Antroxu
Antroxu is the Asturianu name for Carnival, the Catholic festival season prior to Lent. It is celebrated in various ways across Asturias, from a week-long program in Avilés to a single day, inexplicably the weekend after Ash Wednesday, in Oviedo.
Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Shrove Tuesday. Pancake Day. No matter what you call it, it’s a party. Now a five day celebration, Antroxu begins on Thursday with comadres. Carnival has always been associated with the inverting of the normal ordering of society. Here it begins with women going out to eat and drink, and men staying home. Fortunately that is no longer such a shocking change from the “natural” order of thing.[1]
Celebrations
Parties and parades fill the week, much like in Rio, New Orleans, and elsewhere. And then, on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, like most places; pancakes. Or as they’re called in Asturian, frixuelos.
Comadres
Avilés Fiesta del Antroxu
Foods
Frixuelos are the most popular, and widespread, Antroxu food. As is common in many places around the world, they are most commonly eaten on Fat Tuesday. Originally this was a symbolic using up of all the fat in the house before the Lenten period. Now it is more of a celebratory breakfast. I am all for more breakfast holidays!
Pote is a common dish served during the season as well.
- ↑ This custom of inverting the sexes, has been previously strongly criticized by the Church, which considered it an excessively transgressive attitude towards morality.
