Every January, as the rest of the world
settles down after the holidays,
the city of New Orleans gears up for Mardi Gras.
Carnival season is full of parades, balls,
and its signature dish, king cake.
And one of the most legendary king-cake bakeries
in New Orleans is Gambino's Bakery.
Customer: I have been coming to Gambino's
for 50 years at least.
Customer: I drove an hour and half
just to get to Gambino's
to get one of their delicious king cakes.
Narrator: For several generations,
Gambino's has been baking king cakes
for New Orleans and the rest of the world.
Jackie-Sue Scelfo: This is our 71st year in business,
so we have a lot of experience.
We have people that have been with us
40 years, 20 years.
Narrator: And the business of king cakes
is big business.
In addition to selling the cakes at their bakery,
Gambino's ships king cakes all over the world.
Johnny Davis: Doing a little...
700, 800 a day, you know.
Which is a pretty good amount
for a place being this size.
Jackie-Sue: We probably make about 100,000
during Carnival season.
Narrator: So, what exactly is a king cake,
and how is it made in New Orleans?
Jackie-Sue: It's a sweet Danish dough.
There's cinnamon in it,
the traditional cinnamon.
It's made from scratch every day.
Johnny: So, we start out in the morning
by making bread dough.
We mix it, we chop it up on the table,
and then we give it a moment to rest,
then we start processing it.
I think it derived from the cinnamon roll
and it just expanded from there.
Instead of making it a dough
and cutting it all and making a little sweet roll,
let's stretch it out.
Let's stretch it out and make a loop out of it.
I don't know where it originated from,
but this is what it ended up being.
Narrator: In NOLA, the cake fits right in
with Mardi Gras tradition.
Jackie-Sue: So, it has the traditional
three colors, the green, purple, and gold.
And it's faith, justice, and power.
Narrator: Generations of children
have been raised in New Orleans
eating cakes during Carnival season.
Customer: As soon as we get weaned off of the bottle.
I mean, that's pretty much, you know,
the next thing to go in your hand.
It just is. It just is.
Narrator: Sharing king cake was a tradition
long before New Orleans became a city.
The cake's name comes from a biblical story
of the three wise men visiting baby Jesus
on the 12th night, or King's Day,
celebrated on January 6.
Today, king cake is available between
King's Day and Mardi Gras day,
the day before Lent begins.
The origin of the king cake itself
varies on who you ask
but is most commonly believed to have started
in France or Spain and was popularized
during the Middle Ages.
While king cake might not
have been invented in New Orleans,
bakeries across the city, like Gambino's,
have perfected it.
Jackie-Sue: There's different parts of the world
that celebrate Carnival,
but they also have, you know,
a version of the king cake.
I think ours, you know,
we have a lot of sugar in ours,
so I think ours is sweeter.
I don't think when you go to Europe
or even Mexico, it's not as,
they don't have the icing and sugars on it.
Narrator: Gambino's claim to fame
was that they were one of the first bakeries
to actually fill their cakes.
Jackie-Sue: We actually call them stuffed,
because most bakeries will
add the filling on top.
Like, if it's strawberry they'll just
make a regular king cake,
add strawberry filling on top.
So we actually put the filling
inside the king cake and roll it
and then bake the filling in it.
So the flavor generates throughout
the entire king cake instead of
just being placed on top.
Narrator: The final and possibly most
important ingredient in a king cake
is a plastic baby baked into every cake.
Jackie-Sue: So, the baby originally, you know,
was supposed to be, like, baby Jesus,
but basically it symbolizes, like,
health, prosperity, you know, you're the king.
It's like the grand prize in the cake.
Narrator: Before the baby was popularized,
many Mardi Gras krewes would hide a bean
in their cake, and whoever ate the piece
with the bean inside would be the king or queen
for that year's Mardi Gras parade.
Today you can't buy a king cake
without a plastic baby.
Customer: I remember getting the baby
a couple of times when I was
a little kid, you know, at school.
And it was like, oh, that was popularity gold.
That was pretty cool.
Narrator: Tradition goes that whoever
finds the baby has to provide
the king cake for the next party.
But after Hurricane Katrina
devastated New Orleans,
many bakeries, including Gambino's,
were not sure if they'd reopen.
Jackie-Sue: It was scary because
you wonder if you're...
I think anybody that had a business here,
was employed here,
you didn't know what your future was.
So it was very frightening.
Sorry.
Everything was just really slow coming back,
and nobody really knew
really what was gonna happen.
They city's come back even stronger,
you know, and better.
And our people here are just, they're so strong.
Narrator: In the years since the hurricane,
Gambino's popularity
has grown stronger than ever.
Some of the bakery's most loyal customers
are former New Orleans residents
who didn't come back to the city after Katrina,
so they have Gambino's king cakes shipped to them
wherever they are in the world.
Jackie-Sue: You have to live every day to the fullest,
'cause we just don't know what's gonna happen,
and I think that's why we celebrate so big here.
I think that's what makes this place so unique
to anywhere else because we just have this,
you know, joie de vivre that we love life
and we love our culture
and we just want it to keep going.
And it's just kinda something
to bring people together
for, you know, a celebration,
which we like to do in New Orleans.