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
The Thursday closest to Fat Tuesday is celebrated throughout Asturias as la noche de les mujeres, Ladies Night. While it is less rigorously observed in Gijón and Oviedo, in most other parts of Asturias it is very much a ladies only celebration.
Chigres Antroxaos
The more traditional and local a bar is, the more likely that it too will put on a costume for the festivities. Some decorate their windows as different types of businesses, some change their names and signs to playfully confuse. Some go all out and have entirely different facades, styles, menus, and waitstaff in costume throughout.
Descenso de Galiana
Avilés rivals New Orleans for neighborhood parades, and none more famous than the Descenso de Galiana. Barrio Galiana has its own "krewe" that works all year to create a themed float that relates to the general theme declared for antroxu that year, but always in the form of an abyssal horror, giant sea creature, or haunted ship, that parades through the streets. Accompanied by a massive artillery company of foam cannons to simulate stormy seas, every parade descends into a foam party. Bring your raincoat!
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.
