Cajun Is Good

February 10, 2010 Road trip USA

While I miss the old world cosmopolitan flavor of New Orleans, the Cajun country around Lafayette and Baton Rouge is remarkable!  Everyone seems infused with a hospitality that makes you feel as though you just returned home..  The food is fabulous!  Every restaurant prides themselves in their own variety of sauces, and subtle but distinct variations on recipes.  We've had craw fish, catfish, shrimp, chicken, turtle soup, gumbo galore, and just tonight I enjoyed, chicken stuffed with craw fish cover in a shrimp etouffee.  We took a driving trip through the country side and along the bayou's Teche and Benoit.  

lamp outside plantation kitchen

We visited both Acadian and African American Museum in St Martinville LA.  Simple but informative displays explain the respective histories of displacement, expulsion and exploitation.  St Martinville by the way is said to be the inspiration behind  Longfellow's  poem Evangeline (star crossed cajun lovers).  There are many old plantations still standing in the area.  Some are grand beyond good taste (especially considering  how their wealth was accumulated)  While others are much simpler, much like a farm houses most of us would be familiar with. The tours, I'm told, don't like to mention much about the slave history; they prefer to use the term servants.

  The zydeco music seems to be everywhere and that suits me fine, cause I like it.  We're planing on going back out on the bayou later tonight to hear more live music.  There are several bars/restaurants built into, or floating on the swamp.  They're fantastically run down garishly painted floating and or sinking road house, looking places.  I can't wait to get inside.  Tomorrow we getting a small boat tour into the swamps; I'm quite excited about the photo opportunities.  Talk to y'all later.

Blacksmith display on plantation