One unique Mardi Gras celebration encourages its participants to catch a chicken. The Iowa Mardi Gras Run started in 1978 and the tradition is continuing today. Run captain Rodney Victorian says a parade rolls through town with floats, horses, and four-wheelers, looking for food contributions for a gumbo to be made at the end of the event.
“We continue all the way through Iowa city limits there and we go from house-to-house, the ones who want us to stop and dance for them, they will give us a donation and we will play the accordion and people will dance in celebration of the donation,” said Victorian.
Victorian says with each stop, a live chicken is released and some of the younger participants will attempt to catch them.
“It’s a symbol of the donations that the people give to make the gumbo mostly out of chicken that we use, but we don’t butcher the chickens anymore and stuff we just have some good time letting them loose for the kids to catch them,” said Victorian.
Victorian says the parade ends this afternoon at the Knights of Columbus Hall with a zydeco dance and all the food donations are put into a pot and made into a gumbo.
“People donate different things, chickens, onions and rice, all of the ingredients that we use in southwest Louisiana to make a good gumbo,” said Victorian.
Gumbo will be served to the riders from two to four PM.
(Photo courtesy of visitlakecharles.org)
