Sociological Images: Seeing Is Believing

Posted: 18 Feb 2015 06:00 AM PST

Today is the first day of the Christian season of Lent, a period of voluntary self-denial that is the excuse for the indulgence of Mardi Gras. Last year a credit card processing company traced spending in New Orleans on both Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. They found a spike in the days leading up to the big day (below) and then a crash the day after.

According to Mark Waller at nola.com:

…people spent 30 percent more at restaurants in the weekend before Mardi Gras than they did in an average of the four previous weekends…

What were they buying? Indulgences: “duck fat fries, king cake burgers, and crab and crawfish mac and cheese.” Mmmmm. The week before they’d mostly bought lattes.
Comparatively:

…restaurant, retail shops and other merchants logged about half the business on Ash Wednesday compared with the Wednesday before.

What was the most popular food item that day? Soda.
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)