Pacque-ing {A Cajun Easter Tradition}

South Louisiana is known for some weird traditions. At Christmastime, we let Madame Grands Doigts — a witch with long fingers — come into our home to deliver goodies into stockings hung by the chimney with care. We boil and eat something literally called a MudBug. We made Mardi Gras a “thing,” and we chase chickens.

We weirded-up Easter too.

Here, in South Louisiana, we boil and dye Easter eggs. I know, everyone else does this too. Big Whoop. But they do it to HIDE their eggs.

How cute.

Here, we pâcque / pock / knock dem eggs.

 

The name of this tradition comes from the French word for Easter: pâcques.

First, get you some eggs.

Second, boil dat.

Third, dye dat.

Head to Pinterest to check out whatever the new, cute, trendy dye tricks are. But PAAS dye really does work well. And you won’t want to invest too much effort into this. Because the whole premise of this game is to DESTROY eggs.

Basically, one person holds Egg A while another taps Egg B against Egg A. The person whose egg cracks is the loser, and the winner gets to keep the loser’s egg.

No, we aren’t crazy. It is actually super fun.

There are a few rules:

Grand boute á grand boute AND tit boute á tit boute:

This means that you can only knock similar ends against each other. An egg has a large rounded end and a smaller, pointier end. So you can only knock two large ends together OR the two smaller ends.

NO BANGING EGGS.

This is a delicate process. Take your time. Unless you’re two. Then you win, automatically.

Like eggs against like eggs.

Don’t be a cheat and put your guinea egg up against a chicken egg. That guinea’s gonna win every time. Also be wary of people who bring their own farm fresh eggs … they may have been feeding them some extra calcium to fortify those shells #trustnoone

And that’s it! Most families do this among each other at their Easter celebrations. My family’s tradition includes dyeing our eggs on Good Friday morning, followed by PB&J for lunch and the Way of the Cross at 3pm. I have fond memories of traveling to my great aunt and uncle’s home in Prairie Rhonde to pâcque on Easter Sunday. My husband’s extended family always had a reunion for Easter and set up playoff brackets for pâcque-ing!! Hardcore. It’s always fun, the kids love it because they get so messy!

Joyeux Pâcques, Y’all!! And also, here’s a recipe for all the broken eggs.