An Intro to Fat Tuesday: Eat Bacon & Pancakes for Tomorrow We Die

Fat Tuesday is about eating bacon.

Now that I have your attention, let me expound a bit to offer some teaching on what exactly is going on with Fat Tuesday. For starters, let’s clarify some names - whether Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Pancake Day, or even Shrove Tuesday, they are all referencing the exact same day - the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.

Fat Tuesday, simply put, is about being good stewards of the resources you have, while it undoubtedly has been hijacked by the likes of the shenanigans in Cajun Country, the roots of Fat Tuesday find their anchor in the need to rid a kitchen of “fatty” products.

Since Ash Wednesday begins the season of fasting (Lent) for Christians and Ash Wednesday, along with Good Friday have traditionally been fast days, the saints who went before us knew there was a great need to get rid of items they were not going to be consuming the next 40 some days.

A kitchen was not complete with a fridge or freezer so if a family was going to be giving up fatty foods, such as bacon, eggs, flour, etc. there was a need to dispose of it. Well, seeing as how Christians are to be good stewards of the resources we are given, instead of tossing out perfectly good bacon and eggs - they cooked them to an absolute feast. Special attention was given to any “fatty foods” in the house. This, my friends, is exactly where the name “Fat Tuesday” came from, it has absolutely nothing to do with weight, and everything to do with cooking and consuming the fatty foods in one’s house, as one prepared to fast from them during Lent.

Since many Christians were doing this and Christians are a family, this quickly became a community affair, so instead of merely doing it in homes, it spread to churches, communities, etc. Down in Brazil, there still exists the largest “carnival” in the world, however the roots of this carnival are tied to Fat Tuesday. Here’s a fun “Did you know?” - the word carnival means “farewell to meat” in Latin, which is translated “carne vale”. They party, still to this day in Brazil as a way of eating all the fatty meats they will soon be giving up during the Lenten season.

Speaking of partying, down in the bayou, the celebrations run rampant to much debauchery with Mardi Gras. Translated in French, “Mardi Gras” simply means “Fat Tuesday”. One of the many festivities at Mardi Gras is the wearing of masks, to cover one’s face. This practice has its origins in the church as well. Lent is a time of truth telling, owning the fact that “from dust we have come, to dust we shall return”. Lent is about coming face to face with the truth, we cannot hide from God. Therefore, we should take the mask off and stop acting like we’ve tricked God as if he isn’t aware of the true state of our lives. So folks wear masks on Mardi Gras symbolizing our dillydally shenanigans of trying to hide from God. That night though, the masks come off, and we enter Lent, we stop hiding, we stop pretending and start repenting, we stop playing hide and seek and we start drawing close to the God who has drawn so close to us that he took on flesh to save us in Jesus Christ. 

So there you have it, Fat Tuesday is about eating bacon, so as to be good stewards of our resources and it’s about dropping the hide and seek game that we so often play with God, because nothing is hidden from his sight. And yet, somehow, someway, he loves us through and through, true and true and we know this because while we enter Lent, we are always an “Easter People”, we are always a people of light and love, because Jesus is the Light of the World and he is the embodiment of love. 

Don’t be afraid of Fat Tuesday - it’s a good day to feast and to start telling the truth about ourselves.

Happy Fat Tuesday, fellow follower, today may we eat, drink and be merry - for tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, we die.

-David Luke Whitehead, Fat Tuesday Eve + 2025