Confetti Egg Fun with Cascarones

I learned something new this week!  We saw Cascarones or confetti eggs in the Mexican style open air market, here in San Antonio, where we are visiting while we await the birth of our 17th grandchild. My Texas born and raised son-in-law  told us of his experiences with Cascarones at school as a child. 

Then I googled them and found this concise history in The Austin Times:

The idea [for Cascarones] was first seen in Asia and later brought to Italy by the explorer Marco Polo. The eggs were often given as gifts and were filled with perfumed powder. The custom then traveled to Spain and was later brought to Mexico in the mid-1800s by Emperor Maximilian’s wife. It was in Mexico that the perfumed powder was replaced with confetti.

The word cascaron comes from the Spanish word “cascara”, which means egg shell. In interior Mexico, one often sees these colored eggs thrown at fiestas during carnaval, just before lent. While you may see cascarones at the carnaval celebrations in the US, it is more common to see them around Easter. This is because, like many other Latin traditions, there has been a merging with the US holiday tradition of dyeing hard boiled eggs. Having one broken over your head is said to bring good luck.

So we mixed the Cascarones with the plastic candy filled eggs we scattered for the egg hunt for our grand children. 

Rebekah and William combine efforts in the hunt. 

Admiral the turtle gets in on the fun too! 

Then we come inside to break the Cascarones. 

The kids loved the confetti mess. 

... Even Mimi and Papa got into the messy fun!! 

In the end making a mess inside made it easier to gather and clean up.  But clean up is evidently not something with which the locals concern themselves. This week we have seen the remains of Cascaron 'fights' all over San Antonio, at the Sunken tea gardens, on the nature trails and even in the restroom at the 7-11!! 

Checking out Pinterest I found lots of fun ideas for making Cascarones....

And expect to use some of them in years to come as we add some Latin flavor to our Easter Festivals in the future!!