The comfort that comes with the memory of the good smells and flavors that emanated from the kitchens of our childhood is often the source of deep happiness and creative inspiration. The French novelist Marcel Proust started his masterful work,…
One of the stereotypes associated with Cajuns is our love of card games. It’s not entirely undeserved, as it’s undeniably a popular pastime. We play alls the same games that we find everywhere in the United States, but the game…
Acadians from around the world, their descendants and their friends are invited to gather next summer for the 7th World Acadian Congress. This great celebration revolves around August 15, the National Day of Acadia, a date chosen in 1881 to…
Once upon a time, there was a magical and mythical country where great adventures happened. Unlike other legendary locations, there was no need for a secret password, an incantation in an occult language, or even going through a wardrobe or…
There’s an old joke around Lafayette and elsewhere that goes something like this: There are 100 bands in town, but only 10 musicians. The joke may be hyperbole but saying that Chris Stafford has played with almost all of them…
No pun intended, but Amber Robinson is a natural for conservation. She comes by it honestly with a father from Grand Isle, a mother from Gueydan, and a childhood spent between Louisiana’s last inhabited barrier island and its coastal marshes.…
When Christine Verdin was born into the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe in lower Terrebonne Parish, Native Americans were segregated into separate schools known as settlement schools. It wasn’t until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the public…
If you’ve ever enjoyed a delicious plate of crawfish étouffée while listening to a Cajun band before two-stepping the night away, you can thank Kerry Boutté, a native of Arnaudville at the junction of two bayous. It may be coincidental…
Fifty years ago, the US census told us that the number of Francophones in Louisiana was over one million. These days it's probably around 200,000, more or less, but no one can…
On January 17, 1823, by separating it from Saint Martin Parish, the Louisiana legislature created Lafayette Parish. Named in honor of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, "the hero of two worlds", the parish will celebrate its bicentennial throughout…
With the proliferation of cafés on every street corner, young people would find it hard to believe that coffee in the United States once had a very bad reputation. It was practically undrinkable. Anywhere you ordered a cup of coffee,…
The comfort that comes with the memory of the good smells and flavors that emanated from the kitchens of our childhood is often the source of deep happiness and creative inspiration. The French novelist Marcel Proust started his masterful work,…
The waves of immigration that contributed to our culture in southern Louisiana did not cease with the end of the Grand Dérangement or with the last ship to transport enslaved Africans. More recently, the arrival of Vietnamese refugees or Spanish…
When people on television said that Hurricane Ida had made landfall near Port Fourchon, despite the horror of this terrible announcement, I had to laugh a little. “Land? At Port Fourchon? There hasn't been land there for at least fifty…
In the middle of southwest Louisiana’s prairie, in the village of Richard, is a small cemetery on Charlene Street. Over the years, it has become a place of pilgrimage for those in search of divine intercession. Buried there is a…
Long before the establishment of the first medical schools in Europe in the 12th century, people needed healing in every region of the world and in every historical era. Traditional remedies vary from culture to culture, but they all carry…
I was not exactly what you would call a delicate child. I ate everything you could find on a table in south Louisiana: fried shrimp, po-boys, crawfish boiled or étouffée, spaghetti, hamburgers, hot dogs, etc., etc., etc. American, Cajun, and…
I admit that every time I see or hear “Laissez les bons temps rouler,” I cringe a little and rub my ears. It is often pronounced with a dreadful accent and as to its spelling, it is sometimes extraordinarily creative.…
The story of south Louisiana is one of constant flux and migration, going all the way back to the end of the Pleistocene Epoch when the melting Laurentide Ice Sheet allowed the…
My parents’ house, where I grew up, was right behind my grandparents' house. With my childish eyes, I saw a huge house, almost a palace, with a brick staircase that climbed up to the sky. In reality, it was a…
A culture that does not change and evolve is destined, it is said, to wither and die. Over the last 50 years or so of the “French Renaissance” in Louisiana, there…
This July marks the fourth anniversary of the passing of musician D. L. Ménard, the author of "La Porte en Arrière (The Back Door)", the most recorded and performed Cajun song according to folklorist Barry Jean Ancelet. It competes with…
Long forgotten due to its low commercial value, brown cotton is experiencing a renaissance in popularity among those who want to rediscover the "home-made" aesthetic. Not as commercially coveted as white cotton, its cultivation has long been a family affair.…
Acadiana is a region steeped in history, culture and tradition and its people are known for their irrepressible and entrepreneurial spirit. It is with this idea in mind that we created the Acadiana Profile Trailblazers. Some of the honorees are people you’ve…
The question came up innocently enough on a Facebook group page about south Louisiana culture. Some of the most intense discussions seem to revolve around food, which should be no surprise since so many of our conversations involve what our…
LA 1 crosses the state diagonally, from the confines of its border with Texas and Arkansas, to its other extremity, where it ends in a cul-de-sac surrounded by a motel, a restaurant and a small port harboring sport and commercial…
On the 15-mile drive south from Houma to Chauvin, if we weren’t paying attention, we might have missed the plot of land on our right as we rode along the appropriately named Bayouside Drive. We noticed an incongruous-looking lighthouse on…
The legend of the werewolf, member of the pantheon of movie monsters like the Mummy, Dracula, or Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, is found across multiple eras and diverse countries. We know the basic facts: the transformation from human to wolf during…
Quo Vadis Arte? Where does the Acadiana Center for the Arts go from here? What happens to the arts when public assemblies are restricted? Where does the local art scene go? An interview with Acadiana Center of the Arts’ Executive…
In Acadiana, fall brings its promise of mildness after summer heat and humidity so thick it feels like stepping into a sauna on your doorstep. Finally, the north wind dries and sweeps the sky, leaving a light blue background with…
Festivals Acadiens et Créoles is usually the highlight of the region’s fall festival season. As both temperatures and the likelihood of hurricanes drop, lovers of Cajun and creole music flock from around the world to Girard Park in Lafayette. Things…
Popularized by Paul Prudhomme, the term “Holy Trinity” has entered the culinary lexicon to designate the three ingredients that form the base of Cajun and Creole cuisine. Onions, bell peppers (or sweet peppers as we say in Louisiana French), and…
If you are much younger than I am, you probably don’t remember drive-ins. As a child, I went to one which was often packed with rows of cars parked before a ginormous screen. Tinny speakers cradled on rolled-down windows provided…
When Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville began exploring the French colony of Louisiana in early January 1699, the exact location was not in what is now Louisiana, but in Mississippi. Fort Maurepas, in Ocean Springs near Biloxi, was the first permanent…
The story of individual contributions to the various French cultures of south Louisiana appears in numerous documentaries, articles and books, but rarely do we hear about the role of couples, which strikes me as odd given the importance of family.…
At the end of the Canadian peninsula of Nova Scotia, more than two thousand miles from Louisiana, is a small village near St. Mary’s Bay called Church Point. With a little over a thousand inhabitants, you would be surprised to…
Before the Santa Claus that we know today with his red and white outfit appeared, the children of Acadiana did not wait for Père Noël, transported in a pirogue pulled by twelve alligators, the night of December 24 as one…
