Guanabee’s Easter Dinner Menu Includes Cascarones
6 April 2009, 3:00 PM. By Cindy Casares
Every major holiday, we like to take a look at the various ways Latinos celebrate, but at Easter, it seems, you guys are kind of lame. Except for Tejanos who, in addition to bbq-ing outside, crack cascarones (confetti eggs) on each others’ heads.
You can’t eat them, but in the Rio Grande Valley, no Easter picnic is complete without a cascaron war. In fact, we were 19 before we discovered the whole world doesn’t do them, and we’ve been on a mission to educate the public ever since. so here are directions for making this very simple and fun party favor:
Making Cascarones
- Open the top of the egg.
- You can do this using pins, a small nail or a knife.
- Since it will be touching food, remember to sterilize whatever you use by running it over a flame. [Ed: Yeah, our mother never did this. We lived.]
- Pour raw egg into a bowl, so you can use it in a meal.
- Rinse out the inside of the egg.
- Use egg dye, water colors, acrylic or finger paint to decorate the eggs (Be Gentle)
- After the egg shells dry, fill with confetti, flour, etc. Be creative.
- Place a little glue around the edges of the opening and close it with a piece of tissue paper, or just put a piece of tape over the hole.
- Hide your cascarones with the rest of the Easter eggs and when your family and friends are gathered for Easter, start a cascaron war by cracking them on each others’ heads.
- A word of advice: Do this outside. It’s messy.
Our Miami Cuban contingency, says they just have drunk brunch and go to church. Not usually in that order. Anything else you guys do at Easter that’s unique?
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My family saves those egg shells all year! The cascaron war is a big, messy cloud of confetti and flour. It’s the best!!
I have been wanting a print of this for years:
http://www.carmenlomasgarza.com/gallery/cascarones.html
my family hasn’t done casacrones in forever! i should do that this year.
one year i was in del rio celebrating easter with my bajillion cousins. i must have been about 7 and my older boy cousins described below were 8. these two lovely boys ganged up on me and chased me down to crack hard boiled eggs instead of cascarones in my longlonglong hair. i hated them. and it took forever to get that smell out of my hair. ewwwwwwww. boys are gross.
I had no idea cascarones are only a valley thing. hooray for spreading this awesome tradition !
i don’t think they are only a valley thing. my dad’s family is from san antonio and they celebrated easter with lots and lots of cascarones, and i grew up in austin and saw them every year.
Yeah i didn’t say they are only a valley thing. They are a mexican thing.
Yeah we had cascarones in Dallas to. I was told they’re supposed to be symbolic of Jesus coming out of the tomb. I only know it’ll lead to an ass kicking if you bust one on my head.
did you guys break the cascaron in yr hand before you cracked them over heads or did some jagass break the thing whole on yr hard head? i swear i might be somewhat brain dead from getting them broken on my head whole. this way of breaking them has caused many arguments in my family. as we get older, we get nicer and crack them in our hand first.
i also am not a fan of getting the egg bits and confetti down the back of my shirt too. it itches!
In your hand first? What kind of half-assed, pussy move is that?
see, this is what the fighting was all about! it started with not wanting to hurt old grandparent’s heads. then the moms wanted to be respected, and we were all like, but i am forgetting things a lot cause you guys hit me in the head with eggs when i was little, and they were all, so what we’re older than you, break the damn egg first. and then we were all, SIGH, okaaaaaay already. then my cousins became parents and thought they were like our moms in the respect department. uh…what-ever. trickle down boringness then ensued.
You must take back the night.
damn right. and is it me, or did those people in the pic crack the eggs in their hands first as to not to ruin the princess’ finely coiffed head? ummmhmm…
I”m Messican but I’ve never even heard of them.
I came to NY from Guatemala when I was 9 and no one knew what I was talking about when I said to my fellow hispanic classmates “Vamos a quebrar cascarones?”. They all thought it was a Guatemalan thing.