#38 Cajun Microwaves

Most of the foods and activities we’ve discussed so far have been rooted in Cajun tradition for decades if not centuries.  All this talk of tradition might have you thinking that Cajuns are stuck in the past, but don’t go confusing us with the Amish.  Unlike our friendly bearded friends, Cajuns aren’t afraid of innovation.  If there’s a better way to get things done, we’re all ears.  The faster we can get a job done, the quicker we can move on to the more enjoyable things in life.  Cajuns we don’t sit idly by, waiting for the outside world to make things easier, we problem solve. When faced with the question of how to better season their meat, the Cajun Injector was born.  When faced with the daunting task of cooking beer flavored chicken, the ChickCAN was born.    Today’s showpiece of Cajun inventiveness is #38 on the list of Stuff Cajun People Like…the Cajun Microwave.  And please don’t write me to say it was invented by some Cuban guy, cause I’m not listening (la la la).

The Cajun Microwave is basically an outdoor convection oven with a charcoal box on top.  This wooden box with a stainless steel interior solves the problem of how to prepare a large piece of meat, like cochon de lait,  without having to dig a large pit in the ground.  With a Cajun microwave, simply place your seasoned pig or other meats in the Cajun microwave, close it up, and place hot coals on top.  Like a dutch oven, this cooking method keeps moisture in, resulting in a juicier meat.  Some deluxe Cajun microwaves even have a grill on top so you can grill out while you wait for the main course.  With a Cajun Microwave, you can feed 75 of your closest friends being the envy of the all your fellow tailgaters.

Now Cajun Microwaves aren’t for everyone.  For one, they’re sort of pricy, ranging from $500 to well over $1000 depending on size and materials.  This is pretty expensive, considering the alternative is digging a big hole in the ground.  Of course, plans are available online, so you can always build one yourself rather cheaply.  Another criticism is the lack of smokiness, since the Cajun Microwave roasts your meat rather than smoking it.  These are all valid criticisms, but for many the advantages make up for any shortcomings.  For one, using a Cajun Microwave is more efficient than the in-ground method, and it’s faster than open pit cooking.  And most importantly, it looks cool as hell.  Say what you want, but MacGyver ain’t got nuthin’ on a hungry Coonass.

#35 Turducken

How should I stuff my turkey? It’s a question that’s plagued humanity since the beginning of time, or at least since the beginning of the turkey. For years, cooks around the world tried all sorts of different ingredients, from corn bread to rice, and even apples and nuts. Finally, in the early 1980s, a brave cook answered this question by stuffing his turkey with a duck, and if that weren’t brazen enough, he proceeded to stuff a chicken inside of that duck. Having no more room to stuff anything else, he placed his invention into the oven, and after several hours of cooking, the turducken was born. To borrow a phrase, this guy was a real man of genius.

I’ll bet the first people to see a turducken laughed, but I’m also willing to lay down money that all their plates were cleaned. With all the different stuffings and flavor combinations, eating turducken is like a wild party for your mouth (not dat kind of party!). Unlike most Cajun dishes however, this Acadian answer to the Russian doll is usually reserved for special occasions, due to price and the difficulty of making it. A cooked turducken may look just like a turkey, but once you cut into the deboned layers of meaty goodness and stuffing, you’re guaranteed some kee-yaws (oohs and ahhs for you non Cajuns) from your guests.

The turducken has a foggy history, with some people crediting Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme with creating the recipe while others credit New Orleans surgeon Gerald LaNasa, who was known for using a scalpel to prepare an early version of the dish. Whether the turducken was invented by a New Orleans doctor or a home town Cajun cook, a good idea is a good idea, and I’m declaring it a Cajun dish.

The best way to prepare the turducken is to go to the store, and buy one ready made. If you don’t believe me, then check out Paul Prudhomme’s insane turducken recipe. In one of his steps, you actually have to climb a mountain and slay a dragon. Ok, it’s not that complex, but it’s pretty damn close. These days, you can order a turducken from most local meat markets. With the popularity of turducken spreading across the South, it’s not too hard to find a store that will ship one across the country to you. So if you want to have a memorable Thanksgiving meal, try a turducken. It’ll beat mom’s dry baked turkey every time.

#32 Jambalaya

What the hell is jambalaya? This was a question posed years ago to the sixth grade version of myself by a distant pen pal, named Carlos. Since this pen pal was foisted upon me by my Kum Ba Yah singing Catholic school teacher in an idealistic attempt to expose me to the outside world, I didn’t feel a particular need to respond right away. I was much too busy playing Super Mario to write back to some stranger. Well, I might be a lot of things, but let it be known far and wide that I’m not a flake, just an overachieving procrastinator. So Carlos, if you’re out there, here’s your answer, some twenty odd years late.

Jambalaya is the ultimate in single pot Cajun cooking. A combination of rice, vegetables, stock and a mixture of meats all cooked together in a single pot (usually black iron), jambalaya is a deceptively simple meal that takes only minutes to learn, but years to master. Done right, it will bring tears to a Cajun man’s eyes, but done wrong, jambalaya a greasy mushy mess. Unlike gumbo, jambalaya is a great year round dish, whether served fireside at the camp, or at home by your mama.

The jambalaya was an attempt by New Orleanians of Spanish descent to make paella in the New World. Without ready access to saffron, tomatoes were substituted, and the resulting dish bore a red hue instead of the trademark yellow of paella. This new dish was dubbed jambalaya, from the Provencal word “jambalaia,” meaning a mish-mash or mixup. Eventually, the jambalaya made its way to Cajun country, lost those damn tomatoes, and became the more tasty brown jambalaya we know and love today.

Every year a jambalaya cookoff is held at the Jambalaya Festival in Gonzales Louisiana, located on the far eastern outskirts of Cajun Country. Here you can sample some of the best jambalaya you’ve ever tasted. Unfortunately, the festival finished last weekend, so you’ll have to wait a whole year to see what I’m talking about (damned procrastination reared its ugly head again).

If you’d like to try making your own jambalaya, here’s a good recipe I found for feeding 120 people, or as I like to call it, my immediate family. If you don’t have that many mouths to feed, you might try this recipe which won the 1978 Jambalaya World Championship title.

So Carlos, I hope this answers all your jambalaya related questions. If not, just write back, and I promise you an answer sometime in the next 20 years.

Jambalaya (On the Bayou):

#30 High School Football

On Friday nights between August and December, small town Cajuns can be found enjoying the local high school football game all around Acadiana. They go for different reasons, but whether it’s to root for a relative’s son, or support their home town, high school football is cheap, fun entertainment for the whole family. It’s like a Saint’s game, but sometimes your home team actually wins one. (Ok, I know the Saints have been very good the past few seasons, but they’ll forever be frozen in my memory as the loveable never-won-a-playoff-game Saints of my youth.)

Sitting amongst the crowd, you can hear the locals yelling out plays from the bleachers. Pick up dat ball couyon! Block dat kick! Pass de ball to T-Boy over dere! The stands are filled with old timers reliving the football glory of their youth, with only a pair of busted knees and a worn out letterman jacket to show for it.

Louisiana football players have been well represented in the NFL. Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw was born in Shreveport Louisiana (I know Shreveport is barely part of Louisiana, but I’m still counting him). In recent years, Jake Delhomme, Peyton and Eli Manning, Kevin Faulk, Marshall Faulk, Bobby Boucher, and many others have proudly represented our state. In terms of population, only Washington DC and Mississippi have more NFL players. Not bad for a bunch of Louisiana boys.

Most high school football games are a blast, but nothing beats the excitement of playing a rival team, usually from the neighboring town. This is a game of high stakes, since the losing town has to endure a year of taunts and humiliation from the winning side. The big game for me was the Cecilia Bulldogs vs the Breaux Bridge Tigers. Readers of The Daily Advertiser voted this game the largest high school rivalry in Louisiana. In the week leading up to the game, trash talking ramps up, houses are toilet papered, and fights break out between students as tensions rise. On the night of the big game, the whole town practically shuts down as just about everyone goes to the game. This is the loudest game of the season with chants of De-Fense and the thunder of synchronized bleacher stomping filling the air. Even in a losing season, we Cecilia locals can hold our head up high as long as we manage to whup Breaux Bridge. What’s your towns big rivalry?

Cecilia Bulldog Fight Song

Fight for our colors, green and gold
Fight for our honour, heart and soul
Lift up her glory, lift up her name
Shake down the thunder with her fame

Win or lose, we’ll never be blue
We stand together, loyal and true
We’re from Cecilia, this is our song
Cecilia, right or wrong, Hey!

#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.

#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.