\u00e2\u20ac\u0153C\u00c3\u00a1scara or pi\u00c3\u00b1on?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That was the choice my oldest sister Dolores offered us in our youth, as the aroma of our mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s homemade bread wafted through the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Bread was a Saturday staple in Mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kitchen, and those first in line got the choice pickings. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s define a few terms first:<\/p>\n
A c\u00c3\u00a1scara is a shell. The pi\u00c3\u00b1on is what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inside. So when Dolores gave us a choice, naturally we were thinking pi\u00c3\u00b1on. Besides, who wants to fill up on pi\u00c3\u00b1on shells? We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d naturally ask for the pi\u00c3\u00b1on.<\/p>\n
Then Dolores would grant our wish; she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d give us the still-moist, warm inside of the newly baked bread (the pi\u00c3\u00b1on). Good, but not quite as pleasing as the crusty part. I would have died happily if the crust (c\u00c3\u00a1scara) of Mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bread had been my last meal.<\/p>\n
Now we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve metaphorically skipped from pi\u00c3\u00b1on to bread, with one more step to go: the c\u00c3\u00a1scara of an egg.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible some Las Vegans have gone through life without ever having heard of a c\u00c3\u00a1scara or a cascar\u00c3\u00b3n. The cascar\u00c3\u00b3n party sponsored by the Las Vegas Museum on Saturday was one of the last vestiges of the fun people used to have at cascar\u00c3\u00b3n dances.<\/p>\n
Cascar\u00c3\u00b3n dances took place on Easter Monday, the faithful having given up dances and other fun activities for Lent. I usually give up squash, beets and menudo. My former next-door neighbor, Mary Alice Maestas Aragon, and her husband Flavio refreshed my memory on the custom that took place in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50s and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc60s and seems to have vanished after that.<\/p>\n
Flavio recalled that the dances took place in the old National Guard Armory on Douglas Avenue. And he said that the live music generally was provided by Don Guerin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s orchestra, which included such musicians as Hector Guerin, a pianist named Willie Tafoya, a sax player surnamed Almanzar, and of course, Don Guerin with the trumpet.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The music was always live,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Aragon said. He remembers it was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153simply good, clean fun, with no liquor served in the dance hall.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Aragon conceded, however, that some attendees often took a break, walked next door to the Elks Club, had a drink, and returned to the dance.<\/p>\n
The dance was sponsored by the Immaculate Conception parish, and its pastor, Msgr. George V. Rieffer, seemed to love the action at the dances, his being recognized as the consummate cascar\u00c3\u00b3n breaker. My recollection was that people were more intent on aiming their missiles eggs-actly at someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head than on perfecting the cha-cha or the rumba.<\/p>\n
Even better than a cascar\u00c3\u00b3n filled with regular paper-sliver confetti was the ready-made confetti the Optic provided. In those days, we used Teletype machines, which processed rolls and rolls of perforated yellow tape.<\/p>\n
Little pins punched the tape, and in a year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time, we gave away several dozen boxes of yellow confetti to be loaded into the empty, dried shells.<\/p>\n
Our mom was among the best producers of cascarones. And I believe she put us on Marie-imposed egg diets in order to have more excuses to buy more eggs and thus more shells. Mary Alice\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mother, Tillie Maestas, produced copious amounts, as did the Eisabel Pe\u00c3\u00b1a family, a large group who owned a grocery store across the street.<\/p>\n
We children often helped out. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d carefully crack eggs at the tip, pour out the ingredients, and, after allowing the shells to dry, fill them with confetti. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d then seal and decorate the eggs.<\/p>\n
A family friend, Jon Sandoval, once showed us how the best-looking cascarones ought to be made. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d make BB-sized openings on the ends of the egg and blow the contents out the other end. It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem too appetizing, and after that procedure, we simply got used to breakfast of omelets or scrambled eggs.<\/p>\n
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d take these eggs to the dances for our own stash, or else donate them for resale; some made money selling a dozen cascarones for a quarter. The only people who might not have had a blast were the cleanup crew.<\/p>\n
The confetti generated from our Teletype machines was all standard size. It made the dance floor slippery, and it was difficult to shampoo away from one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scalp or flush out of one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eye.<\/p>\n
We always went by the dictum that having a cascar\u00c3\u00b3n cracked over one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head was a form of flattery and a predictor of good luck. It could also be considered a flirtatious gesture.<\/p>\n
Some reports trace the custom of making cascarones back to China, with a detour in Europe by Marco Polo. In Italy, the process of having an egg cracked on someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s head was a courting ritual.<\/p>\n
Back in antiquity, the cascar\u00c3\u00b3n was highly symbolic. A dozen such shells would contain miniature elements of the Crucifixion, among them: a thorn, a nail, a sponge, dice (used by the soldiers who drew lots), a miniature spear, and a pebble, to represent the stone covering the tomb.<\/p>\n
For us, it was more fun to line the balcony of the armory and drop the projectiles on girls we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d fantasize about courting. No courtships evolved from our marksmanship, but we did get threats from the girls\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 older and bigger escorts.<\/p>\n
Few people seem to know exactly when or why the Easter Monday rituals ended in the Meadow City. Flavio Aragon guesses that the mothers of the parish \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the real driving force \u00e2\u20ac\u201d gradually died off without the custom being passed on.<\/p>\n
It was touching to see a page 1 photo of 2-year-old Jovan Archuleta in Monday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Optic. Under the watchful eye of Kristin Hsueh, the city museum educator, Jovan is shown preparing a cascar\u00c3\u00b3n which possibly his own parents have never done, maybe not even his grandparents.<\/p>\n
Maybe Jovan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interest in the project, as shown by his expression in the picture, will become contagious, and possibly it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll spawn more interest in cascarones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153C\u00c3\u00a1scara or pi\u00c3\u00b1on?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That was the choice my oldest sister Dolores offered us in our youth, as the aroma of our mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s homemade bread wafted through the kitchen. Bread was a Saturday staple in Mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kitchen, and those first in line got the choice pickings. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s define a few terms first: A c\u00c3\u00a1scara is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}