Langage (“language”) — whether spoken, written, signed, or merely thought — permeates every aspect of our daily lives. But while the course of an ordinary day brings us into contact with many hundreds of unique words, it is only very…
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a celebrated French gastronome (“epicure, food-lover”), opens his 1826 book The Physiology of Taste with a series of twenty culinary aphorisms, the most famous of which is: “Tell me what you eat : I will tell you…
Tout les temps en temps (“Every now and then”) — about once every ten years here in South Louisiana — we’re all reminded of a fact that is otherwise easy to forget or ignore: a hurricane passes, the electricity goes…
“Dans ce temps-ça, ils onviont pas beaucoup des affaires à faire d’autre chose que s’assir et conter des contes.” (“In those days, they didn’t have many things to do besides sit down and tell stories.”) Between the time that…
I was listening to the radio the other day, an old program from the 1960s hosted by the late Dudley LeBlanc: “Les Nouvelles de la Semaine” (“The News of the Week”). Among a certain generation of Louisianians, “Cousin Dud,” state…
There’s an old saying in Louisiana, which goes: “Février est pas bâtard,” meaning (very) roughly “February isn’t half-hearted.” If that’s only a little less clear than troubled water, there’s another expression, quite similar, said still in France: “L’hiver est pas…
While the Louisiana winter is a sometimes pleasant, sometimes harsh reminder that we are indeed a part of the North American continent, and while, culturally, we do share many historical connections with our French cousins far to the north, as…
In the sometimes petty, but often heated, squabbles that plague Louisiana’s cultural landscape, the culinary domain is often hotly contested territory. Most of these disagreements arise ultimately from the very thing that makes French Louisiana unique: the diversity of the…
In the north of Old France, in Normandy, Picardy, and Wallonia, there is an expression that many old country dwellers still use even today: instead of speaking of faire récolte [harvesting crops], to describe this culmination of the year’s work,…
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…
World-renowned French cuisine is almost entirely the product of one man, Auguste Escoffier, who in the 19th century invented many of the dishes associated with what we know as haute cuisine, the brigade system that divides tasks in the kitchen…
In south Lake Charles, on Common Street, there was a neighborhood the likes of which we may never see again. An exception now, tight-knit communities, by necessity and choice, were pretty much the norm back then. Sometimes linked by kinship,…
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…
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 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…
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.…
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…
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…
