Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine July 2018 | Page 338
Festival of the Female Cooks
Photo Credit: Bagolina
Gwo-Ka
Festival
During the month of August, Guadeloupeans honor and celebrate female chefs, bastions of
Creole culinary traditions, they are known as the “Professionals of the Mouth”. The Chefs wear
colorful traditional dress. Their headscarves and aprons are embroidered with their emblem: St
Lawrence, Patron saint of cooks. The Chefs association was created in 2001, in honor of Saint-
Lawrence, who was burned alive on a grill for refusing to give his church’s property to the State.
Every year, the procession leads the Chefs toward the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedrals where their
flowers and utensils are blessed. It marks the beginning of a wonderful parade in the streets of
Pointe-à-Pitre. Sounds of bells and tap-tap (instrument used in the past to summon the house
staff ) announce the cortege: a beautiful procession of colors, scents and music… The parade
ends at the Amedee Fengarol School and for that special occasion, the school is transformed into
a restaurant!
© www.guadeloupe-islands.com
July 6 - 15, 2018
This is an annual celebration of the Creole
culture that sees traditional music and
dancing on the streets. In 2014 the Gwo-ka
Festival was listed on the UNESCO World
Heritage List, making this event doubly
special to the people on this island. The
music produced by the traditional drum,
the ka, plus the dances and songs that are
performed when the ka is played is referred
to as “Gwo-ka”.
It originated from the days of slavery,
when drums were used as a means of
communication between slaves to prevent
the owners from understanding what was
being said - coded communication!
Every July, concerts, artistic expressions
and other forms of entertainment with
the Gwoka traditional them