Occurring each year before the forty day period of Lent, "Fat Tuesday" is a final opportunity to explore sensual, worldly delights before a season of religious restraint and penitance.

Actually, the tradition of a pre-Lenten carnival originated in second century Rome; indeed, the very word "carnival" is derived from the Latin words for "flesh" (flesh) and "farewell" (vale). In Roman tradition, the revelers delivered themselves up to voluntary madnesses; they would don masks, adorn themselves in the manner of spectres and spirits, and give themselves to Bacchus and Venus--gods of wine and love--who were symbols of all things diurnal and sensual.