#39 Nobody, Dat’s Who!

Man, I thought I wuz done with dis bloggin’ stuff.  Thought dere wasn’t anything else good to write about.  And dat was mostly true, until the other day dat is.  See, cuz dat’s when this funny little thing happened.  You might have heard about it.  You know, when dem SAINTS WON THE WHOLE DAMN SUPERBOWL!!!  Wooooo Hooooo!!! WHO DAT?  WHO DAT? Nobody, DAT’s Who All You Hatin’ Couyons!!!  Oh pooh yaille,  I gotta sit down now.

Mais, if you not a Saint’s fan, then I’m sorry cher.  I’m not tryin’ to gloat or nothin’.  Dis long-time Saints fan knows what it’s like to be handed an ass whupping, and it don’t feel too good no.  I’m jus celebratin’ cause I’m happy like a guy who shot a 20 point buck on his wedding day.

Now, I’m not of those guys who likes to take credit for the winning of others, but you should know that me and my old lady and my cuz T-Boy prayed the rosary between plays (and sips of Natural Light).  And when we was down by 10, I started bargaining with the big guy himself.  I was like, ‘Come on Brah, you know we need this.  I tell you what – you give us this one and we promise to give up drinkin’ an cussin’ for Lent’.  My wife and Cuz, they shot me a face, but I told dem that’s the way it’s gonna be.  And not too long after that, the Saints, they come back and the rest is histoire.  Why, dis ole boy got so caught up celebrating that night I even picked up a few crunkin moves.  Things, they got so crazy, I laid a big kiss on Cuz’s lips by accident.  It was a little bit uncomfortable after dat, but then he punched me in the mouth and called me a big sissy and that was that.

Outsiders say dis makes up for Katrina, but I don’t know what these couyons are talking about, cause this has nothing to do with Katrina.  Ain’t no Superbowl fairy gonna come fly down and rebuild all dem houses that got all flooded and stuff.  We all a lil bit happier these days, but dat doesn’t mean it’s all good.

From now on, I’m hostin’ a  Saints Superbowl party every year.  Everybody’s invited!  And if my Saints not in it, that’s ok, we’ll just play dis one again (I got a copy for my video player).  My house, my rules.

#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.

#33 Catfish Courtbouillon

If you’re a regular reader, you might have the impression that I’m a tomato hater. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Fact is, I believe that there’s a place for everything, and the best place in the world for a tomato is in one of my favorite fish dishes…the catfish courtbouillon (pronounced coo-bee-yon).

Catfish courtbouillon is a simple dish consisting of tomato sauce, bellpepper, garlic, onions, and catfish. The ingredients, excluding the catfish, are simmered together in a black iron pot for at least an hour, until all the flavors blend together and the tomato taste mellows out a bit. The longer you let everything simmer, the better the final dish will be. Near the end of cooking, the catfish pieces are dropped in, starting the hands-off phase of cooking. Once the fish hits the pot, there’s to be absolutely no pot stirring. Stirring would break up the fish, so it’s replaced by the occasional twisting of the pot to make sure the fish doesn’t stick. I remember watching my mom-mom twisting her pot back and forth, her big grandma arms flapping as she did it. It’s like you get to cook AND exercise at the same time (mais, buy the Cajun Black Iron Pot Workout™ video today and watch the lard melt away chére!).

It’s really hard to mess up a courtbouillon, but there are three rules that should never be broken. First, always use freshly caught wild catfish instead of pond raised fish. I believe it’s the wild catfish’s scavenger diet that gives it its signature taste (coupled with a bit of good old Louisiana water pollution). It’s also a lot of fun to catch the ingredients. The second rule is to cut the fish into steaks, not filets. Leaving the bones in will keep the fish from falling apart in the pot, and if you use larger catfish, the bones will be large enough to pick out. There’s nothing worse than picking small fish bones out of your food. And last but no least, always toss the catfish head in the pot. There’s some good meat on the head that shouldn’t be ignored, and don’t worry ’bout having to look your catch in the eye, cause you pop dem eyeballs out first.

The final dish is served over rice with some moque choux corn on the side. Here are a couple of good recipes I found, if you want to try making some for yourself.

#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):

#31 Hot Sauce

Some say that variety is the spice of life, well they’re wrong …hot sauce is the spice of life chére. Just ask any self respecting Coonass. Whether it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner, a bottle of hot sauce is never far away from the kitchen table. When it comes to hot sauce, no food is safe. Some like a dash of hot sauce over their morning eggs, or add a few drops to their gumbo or jambalaya to give it a little kick. The most hardcore hot sauce aficionados even carry their own sauce around with them.

While Tabasco may be the undisputed king of the hot sauces in terms of sales, there are many other popular Louisiana hot sauces, like Louisiana and Crystal. And let’s not forget the thousands of different homemade chow chows floating around Acadiana. Each sauce has it’s own personality and area of strength. Tabasco is great when you want to add some pure heat to your dish, but it tends to overwhelm a dish with its vinegary flavor (a taste that millions of people apparently like). Both Louisiana and Crystal are milder than Tabasco and are great for adding a little spice to your dish without have to face the morning after repercussions (hey, I not above making a poo joke). If you want to start a fight with a Coonass, just tell him that your favorite hot sauce is better than his.

I don’t want to hear about this hot sauce that’s a million times hotter than the ones here. It’s no big trick to make a novelty hot sauce that’s too hot to taste. What’s hard is to make a hot sauce that people actually want to add to their foods, that people actually crave. Cajun food has been stereotyped as anything that’s either blackened or super spicy. Major restaurant chains regularly pull “Cajun” versions of dishes out of their bag of marketing tricks. Most of these dishes are made by simply adding tons of spice to the original dish, and hope their customers don’t know the difference. Any true Coonass knows that while out food is well seasoned, it’s seldom too spicy to eat.

When it comes to hot sauce, there’s no right answer. You just have to go with your gut…or butt (see, I did it twice).

#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!

#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.

#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.