#29 Squirrel Hunting

If it’s got four legs, a Coonass will shoot it, clean it, throw it in a pot and make a gravy out of it. This saying even holds true for the tastiest member of the rodent family, the squirrel. And while these critters are scrumptious, they’re even more fun to hunt.

Squirrel hunting is a favorite pastime of Acadiana natives, and nowhere is it more popular than in the small town of Ville Platte. In fact, it is so popular in Ville Platte that the opening day of squirrel hunting season is a town holiday and schools shut down early. The holiday was a no-brainer, considering it was a choice between giving students the day off or having the whole town play hooky for the day. It come as no surprise that Ville Platte was crowned Squirrel Town U.S.A. by Field and Stream magazine.

Throughout the hunting season, boys (and some girls) as young as 5 head out into the woods with their fathers, shotguns in hand and clothed in a bright orange safety vests. Hunters walk silently through the woods scanning their surroundings for telltale signs of gray or fox squirrels like chewed up acorns or pine comb stems falling to the ground in a helicopter pattern. Sometimes they’ll use a bark call to fool the squirrels into responding with barks of their own. Together, father and son will stay in the woods until they shoot their daily limit, or the sunset forces them to call it a day.

On opening day, and throughout squirrel season, you can hear shotgun blasts ringing out in the distance, so much so that after a while you stop noticing them. A big part of squirrel hunting’s appeal is the amount of action a squirrel hunter gets (not dat kind of action couyon!). Compared to the sit-and-wait style of deer hunting, squirrel hunters get to shoot their guns a lot more and are more likely to bring home a kill than their deer hunting counterparts (though the payoff for a deer hunter is a lot better). It’s a lot more fun for a young boy to hunt squirrels than it is to get them to sit still for 5 hours in a deer stand.

For the uninitiated, eating a rodent might sound unappetizing, but trust me, squirrel is delicious. Cooked properly, squirrel meat is more tender than chicken. My favorite squirrel meal is in a brown sauce over rice, but some people prefer it in a gumbo. Squirrel brain is considered a delicacy by some (not by dis Cajun boy). My uncle used to make the little cooked squirrel heads talk before cracking them open and getting at their juicy brains. With the recent linking of squirrel brain eating to a form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, or mad cow disease, I have one more reason to stay away.

The 2008 squirrel season was something special. For only the second year in history, Louisiana state officials have declared a second squirrel season from May 3 through May 25 on private land and from May 3 through May 11 on public land. This is like having a second Christmas. I don’t know if Ville Platte declared a second squirrel holiday for this one, but I suspect there were a lot of absences that day.

#28 Grattons (Cracklins)

Crunchy, salty, and almost 100% pure fat, cracklins are the original Cajun snack food. Cracklins, also known as grattons (grah-tawns), are the result of a poor people’s desire to use every part of the pig. Years ago, Cajun families and neighbors regularly got together for boucheries, or community hog butcherings. Every family pitched in to help butcher and clean the hog and left with their share of the animal. No part of the hog was wasted. In addition to meat, the hog also provided tripe, hogs head cheese, organs, pigs feet, ears, and the tail. Fat was scraped off of the remaining skin to produce lard for cooking, and finally, the remaining skin and attached fat was shaved (hogs are hairy), cut into bite sized cubes and fried to produce grattons. After being removed from the fryer, the grattons were seasoned and served. I’ll bet your favorite snack food doesn’t require shaving.

Made of almost pure saturated fat and heavily salted, these delicious treats have no doubt contributed to Louisiana’s high rate of diabetes and heart disease. While most Cajuns don’t eat cracklins as often as their parents once did, grattons remain a guilty pleasure amongst Acadians. Best Stop alone sells over 2500 lbs of these treats daily.

Nowadays, a community boucherie is a rare event. If you want your gratton fix, you can usually find them wherever boudin is sold. If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can try making them yourself, but be prepared to scrub the resulting oil slick off of your kitchen floor and have your house smell like fried pork for a week (not a bad thing in this Coonass’s opinion).

#27 Deep Fried Turkey

Cajun people loved fried food. Name a food, and it can probably be made ten times tastier by dropping it in a vat of hot oil, at least that’s the Cajun culinary philosophy. Okra, eggplant, boudin and pig skin all benefit from deep frying, so it was just a matter of time until a Cajun figured out how to fry a turkey. Why a turkey you ask…well why not? Cajuns are always trying to top themselves, and a turkey is the largest critter that’s practical to fry. The peanut oil required to fry a whole cow is cost prohibitive (I already looked into it), not to mention the damage it would do to the above ground swimming pool!

The first reaction people have when they hear about fried turkey is that it’ll be too greasy, something that couldn’t be further from the truth. For one thing, the turkey isn’t battered, so there’s not much for the fat to hang onto in the finished turkey. Secondly, a turkey is a big bird, with a lower surface area to volume ratio than chicken. This reduces the overall fat content per serving. The frying process actually seals in juices, and the high heat cooks the bird with little loss of moisture. The simple fact is that there’s no better way to cook a turkey than deep frying it.

Here’s how turkey frying works. First, you thaw a medium sized turkey, about 8-12 pounds. Then you inject or stuff the bird with seasoning (Cajun injector works best). Next, you lower the turkey into a large pot of hot peanut oil, and after about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on size, you’re done. Remove the turkey from the oil, let cool, carve up and dig in. If done right, you get a nice crispy outside, and the meat inside is the juiciest you’ve ever tasted (yes, it’s even better than your mama’s baked turkey).

I’d like to claim that the Cajuns invented the fried turkey, but I just don’t have any hard evidence to back that up. Famed Cajun Justin Wilson said he observed the practice of turkey frying in Louisiana as early as the 1930s. One thing that is certain, is that this tradition came out of the South, and in recent years, has become quite the rage across the country. This popularity has also led to an increase in the number of accidents, which has given turkey frying a bad name. Usually, it’s some fool that’s drinking and fryin’, or drops a partially thawed turkey into the grease. You’re messin with hot grease couyon, be careful you! If done correctly, turkey frying is perfectly safe. Like most other things, there’s a right way and a wrong way wrong way to do it.

So next time one of the major turkey holidays rolls around, give fried turkey a try. I guarantee you’ll never want to go back to the old way again.

#26 The Atchafalaya Basin

Cajuns love the outdoors, the fresh air, being surrounded by wilderness, and there’s no better place for this in south Louisiana than in the Atchafalaya Basin. The Basin’s our backyard, a place we can get away to on the weekends and wind down with a little camping, fishing, and beer drinking — everything a modern Coonass needs.

When I was young, my grandfathers would take me to the Basin every few weeks. We’d drive on top of the Henderson or Butte La Rose levees and choose a good place to launch our boat. We’d ride out to our secret spot, moving past house boats and navigating a maze of cypress knees, careful not to hit any underwater stumps. Sometimes we’d fish, other times we’d pick up nets that my grandfather had set out earlier. Sometimes my grandfather would hand me a shotgun with instructions to shoot pretty much anything that flew over my head, endangered or not. To my grandfathers, hunting and fishing laws were more suggestions than anything else. Nobody was going to tell an old school Cajun what he could or couldn’t shoot. Luckily for the birds, I was a pretty bad shot.

South Louisiana contains 40-45% of the wetlands of the lower 48 states, and the Atchafalaya Basin makes up a huge part of that. With 865,000 acres, the Atchafalaya Basin is the largest swamp in the United States. The Basin is over 15 miles wide running east to west, and 150 miles long. The word Atchafalaya comes from its Choctaw name “hacha falaia” which means “long river”. The Choctaws used this word to describe the Atchafalaya River that feeds the Basin. For those that don’t want to get their hands dirty, the Basin can most easily be seen while driving the 18.2 mile stretch of I-10 that runs between Henderson and Marigouin.

The Atchafalaya is home to a wide array of wildlife, including over 300 species of birds and the largest population of bald eagles in the south central United States. It also hosts a large population of American alligator along over 54 types of reptiles and amphibians. In addition, over 90 species of fish, crawfish, crabs, and shrimp also call the Atchafalaya home, and provide a livelihood to many Louisiana fisherman. The fishing industry brings 300 million dollars into Louisiana each year, and the Atchafalaya is part of that.

The Atchafalaya Basin serves an important role as a buffer marsh. As a wetland, the Basin performs many vital functions, including flood control, water purification, and storm buffering. It is home to endangered species such as the Louisiana black bear and the bald eagle, and native wildlife like grobecs (delicious), osprey, herons, egrets, beavers, and alligators.

In the early 20th century, it became quite evident that the Mississippi River, seeking a more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico, was attempting to reroute itself over the Atchafalaya River. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 triggered a max exodus from communities like Bayou Chene, Sherburne, Atchafalaya, and Pelba as these towns were ravaged by Mississippi floodwaters. To prevent future flooding due to the Mississippi’s repeated attempts to redirect itself, the US Corps of Engineers erected huge floodgates at the intersection of the Atchafalaya and Mississippi Rivers. An extensive system of levees and channels was also built to help control future flooding.

In recent years, control of the Mississippi’s flood waters has become a controversial issue as many point to it as a major reason for land loss in Louisiana. Much of the Mississippi’s valuable silt is now being deposited over the continental shelf, rather than into surrounding buffer marshes, which depend on this silt for replenishment. These marshes play an important role as buffers against storms and hurricanes. It is estimated that over 29 square miles of Louisiana land is lost each year to erosion. I’m no scientist or tree hugger, but I love the Basin, and want it to be around for future generations to enjoy. If that means I have to make a few sacrifices in the short term, than so be it.

#25 The Crawfish Festival

Louisiana has more festivals than you can shake a stick at, but having grown up in the neighboring town of Cecilia, I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival. Since being crowned in 1959 la capitale Mondiale de l’ecrevisse, or the Crawfish Capital of the World, by the Louisiana State Legislature, Breaux Bridge has hosted the king of all Cajun festivals, the Crawfish Festival.

Held on the first full weekend in May, the Crawfish Festival hosts over 25,000 visitors annually, serving up thousands of pounds of crawfish over the festival weekend. There is perhaps no better time and place to satisfy your crawfish envie (that’s craving for you non-Cajuns) than at the Crawfish Festival, where you can try every crawfish-centric dish your heart desires, from the conventional boiled (bawled) crawfish, stuffed crawfish, crawfish etoufée, fried crawfish, and crawfish bisque to less conventional entrees such as crawfish boudin and crawfish enchiladas. If it exists and it’s made of crawfish, you’ll probably find it at the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival. There are no individual meals at the Crawfish Festival as breakfast, lunch, and dinner meld together into a hazy crawfish nirvana. Over the three days of the Crawfish Festival, Breaux Bridge is perhaps the happiest place on earth. You can see it on the smiling faces of festival-goers as crawfish juices run down their arms.

The Crawfish Festival kicks off with a celebrity crawfish eating contest, where local media celebrities and big shots compete for the title of the biggest crawfish gourmand (as if Coonasses ever needed a reason to gorge themselves). A highlight of the second day is the crawfish race, where festival-goers compete to find out who’s got the fastest crawfish (before eating it). On the final day, both the crawfish etoufée cook off (no Chinese crawfish allowed!), and the Crawfish Festival Parade are real crowd pleasers.

Now there’s more to the Crawfish Festival than just eating. Arts and crafts booths sell souvenirs and show off the best that Cajun culture has to offer. The festival also hosts over 30 Cajun and Zydeco bands over the span of three days. If you can’t dance, there are Cajun and Zydeco dance clinics to teach you how. If you still can’t dance after that, then keep throwing back beers until you just don’t care anymore. The festival is open to Cajuns and non-Cajuns alike, with the local attitude being one of inclusiveness. We Cajuns are proud to share our culture with outsiders, but don’t worry, we’re pretty humble about it (we’re not Texas proud, after all).

Other towns may claim that they are more deserving of the Crawfish Capital honor, but it’s a title that Breaux Bridge has more than earned. Breaux Bridge was the first town to openly serve crawfish in its local restaurants, and if that wasn’t enough, Breaux Bridge eateries gave birth to the crawfish etoufée was born, a dish which is now synonymous with Cajun cuisine around the world.

The modern Crawfish Festival is a family-friendly festival, held in the relatively small Parc Hardy, but that wasn’t always the case. Back in the 1980s and 90s, the festival was closer to a New Orleans style Mardis Gras than to a local fair. Motorcycle gangs showed up in droves, and the entire city of Breaux Bridge practically shut down for three days of uncontrollable drunken crowds, crime, underage drinking, and an anything goes atmosphere. Finally, there came a breaking point in the mid 90s when the citizens of Breaux Bridge decided to scale thing back, and get the Crawfish Festival back under control.  The festival’s been held in Parc Hardy ever since.

You can always tell a person who’s been to the Crawfish Festival. They’re the one who’s hung over the following Monday morning with a stupid grin on their face that they can’t wipe off, because they’re already counting down the days to next year’s Crawfish Festival.

#24 Evangeline Maid Bread

Growing up in Louisiana, there was only one brand of sliced bread that graced my mama’s counter top, and that was Evangeline Maid Bread. On every trip to town, I remember looking out the car window for the giant spinning Evangeline Maid sign, a fixture that’s been a constant part of the Lafayette landscape for as long as I can remember.

Cajuns and carbohydrates go together like white on rice (we like dat too), and there’s no better source of highly refined carbs than Evangeline Maid Bread. It’s some of the softest, fluffiest white bread you’ll ever taste - it’s the crack rock of the bread world. If you haven’t tried Evangeline Maid Bread before, I’d like to recommend that all you non Cajuns run out buy a loaf, but unfortunately it’s an exclusive product of south Louisiana, so you gotta come down to Acadiana to try some.

Now French bread may be perfect for po’boys, but there’s no better way to soak up gravy than with a slice of Evangeline Maid Bread. Sometimes I like to stuff it full of rice and gravy or potato salad for some hot carb on carb action (now we’re talkin’). When I’m down home, I don’t need no whole grain bread, bring on the refined white flour goodness, digestive system be damned.

One anonymous Evangeline Maid Bread enthusiast said it best, “It’s white bread, but it is the stuff dreams are made of, and it’s unavailable anywhere outside of south Louisiana. Some claim to be close, but a fresh loaf of Evangeline Maid is simply dreamy.” Now I couldn’t have said it better myself.

#23 Po’Boys

Ask a Cajun what his favorite lunchtime meal is, and he’s likely to choose a po’boy, south Louisiana’s answer to the hero sandwich. What distinguishes a po’boy from its sandwich cousins is the French bread, flaky on the outside and soft on the inside. It’s not a real po’boy if you aren’t wiping breadcrumbs off yourself after you’re done.

While bread may be king of the po’boy world, the ingredients can hardly be considered peasants. Po’boy shops live and die by the quality of their ingredients, the most common being fried shrimp, fried crawfish, fried catfish, fried oyster (see a pattern here?), and roast beef for the slightly more health conscious. After ordering a po’boy, the question that follows is “How you want your po’boy dressed, cheré?“. Don’t worry, we’re not talking about business casual here no. A fully dressed po’boy has tomatoes, pickles, onions, mayo, and shredded lettuce, though some places substitute shredded cabbage instead. Since a Cajun can never have too many carbs, po’boys are usually served with a generous side of homemade fries, and a pile of napkins, because a sign of a great po’boy experience usually includes having to wipe the juices running down your arms.

But wait, po’boys aren’t Cajun, they’re from New Orleans! That’s technically true, but after what New Orleans did with our gumbo (the tomato fiasco), we’re taking the po’boy for ourselves - consider dat a reparation. And if you New Orleans folks don’t watch out, we’ll go after your beignets next! Anyway, this is a blog about stuff Cajun people like, not stuff Cajun people invented, and the po’boy is a great idea no matter who came up with it first.

There are several competing stories about the origin of the po’poy. In one of the most popular tales, these cheap sandwiches were served to striking New Orleans streetcar workers, called “poor boys”, which was eventually shortened to po’boy. Another theory is that the name po’boy is derived from the French pour boire, or “peace offering”, describing the oyster loaf that men would bring home to their wives to make up for a night out on the town. Leave the debating to the historians, meanwhile, us Cajuns are going to keep shovin’ dem po’boys down our throats.

#22 Working Offshore

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, it was impossible not to feel the impact that the oil and natural gas industry had on southern Louisiana. Local businesses boomed with money from oil profits. Most people I knew had some connection to the industry, either by working in the oil field, or in one of its many support industries. Working offshore was one of the best paying jobs in southern Louisiana for a non-college graduate. In fact, you could make a lot more money working offshore than most college graduates could. My grandfather worked on an Exxon drilling platform for 40 years, and was able to comfortably support his wife and six children on his salary. Sadly, he was part of the last generation of Cajuns who could work in the oil field for 40 years, and get the gold watch treatment.

Oil played a huge role in Louisiana in the 20th century. Land based oil exploration began in Louisiana in the early 1900s, and the first offshore platform was built off the Louisiana coast in the 1940s. Many thousands of Cajun men were drawn to this industry in the years that followed. When oil and gas prices rose in the 1970s, Louisiana’s economy boomed. Oil companies built more rigs and hired more people on the assumption that the price of oil would reach $50 a barrel, a bet that was lost when prices crashed to $10 a barrel in the mid 1980s. In the aftermath of the crash, unemployment reached double digits and Louisiana residents experienced a deep recession, with many people losing their livelyhoods. While the rest of the country enjoyed a booming economy, the 1980s was a hard time for Louisiana and its citizens.

Most offshore workers work one of two types of shifts, a 7 & 7, or a 14 & 7, meaning 7 days working followed by 7 days off or 14 days working and 7 days off. I spent a summer working on a natural gas platform, and I can easily say it’s the hardest job I ever worked. I’d wake up at 4am every other Monday morning and drive out to Intracoastal City, deep in Vermilion Parish. There I’d take a 45 minute helicopter ride out to my platform with my co-workers. Once I arrived, I was put right to work. As low man on the totem poll, I was stuck doing most of the menial tasks, from unloading the supply boats, to sandblasting and painting the rig while dangling 150 ft over the water. At the end of a hard 12 hour day, I wound down as most roughnecks do, by eating lots of food, watching TV, and playing some cards or pool at night.

Life on a rig is full of all sorts of potential hazards. It’s very easy to lose a finger or toe, get struck by a heavy object, or throw your back out lifting something heavy. The risk of injury is multiplied by the remoteness of the rig. Any hospital emergency room is well over an hour away, and rig staff usually have minimal first aid training. Injuries are so common, in fact, that local law firms have created a cottage industry of offshore injury litigation. Sure, your back might not work again, but you’ll have the best bass boat in the neighborhood while you collect workman’s comp. Luckily, I survived my summer offshore with no injuries, but I’m convinced that had I stayed longer, it was just a matter of time before something happened to me.

Today, Louisiana remains the #1 producer of crude oil, and #2 producer of natural gas in the United States. With 19 operating crude oil refineries, it has the second largest refining capacity in the US. Louisiana supplies a quarter of the U.S. production of natural gas. There are currently more 2,300 active oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. With oil prices over $110 a barrel, the industry is once again booming, though not at the same levels seen in the 1970s. There are many jobs to go around, but people who lived through the last recession are reluctant to return since they fear that there’s no long term future in the field. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

#21 Holly Beach

Mais sometimes a Cajun just has to get away for a while. They need to kick back, relax, hang out with friends, and maybe throw back a beer or twenty. Growing up in Louisiana, there was no better place for this than Holly Beach, or the Cajun Riviera as we like to call it.

Located in southwest Louisiana, Holly Beach was the weekend getaway spot for Coonasses and their families. It was a loose community of around 500 camps organized around a strip of beach, and we’re not talking about million dollar beach houses. Most of the camps were just trailers, with a few nicer structures jacked up on stilts to protect against flooding. Holly Beach was a poor man’s beach, where just about anyone could go for a good time. It wasn’t one of those stuck up beaches with the blue water, clean sand, and public intoxication laws. No, it was the type of beach where you wore shoes in the water so you didn’t cut your foot on a broken beer bottle, a place where you’d occasionally see an alligator on the beach. It was the type of place that if you were too lazy to walk 100 ft, you could always drive your truck right up near the water.

Holly Beach is such a big part of Cajun culture that it even inspired several songs, including (Holly Beach) Under the boardwalk, Hurricane Woman, and the Waltz of Holly Beach.

My family would drive down to Holly Beach just about every summer when I was young. We’d head on down to Cameron Parish, cross on the ferry, and drive past the smelly pogie plant, until we reached our destination. My sister and I would play around in the sand and water (shoes on of course) during the day, and our parents would prepare a boiled seafood feast every evening. Afterwards, the adults would usually wind down by kicking back a few beers and playing a friendly game of cards. Many a good time was had there.

I’m talking about Holly Beach in the past tense, because it was completely wiped out by Hurricane Rita, the forgotten hurricane, in 2005. See that photo on the right? That’s a before and after picture. The only thing left standing after the storm was a water tower. Today, a trip to the closest market is a 100 mile round trip, and the water still isn’t safe to swim in, due to sewage contamination issues.

Despite the devastation, all is not lost as Holly Beach is starting to show signs of life. Camps are gradually being rebuilt, though some people are still fighting their insurance companies or FEMA for reimbursement. Cajuns are a resilient people, so I have no doubt that before we know it, Holly Beach will be restored to its former greatness, and its noble citizens will once again have the truest sign of civilization, a drive through daiquiri stand.

#20 Card Games

Like most historically downtrodden people, we Cajuns have our fair share of vices, or what I like to think of as the four in’s: drinkin’, cussin’, fightin’ (not so much), and gamblin’. Now gambling is such a huge part of our culture, with so many different types, that they can’t all be detailed in a single post. For today, let’s focus on one of the most traditional forms of gambling in Cajun culture…the card game.

The favorite form of gambling for most of the old school Cajuns is the local card game. Every small town has a bar or two where people gather for a game of bourré or euchre. The bar takes a house cut from each pot, and usually provides a meal for the players to keep them playing. Local police almost always look the other way, provided they get their taste of the action.

Now I’m not suggesting that all or even most Cajuns have gambling problems any more than I’d suggest we all have drinking problems. Sure, many overdo it, but the majority of us exercise moderation. Gambling’s most obvious appeal may be the chance to win some money, but it’s also a way to socialize with friends and pass the time, all while having a bit of fun. And what Cajun doesn’t like to pass a good time? After all, laissez les bon temps rouler is practically our state motto.

Some of my earliest memories are of the weekly card games my family held. I can remember going to my mom mom’s (grandmother’s) house every Sunday and as soon as lunch was over, a sheet would be draped over the kitchen table to make dealing the cards easier. My family would break out their rolls of quarters and a pack of Bulldog Squeezers playing cards for a friendly game of bourré (pronounced boo-ray). Most games had a $10 buy in, with a 50 cent ante per pot.  This was just enough to keep things interesting, and those who lost always had a chance to win it back the next week. Sometimes we grandchildren would sit around and play a game of bataille with each other, mimicking our elders. Nothing made my mom mom happier then sweeping a big mound of quarters into her pile after winning a big hand.

In the 1990s, gambling became more corporatized with the advent of video poker on every corner, the introduction of the Louisiana lottery, and the opening of numerous Indian and riverboat casinos across the state. This combined with the gradual dying off of the older generation has changed the face of gambling in Louisiana. Gone is the social aspect, and while your family was unlikely to take your house from you, the casinos have no qualms about it.