BERKS COUNTY, Pa. \u2013 In our region, Fat\u00a0Tuesday is better known as “Fastnacht Day,” and of course, on this day, people also celebrate Mardi Gras. Both celebrations brought people out to enjoy some traditions from Berks and beyond.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over at Sweet Ride in West Reading, Fat Tuesday cravings merged with Pennsylvania Dutch traditions.<\/p>\n
“My wife texted me this morning said, \u2018Hey, don’t forget the fastnachts.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Well, I saw something with fastnachts on ice cream, so I think we’re going to get that one,\u2019\u201d said Juan Pedroza of Reading.<\/p>\n
At Sweet Ride, you can mix your favorite homemade ice cream flavor with the powdery pillows that this region of Pennsylvania is famous for.<\/p>\n
But if you love fastnachts all by themselves, there was no shortage of sales, like over at the Boyertown at the Museum of Historic Vehicles.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s very busy today. Our parking lot is full,\u201d said Kendra Cook with the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a day to indulge before Ash Wednesday begins the Lenten season.<\/p>\n
“People want their fastnachts before they have to abstain from sweet treats tomorrow,\u201d said Cook.<\/p>\n
The celebration wouldn\u2019t be complete without some music, and there was plenty of that at Mike’s Tavern in Reading.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s the Hot Club of Reading. It’s one of our favorite local bands here. Some phenomenal jazz musicians who love playing New Orleans music,\u201d said John Owens of Mike’s Tavern.<\/p>\n
Inside, it was a Mardi Gras party.<\/p>\n
“A lot of us love New Orleans,\u201d Owens said. \u201cIt’s a really special place in a lot of people’s hearts.”<\/p>\n
People brought the New Orleans-style party \u2014 filled with traditions and guilty pleasures \u2014 to Reading.<\/p>\n
“Our friends made some jambalaya. My boss, Pete, made some muffaletta, and we got some king cake from Jambalaya J\u2019s at the Fairgrounds Farmers Market,\u201d Owens said.<\/p>\n
The crowd was eager to enjoy it all before Wednesday came.<\/p>\n
“Fat Tuesday is right before Lent starts, so everybody just wants to sort of get it in with, you know, eating really well, drinking really, really well, hanging out and having a good time before a little bit of discipline with Lent,” Owens said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKS COUNTY, Pa. \u2013 In our region, Fat\u00a0Tuesday is better known as “Fastnacht Day,” and of course, on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,55046,50338,50337,50853,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-120949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-fasnacht","tag-fat-tuesday","tag-mardi-gras","tag-pennsylvania-dutch","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}