Eating herring
Carnival is a Southern Dutch, catholic festivity. During carnival we divide the Netherlands in regions 'below the rivers' (the south) and 'above the rivers'. I come from above, but in the town I was raised -Zwolle or 'Sassendonk'-, they do know how to celebrate a good carnival!
The only weird thing is that my carnival club always ate herring ('haring happen') on Tuesday night, instead of Ash Wednesday. Eating herring symbolizes the end of the carnival and rings in the fasting period. In this period people abstained from eating meat. The word 'carnival' is actually derived from Latin 'carne' (meat) 'vale' (farewell).
