Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bomb. Here, we humans mark our
Speaker 1: holidays with glee, cheer, and often mouth watering desserts. Enter
Speaker 1: the New Orleans kincake, the frosted coffee cake like sweet
Speaker 1: roll typically eaten between January six and Fat Tuesday, which
Speaker 1: is the day before Lent begins. It's a staple of
Speaker 1: the Mardi Grass season. For those unfamiliar with this festive dessert,
Speaker 1: the New Orleans version is often made of rich Danish
Speaker 1: style dough, braided and shaped into a large ring, and
Speaker 1: often with one or a variety of fillings I think cinnamon, sugar, chocolate,
Speaker 1: raspberry preserves, chopped sugar cons or sweetened cream cheese. It's
Speaker 1: usually covered in a sweet glaze or frosting and decorated
Speaker 1: with gold, green, and purple sugar or icing, and of course,
Speaker 1: hidden somewhere within the tender layers of this frosted treat
Speaker 1: is a small plastic baby which sounds real beard if
Speaker 1: you're unfamiliar. So let's back up a little, because the
Speaker 1: origins of kincake go way back, and yes, there are
Speaker 1: kings involved. Kincake derives from the holiday three Kings Day,
Speaker 1: also called Epiphany, which is a Christian feast day celebrated
Speaker 1: on January six, which is the day after the twelfth
Speaker 1: Day of Christmas. This holiday celebrates the biblical tale of
Speaker 1: the Three Kings a k a. The Three Wise Men
Speaker 1: or magi visiting the baby Jesus. It kicks off the
Speaker 1: mardy Gras or carnival season, which lasts until the first
Speaker 1: day of Lent, which is a moving holiday that falls
Speaker 1: forty days before Easter. Anyway, the Three Kings are why
Speaker 1: kincakes are a seasonal treat in the shape of a
Speaker 1: crown or a more or less circular band anyway, those
Speaker 1: three colors they're decorated with are symbolic purple for justice,
Speaker 1: green for faith, and gold for power, and tradition holds
Speaker 1: that the plastic baby in the cake represents Jesus. Just
Speaker 1: as Jesus showed himself to the Three Wise Men, he
Speaker 1: will show himself to those enjoying kincake. Whoever finds the
Speaker 1: baby in their slices crowned king or queen for a day,
Speaker 1: or hosts the next Mardy Grass celebration, or at least
Speaker 1: buys the cake next year. It's a lucky token other tokens, coins,
Speaker 1: peas pecans, beans were what was up in the past
Speaker 1: and may still show up. Hundreds of thousands of kincakes
Speaker 1: are sold out of New Orleans every Mardy Grass season.
Speaker 1: I couldn't track down a firm total, but the big
Speaker 1: commercial bakeries ramp up to producing three thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: kincakes per day at their busiest. The Danish style dough
Speaker 1: is the most popular, but it's not the only kind.
Speaker 1: Either flakier or fluffier dough can sometimes be found, and
Speaker 1: New Orleans isn't the only place to serve kincakes by far.
Speaker 1: In northern France you can find gallette de roy, a
Speaker 1: flaky puff pastry with sweet almond filling. Bulgaria and Greece
Speaker 1: have similar dishes traditionally served around the New Year, but
Speaker 1: the doing No Orleans kincake is closer to the ghetau
Speaker 1: de roi from southern France made with brioche, and the
Speaker 1: rosca de rays from Spain, a ing of sweetbread topped
Speaker 1: with icing and candied fruit, which makes sense given the
Speaker 1: Spanish and Southern French settlers and colonists who got the
Speaker 1: city started in the seventeen hundreds. But Mardi Gras and
Speaker 1: other carnival celebrations have roots that go way back. People
Speaker 1: have been celebrating the end of winter and the return
Speaker 1: of longer, warmer days uh forever since the first brave
Speaker 1: human who dared to celebrate Ancient Babylonia may have held
Speaker 1: the first carnival circa two thousand, six hundred BC. This
Speaker 1: was a festival that celebrated in mirth and change through
Speaker 1: satire by making a show of role reversals. There would
Speaker 1: be a parade through the streets, a pair of peasants
Speaker 1: would be royalty for the day, and royalty would act
Speaker 1: like fools. Pranks were played, Folks would wear costumes depicting
Speaker 1: social classes other than their own, and everyone partied. Sounded
Speaker 1: little familiar. These traditions were incorporated into and or disseminated
Speaker 1: through Grecian and Roman cultural traditions. The first kingcakes may
Speaker 1: go all the way back to ancient Rome. As part
Speaker 1: of the Libration of Saturnalia, a winter solstice and harvest festival,
Speaker 1: a pastry would be baked with a fava bean hidden inside,
Speaker 1: and the finder would be named King for the day.
Speaker 1: The tradition became a part of Epiphany celebrations in the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, the fava bean was sometimes replaced by a
Speaker 1: porcelain token of a crowned head to take some of
Speaker 1: the pagan out of it. When Spain France spread their
Speaker 1: outposts to the America's, the king cake tradition came with
Speaker 1: them and took on a life of its own, particularly
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. The baby trinket didn't come along until
Speaker 1: a bakery called Mackenzie's came up with the idea in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. At first, these figures were made out
Speaker 1: of porcelain and baked inside the cake, but were eventually
Speaker 1: replaced with plastic, which comes alongside the cake, due to
Speaker 1: you know, concerns about baking plastic. These early cakes were
Speaker 1: more brioche like or pendus like and didn't have filling.
Speaker 1: That didn't come around until the nineteen eighties, as bakers
Speaker 1: began adding more eggs and sugar to their recipes or
Speaker 1: straight up switching to Danish pastry recipes, and anecdotal tail
Speaker 1: puts the first commercial filled kincakes in New Orleans to
Speaker 1: nine eight three. According to baker Joan Seaman. That year
Speaker 1: her bakery baked four filled cakes. Her husband took one
Speaker 1: to work, and they got twenty five calls about filled
Speaker 1: cakes within thirty minutes. Through the nineteen eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: Cajun and Creole food became national trends, and shipping technology
Speaker 1: improved as well, allowing for more or less affordable overnight shipping. Then,
Speaker 1: in two thousand four, the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina honed
Speaker 1: New Orleans sense of community history and pride, and both
Speaker 1: local and national hunger for these traditional dishes, which means
Speaker 1: that celebrants have a veritable glut of kincake options today,
Speaker 1: miniature kingcakes, kincake doughnuts, kincake vodka, kincake bourbon milk punch,
Speaker 1: kincake smoothies, and, of course, in a city that loves
Speaker 1: a party, a whole Kincake Festival held in late January.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by myself and Annie Reese, with
Speaker 1: a hat tip to House to Work writer Jeremy Glass.
Speaker 1: It was produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more on this and
Speaker 1: lots of other curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the
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