DOWNTOWN AUCTION TO FEATURE SOUTHERN FLAVOR

Jazz and Dixieland music, colorful costumes, masks and beads will set the atmosphere for a Mardi Gras celebration, but the food will make it special.

"That means a king cake," said Dionne Hoffmeister, chairman of the auction committee for the Downtown Merchants Association Auction, which will be held at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at River City Yacht Club above Port Cape Girardeau restaurant. Tickets cost $10.

With a Mardi Gras theme, Hoffmeister, formerly of New Orleans, and others involved in the annual fund-raising event urged attendees to dress in costume and mask. Masks will be available.

Two giant-size king cakes -- one for women and one for men -- are being shipped in from a New Orleans bakery, said Hoffmeister.

"They each contain the small doll, which will determine the event's king and queen," said Hoffmeister. "Whoever receives the piece of cake with the doll will serve as king and queen of the event."

Ann Chance, a St. Louis-based Mardi Gras coordinator and expert, agreed that king cakes are necessities for Mardi Gras parties.

Main dishes like jambalaya, gumbo, and red beans and rice are essential foods for most Mardi Gras events, said Chance. The meal can be topped off with pacski (pronounced pooch-key or punch-key), a sugar-coated, fruit-filled pastry.

The pacski is traditionally served on Fat Tuesday, the day prior to the beginning of the religious period of Lent.

Chance and Hoffmeister said Mardi Gras is a social time of year. People visit and enjoy one another's company. The season allows for parties, and with that certain foods.

Schnucks Markets, headquartered in St. Louis, is a source for authentic Mardi Gras foods, including the rarely-offered king cakes and paczki.

The tradition of the king cake is based on a biblical story of the Three Wise Men who visited the Christ child.

The cakes harbor a baby figurine hidden inside.

Whoever finds the baby figurine in his cake serving is honored with good luck the rest of the year. Tradition asks that the lucky person who gets the figurine be host to the next king cake party.

During the Middle Ages, small dolls and coins were often gifts found in the cakes.

Mardi Gras starts on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 24. Friends and relatives gather on Epiphany, Jan. 6, to share king cake in celebration of the Three Kings arrival before Baby Jesus.

King cakes are brightly colored, oval-shaped cakes with raspberry fillings.

No gifts are baked in the cake. Instead, a plastic toy baby is inserted into the cake and included with the purchase.

Pacski, meaning little packages, were made to use up the lard and eggs that were prohibited at one time during Lent. The pastries have raspberry, lemon or custard filling. They are fried and look like a jumbo jelly doughnut.