The city that started Carnival
Mobile was named the first capital of French Louisiana in 1702, and a year later its settlers held a Mardi Gras. Visit Mobile, the city's tourism office, calls the town the birthplace of America's original Mardi Gras. In 2020 the mayor read a proclamation crediting Mobile with the oldest verified organized Mardi Gras celebrations in the United States, beginning in 1703, and the first formally organized Mardi Gras parade in the country, in 1830.
The party nearly died with the Civil War. In 1866 a local man named Joe Cain dressed as a made up chief he called Slackabamarinico, Chief Slac for short, and paraded through downtown anyway. That small, defiant march restarted the tradition. Today Joe Cain Day falls on the Sunday before Fat Tuesday, when his veiled Merry Widows mourn him at Church Street Graveyard, toss black throws and lead a people's parade.
The season now runs about two and a half weeks before Fat Tuesday, with more than 40 parades rolling through downtown and nearly a million people lining the routes each year, according to Visit Mobile. Masked mystic societies ride themed floats between marching bands and mounted police. Many downtown parades loop back, so you can catch the same float twice.
The food is part of the throw. Mobile's most wanted catch is not a strand of beads but a MoonPie, and crowds shout for them by name. King cake is the other staple, closer to a brioche with cinnamon than a frosted cake, and whoever finds the token or tiny baby in a slice buys the next one.
The crab salad from down the road
Mobile's other famous dish is quieter. West Indies salad is little more than fresh lump crabmeat with onion, oil and cider vinegar, chilled until the flavors settle. Alabama Living traces it to Bill Bayley Sr., who opened the first Bayley's in 1947 and whipped up the salad for a customer, a Mobile dentist, who told him to put it on the menu. Bayley's still serves it in nearby Theodore and is also credited with the first fried crab claws, in the 1960s.
His son's rules are short. Use cider vinegar, never white. Put the oil on the crab first and the vinegar second, or the oil floats. And use crab caught in the Gulf that week. The family never hid the recipe; it went into a Junior League cookbook decades ago. Make it the day before you need it and keep it cold.
