents give them to their kids to placate them while they wait to see the 'cowboys' (that is, the mounted color guard) at the head of the parade. <BR> <BR>I like the refrigerator cinnamon roll idea, sort of a monkey bread adaptation! As another poster mentioned, using an uncooked kidney bean for the baby is more traditional, it's just that modern Louisianians have adapted to using the plastic ones. (I actually have an heirloom silver king cake baby, but I only put it in cakes that are to be eaten at home!) <BR> <BR>Geez, discussions like this make me miss New Orleans!

What about escargot?

Thanks a bunch, friendly Fodorites. I put this question on a French discussion board with only two answers. So, thanks. PS This is a class of high school students. She has to do this by Friday. Anymore easy ideas are greatly appreciated. GB

<BR>French people prepare crepes, for mardi gras. I suppose the cakes described here are Louisiana things...

Clair, She prepared crepes for her classes Christmas Party. Like a dress, she can't bring the same thing twice. If you are from France, do you have any other suggestions.Mostly, what kind of snacks to teens eat a parties. I visited once, and I did not see much of our party snacks like potato chips or pretzels in the grocery. Thanks