This week is Carnival week.
In some places this is the time when people get really wild.
The Carnival of Rio de Janeiro, for instance, is on the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest party on the planet.
Although it may not seem apparent from the way Brazilian women are typically dressed during the festivity, Carnival is a catholic tradition.
It marks the period just before Lent begins (six weeks before Easter) when people traditionally devoured all the good stuff they had in store before fasting for 40 days in representation of the forty days spent by Jesus in the wilderness.
In UK tradition, Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, was the day for eating pancakes precisely because the consumption of sugar, fat, flour and eggs was restricted during the Lent period that would follow it.
Even today we associate Carnival with eating sweet things such as candy, corn-on-the-cob, or soft pretzels.
Times have changed, however, and fasting is no longer in vogue.
For those who are more into feasting than fasting:
