Cajun Food
Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 04:07PM 
"Bayou" ~ Fausse State Park, Louisiana © 2011 Skip Hunt
Fausse State Park is litterally located smack dab on top of a levee in the middle of freakin' nowhere, bayou-country, southern Louisiana. The mosquitos are relentless, the shack yards are a beautifull mess and full of rusting welding gear, smokers, and crawfish boiling pots. If I was going to find myself some real Cajun food, this was going to be it.
The park itself is very lovely even after the sun sets and the skeeters are on patrol. You get to the park in a very confusing winding in and around various waterways, farms and levees. Eventually, you find the park, get your campsite, and then discover there isn't anywhere to get anything to eat for about 24 miles or so in any direction. I was told a place called "Pat's" was a Cajun seafood place where you could get just about anything you wanted including gator, rabbit and possibly opossum. I'll pass on the opossum, but it sounded like I'd found Cajun culinary gold.
Turns out "Pat's" is just a touristy joint a dozen miles off the interstate highway to the North and an over-priced one at that. Food was ok, but it tasted like just about any other generic so-called "Cajun" food I'd had so far.
The waitress was a blond with dark roots showing and mercilessly plucked brows with dark whiskers coming in. Her accent tickled my fancy so I asked her if she was a "Cajun". She seemed taken aback and I couldn't quite tell what she said at first through the thick Cajun accent. She said, "Cajun? Yeah, I guess so... sort of. Well, yeah I guess I am a Cajun." I asked her if that was an offensive term and she said, "No, but it's really more of an ol' timey-time term. Der ain't really no mo' Cajuns around."
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if asking someone if they are a "Cajun" was essentially the same as asking if they're a "Hillbilly"... a term I'm certain would not be a welcome title in some circles.
The next day a fella with an even stronger Cajun accent asked if I was leaving the campsite soon. He said that there wasn't a rush or anything, but that our site was going to be his for the night and he'd perfer to move his travel trailor into it early if possible. I told him no problem that I was on my way anyway, but I asked, "Are you by chance a Cajun?" He smiled and said that he was. I asked if that was an offensive term and he said it wasn't. So I asked him why over nearly 2 weeks of traveling in Louisiana was I having such a hard time finding good Cajun food. I continued that I live in Austin, Texas and had better Cajun food in Louisiana-themed restaurants there than most of the places I'd been in Louisiana. He laughed and said, "Cajun folk don't go to no rest-aur-ant for no Cajun food! We Cajun folk just make it our own self! If we go to a restaurant it's to get us some Chinese food.... not Cajun food!"
I laughed and told him I was heading toward St. Martinville and then likely camp out at Palmetto State Park since they were new and might likely have available sites since Fausse was full for the weekend. He said to go to the old beat up supermarket called Joyce's in St. Martinville for some good and cheap plate-lunch Cajun food. And he recommended "Ree-Shards!' in Abbeyville near Palmetto State Park. I said, "Great! I remember seeing that place called Joyce's when I drove in. Mostly white tin with red trim and looks more like a warehouse than a grocrery store?" He laughed and said that was the place. And then I asked, "How do you spell Ree-Shards?". He laughed again and said it's just like Richard's, but down here were say "Ree-Shards."
Finally, I was back hot on the trail of nearly authentic Cajun food!
Reader Comments (2)
Skip, you have a talent for story writing; your words paint as strong an image as the photos themselves.
Thank you very much Sir! Quite the compliment. :-)