There’s really no dearth of wacky festivals in the world, and the Giant Omelette Festival is definitely one of them. The strange and the delicious come together to create your dose of weird for this week!
The centre of this festival at Abbeville, Louisiana is quite literally a giant omelette. The town is famous for this massive, 5000 egg omelette, that is actually a tribute to Abbeville’s French connection. The celebration has its roots in the French town of Bessieres, where Napoleon had once stopped with his army in tow, and ate an omelette. He enjoyed it so much that the next day, he ordered all the eggs in the town to be made into a giant omelette to feed his troops. Since then, the omelette became a traditional Easter feast here, and the idea travelled to Abbeville.
In the town’s Magdalen Square, the celebrations are held every year and are devoted entirely to the town’s Cajun tradition, with street stalls selling local art and handicraft. There’s plenty of live entertainment with music and dance, lots of revelry and good authentic food. Some of the other exciting activities in town at the time are the Walk for Charity, an ‘Egg Cracking’ Competition, a Poker Run and an Antique Car Show.
But the best thing about the festival is obviously, the omelette. While the festival, and the lead-up to the omelette begins two days in advance, the actual making of it begins only after a ceremonial mass is held in the St Mary Magdalen Catholic Church. After this, there’s a grand procession of the 12-foot skillet in which the eggs are carried, and then finally the omelette is made.
The massive, yummy dish consists of “5,000 eggs, 52 lbs of butter, 50 lbs of onions, 4 gallons of chopped green onions, Louisiana crawfish tails, spices, Tabasco pepper sauce, and more”. Every year, an extra egg is added to the omelette, so this year it’ll be made from all of 5028 eggs! The omelette is handed out for free to anyone who is around, and it’s absolutely delicious every single year.
