ABBEVILLE - Giant Omelette Festival

Yesterday was one of the most fun, exciting days of this wonderful life on the road.  So unexpected.  The fun at Betty's RV is just endless.

The history of the Giant Omelette Festival goes something like this.  When Napoleon traveled through Bessieres, France he stopped at an inn and asked the innkeeper to make him an omelette.  It was so good he ordered all the townspeople to bring all their eggs to make an omelette for his entire army.  This has become a tradition known as Confrerie.

The flags indicate the countries that now participate in the Giant Omelette Festival, including Canada, Belgium, and Argentina

In 1984 three people from Abbeville, Louisiana traveled to France to attend the Omelette Festival in Bessieres.  They became Chevaliers and brought the tradition to Abbeville.  The reason there are 5,032 eggs in the omelette is because every year another egg is used in the omelette.  This year's egg was called "Egg-on" (Egon I am guessing).

This event is steeped in tradition.  It is very obvious that these people have been doing this for 32 years.  Everything is down to a fine art.

First the eggs, 420 dozen, are cracked and beaten.

Note the use of power tools.

When the eggs are all ready, there is a procession to carry the eggs to the giant frying pan which is carefully placed over the wood burning fire in the middle of the street.

The eggs are carefully poured into the giant frying pan.

Giant wooden rakes are used to stir the eggs in the pan.

Ingredients are added, one by one.  Onions, green onion tops, crayfish and tabasco of course.  

All the while, the crowd is being entertained by the band, dancing and singing.  A big surprise to us was the fact that this being Cajun country (Acadian) French is spoken.  The songs were mostly in French.

After the dancers performed, they sat in front of us and awaited their next task, to add the Tabasco sauce to the egg mixture in the pan.

You will see there is a smaller pan in front of the girls.  This was a propane one manned by young people.  Their pan had a mere 500 eggs in it.  Needless to say, it was finished much sooner than the large pan.

As I said the whole time the Cajan band is playing and there is much dancing in the street.  All the local dignitaries participate.

The omelette (well scrambled eggs really.  How would they flip an omelette that size?) was served.  And wow, it was great.  I am not an egg lover at all, and it was delicious.  Everyone was served eggs and a piece of french bread, in a bowl with a fork in no time at all.  We left after we ate but I bet there were lots of seconds.

I will leave you with this one video.  I hope it plays for y'all.

For those of you following Doug and I on our weight loss, we are happy to announce that through all this fun and Happy Hour and pot lucks everyday, we are still losing a little at a time.  Well there was one week we each gained but we have lost that now.