Louisiana Eating: a Traveler's Tale

This Los Angeles native recently visited the southern United States where she had an interesting experience in Louisiana eating.

We stayed with friends in Baton Rouge who took us to a local market and provided a sample of food I’d never seen before–including items I’d never heard of before.

This will be a photo essay–with commentary.

Wandering the store provided plenty of surprises: alligator heads, alligator potato chips, frozen alligator meat. I’m sure it tastes like chicken, but we didn’t sample any on this Louisiana eating experience!

 

A lovely woman in front of us in the line explained some of the tasty treats our friends planned for us that afternoon.

She even had to correct my pronunciation of Boudin–“boo-dain,” (with just a touch of that n)  she laughed when I called it “Boo-deen.”

Of course she was talking about a form of hush-puppies– batter fried cornmeal balls– while I was thinking of the upscale French bread bakery in San Francisco.

“I gained 50 pounds when I moved back to Louisiana,” she continued. “This food is that good.”

I knew we’d be eating fried catfish–and it looked crispy batter fried–but that was about it for me.

The thought of eating crawdads–crawfish– which I had hunted as an innocent child near Los Angeles, was ridiculous.

But they were on the Louisiana eating menu.

In my experience, the small freshwater crustaceans were for catching with a coffee can and taking home–where we quickly forgot about them and my mother tossed the black water and bodies out a week later.

Now my friends were purchasing crawfish pie. “You’ll like it.”

I smiled.

I couldn’t imagine.

(I did like it–as my friends said, the crawfish was sweet, sort-of).

They bought a large bag of boiled crawfish, along with fried okra, dirty rice and the aforementioned items. We’d brought Russian River brewery beer–a taste of home–and decided to skip strawberry ale. 

But it was tempting.

Once home, the food was spread across the table and my husband and I gingerly filled our plates.

We liked the boudin balls–they had a sort of spicy paste in the middle made of who knows what.

Our friends set the bag of red boiled crawfish in the middle of the table with a bowl beside it for the “leftovers.”

I wasn’t paying attention until they opened the bag and a lot of little eyes looked at me. With all their feelers and tiny paws, they looked alive.

Oh, my.

Our Louisiana eating was done with fingers, but I couldn’t imagine how to even start.

Fortunately, a local was able to demonstrate:

 

I wanted to study the video before it was my turn, but with great encouragement my friends would coach me on Louisiana eating, I made a stab at it myself (using my fingers).

 

My husband just laughed. “I don’t eat things that can look at me.”

We were so full we barely had room several hours later for that other Louisiana eating classic: beignets and cafe au lait.

But we managed.

Delicious!

Tweetables

A city girl meets Louisiana food. Click to Tweet

Crawfish and fried catfish–Louisiana food cuisine and a city slicker. Click to Tweet

Food I’ve never seen before in a Louisiana market. Click to Tweet