A world away in Cajun Country
See what Katrina and Rita missed
Published February 26, 2006
chicagotribune.com >> Travel
LAFAYETTE, La. -- Story and photos by Robert Cross, Tribune staff reporter
Back in 1991, when Cajun was all the rage up North and people were eating blackened everything, washed down with zydeco and two-step dancing, I went looking for the authentic heart of Acadiana. It was a wonderful trip.
I returned just recently and discovered not much had changed. All that time and two awful hurricanes had left most parts of Cajun Country intact, as well as many of the other places that make Louisiana a worthwhile destination.
Of course, there's no ignoring the devastation of New Orleans, as well as that long stretch of victimized land stretching from east Texas across to Mississippi. People around the world have opened wallets, homes and hearts to the displaced Gulf Coast residents.
But it may not have occurred to some that one way to help would be to visit a state whose economy depends so much on tourism.
It was clear not long after Katrina and Rita that most of Louisiana had suffered little or no physical damage from the hurricanes. Large swaths of southern prairie, swamp, delta, basin, bayou and riverfront came out pretty much OK.
Those who live in the state and weren't forced to run away are shaking off the trauma. Survival calls for celebration and that I found--dancing, singing, sharing gumbo and planning for Mardi Gras (Feb. 28 this year) as it's rowdily observed on small town streets and country roads.
I started out to find some of the things I remembered most vividly, and that meant being there, for sure, on a Saturday.
For those of us unable to fully absorb the complexities and joys of life in Acadiana, the food and music at least open the door a crack. On Saturday, the Cajun music wails away all day long and well into the night. And the food, of course, is everywhere--gumbo, crawfish, jambalaya, etouffee, oysters, alligator, and on and on.
The music and exquisite flavors may have helped to keep spirits up during times of hardship. Ancestors of today's Cajuns (a bastardization of "Acadians") drifted from western France into what is now Nova Scotia, beginning early in the 17th Century. They found a good life there, as their farms and fisheries prospered. Almost 100 years before, it's said, explorer Giovanni da Verrazano called the region Acadia, or Arcadia, which means a place of rural peace.
The British took control of Nova Scotia ("new Scotland") in 1713, but the French settlers refused to cooperate with the new regime. The British set out to remove them, starting in 1755, and the Grand Derangement scattered French refugees across the East Coast, the Caribbean, Britain and back to France. Some found their way to southern Louisiana, west of New Orleans, where rich soil and abundant waterways promised a new lease on life. By the late 1700s, an estimated 4,000 Acadians had settled into the area.
For a long time, life in Louisiana's backcountry was no picnic. Sophisticated New Orleanians considered the Cajuns hicks. Educators punished children caught speaking French in school.
Still the culture hasn't entirely lost its grip, and on a mild, cloudy January morning, I found a familiar-looking line of cars and pickup trucks parked along a stretch of U.S. Highway 190 near Eunice, about 20 miles northwest of Lafayette.
As soon as I left the car, I could hear fiddles, guitars, accordions and concertinas scraping out a lively Cajun tune at the Savoy (Sav-WAH) Music Center. It's a ramshackle green building with a cluttered display window and puddles in the overflowing parking lot, but the sounds inside were true and clean.
About 30 spectators sat in folding chairs or wandered around the wood-paneled room, while eight musicians played--a couple of violins, three guitars, two accordions, one concertina. Marc Savoy, the patriarch of the musical Savoy family, manned the cash register for those who wished to buy CDs, sheet music, books or instruments.
"That guy playing the concertina drove here all the way from Alaska, just so he could join in," Savoy told somebody. "He'll get his belly full today."
That's the main purpose of a Cajun Country Saturday. The Savoy jam sessions start around 9 a.m. and break up around noon. Other musical get-togethers occur all around the area, most notably at Fred's in Mamou and the Liberty Center in downtown Eunice.
Jammin' in Mamou
Mamou is a hard-working, no-nonsense little town about 10 miles up the road from Eunice. The brick and cinderblock bars in downtown Mamou might seem forbidding if it weren't for the music coming out of Famous Fred's Lounge and other places up and down 6th Street.
Fred's was where Cajun music began its climb to international recognition after World War II and where, in 1950, the late owner, Alfred "Fred" Tate, revived the traditional Mardi Gras revels that enliven the countryside on Fat Tuesday.
Starting at 9 on this and other Saturday mornings, a Cajun band starts playing in the middle of the barroom and patrons dance wherever they can find a little floor space. By mid-morning, empty beer cans cover the bandstand railing and anyone not doing the two-step will get jostled into some kind of movement, because the place is packed.
I retreated out to the sidewalk, where folks could stand and drink and talk without getting knocked over or drowned out by the music. After Tate died in 1992, the family sold the establishment, but former wife Sue Vasseur continues as manager.
The bar opens only on Saturdays, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Then another bar might feature a different band. "The crowd just goes from one bar to the next, to the next, to the next, until they're partied out," said a long-time customer who introduced himself as Dewey. As for Sue Vasseur, after closing up Fred's, she might help another barkeep down the street.
"If there's a huge crowd at Diane's, she'll come and help her," Dewey said, "or Laverne's, or the next tavern. They all help each other."
A different Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras is different in Cajun Country than in New Orleans. Residents of the Crescent City bravely promise to do their best to keep up the tradition, complete with elaborate floats and costumes, but the parades are likely to be truncated.
"We might have the biggest Mardi Gras in Louisiana this year," said Lafayette restaurateur Frank Randol one evening. As we chatted over platters of oysters, crawfish and crabcakes, a band called Jambalaya kept scores of dancers busy in the hall next to the dining room. Most wore funny hats, and a few had on outfits featuring the Mardi Gras colors--purple, green and gold.
Randol regularly trucks meals to hundreds of emergency workers in New Orleans, and he knows as well as anyone that the city isn't ready for full-bore partying.
That throws the tourism spotlight toward Lafayette, the surrounding small towns and a lot of other places in the state that escaped hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Still, visitor traffic remains somewhat slow. Marc Savoy said spectators and musicians haven't been crowding into his Saturday morning music store jam sessions the way they once did. "A lot of people used to drive down here from other states," he said. "I don't think the hurricanes have kept people away so much as the price of gas."
Getting ready to party
With or without a lot of outsiders, the Mardi Gras activities have been going strong. Starting as early as Feb. 1, there have been Mardi Gras museum exhibits, films, parades, coronations of krewe kings and queens, carnivals, street dances, concerts and costume balls.
When I came to the region in late January, some townsfolk were revving up for the big Courir de Mardi Gras in Mamou. Courir is French for run or hunt, and masked, costumed men on horseback or riding atop truck beds do both of those things as they go from house to house pleading for gumbo ingredients.
Somebody might toss a bunch of okra. Somebody else will lob a live chicken that the younger men try to chase down. Participants roll around a front yard or try a headstand on a saddle. Bands play from the trucks. Around 3 p.m., the courir returns to town and somebody makes gumbo.
"We get on horses, get drunk, do the food, catch chickens and ducks," said a man sitting a row in front of me at the Liberty Center in Eunice. "We like to have a good time here."
We were at the Liberty Center, along with a lot of other people, for the Saturday night Rendez Vous des Cajuns, a variety show, concert, dance and radio broadcast on KRVS Radio Acadie in Lafayette. The Liberty Center is an old theater with a wealth of modern additions and amenities.
Next door is one of six Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve outposts. With fresh museum displays and modern audio-visual effects, the Jean Lafitte centers tell the story of Louisiana settlers, their unique folkways and the state's unusual prairie/coastal terrain.
Fiddling in Lafayette
Barry Jean Ancelet, a folklorist and professor at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, served as master of ceremonies, just as he had when I was in the audience 14 years before. Alternating between French and English, Ancelet welcomed 25 Cajun fiddlers from Nancy Simon's School of Music. Mostly women and racially diverse, they all wore white shirts and denim jeans or skirts. A few had hair that matched the shirt, and a couple others were young enough to be their great-grandchildren.
All of them played with skill and heart, filling the auditorium with sunbursts of lively music. Between tunes, Ancelet asked Nancy Simon, "They range in age up to what?" Simon pointed to one of the white-haired fiddlers and replied, "Up to Ethel."
Ancelet's droopy mustache had also turned white since I last saw him, but he seemed more relaxed in his role. Before, when Cajun still was near the top of the popular culture heap, Ancelet told me, "The good news is that Cajun is hot. The bad news is that Cajun is hot." He complained then that Hollywood insisted on portraying his people "as barefoot, belligerent drunks who are always letting the good times roll. So we feel we have to take control of the story ourselves. We can't let other people tell the story, because they mess it up."
The people of Cajun Country--to use the tour-ism office term--lately have been telling their story with utmost dramatic effect.
The Jean Lafitte visitor centers are filled with attractive displays, interpretive films and the artifacts of daily life as it was lived down through the years. The Jean Lafitte center in Lafayette stands near Vermilionville, a collection of restored or reproduced Cajun and Creole homes. Creoles lack the clear definition enjoyed by Acadians, but the term refers to the descendants of West Indian, American Indian, European and African pioneers. (A culture that comes up with shrimp and crab etouffee has to be pretty special.)
But there's more to the region than music and Mardi Gras. Artists have clustered in and around Lafayette, and the galleries downtown demonstrate that there are some forms of enterprise Wal-Mart still can't usurp.
In this case it's Jefferson Street, a pedestrian-friendly few blocks rich with art galleries. Several murals depict Southern culture or display artistic whimsy. We're talking trompe l'oeil violins, a swamp scene, a building made to look like a giant concertina, the finny rear ends of 1950s cars.
I spent more than an hour browsing the consignment booths in Jefferson Market--jewelry, paintings, vintage clothing, furniture and chinaware.
Later, I dropped in on Bruce Odell's Garfield Street pottery studio. He was busy shaping a large clay urn. The artist, a world champion in his field, knew why a writer might be poking around the region just now.
"Clearly, we are not underwater," Odell said. "And nobody's robbing anybody over here. We're not having any problems at all."
Of course, the hurricanes did have an impact everywhere in the state, and they remain a lively topic of conversation. The nearby city of Lake Charles sustained extensive damage, and, when I was there, a few lodgings around the region still housed flood victims and emergency crews.
On the other hand, plantations along the Mississippi River Road and elsewhere have been running their tours and offering accommodations virtually without interruption.
At the Acadiana Center for the Arts on Lafayette's Vermilion Street, artists filled two galleries with their interpretations of the damage, physical and mental, that nature had wrought. The works by Gulf Coast painters, photographers and sculptors make up an exhibition called "Sustained Winds," running until March 18.
Themes range from anger, despair and frustration to defiance, determination and hope. Photos of abandoned New Orleans refrigerators and houses show them scrawled with warnings ("do not open," "looters will be shot").
Paintings and graffiti lash out at politicians or mourn the losses. A grocery cart filled with discarded or lost possessions (dolls, tools, trinkets, etc.) is encircled by even more hasty discards--all carefully cleaned and, where appropriate, polished like new. All in all, I sensed more optimism than any acceptance of defeat.
I was glad to be back in southern Louisiana after such a lengthy absence. I enjoyed the artistry and the energy.
One afternoon, when I visited the Creole-built, 19th Century Laura Plantation on the River Road, I remembered that the main house had nearly burned down in 2004 but that the fascinating tours of the grounds and other buildings had continued despite the disruption.
The main house is still under repair, but a sign on the front gate now declares: "Fire-Flood-Hurricane-Lightning-Earthquake-Cannonballs-Tornado. Laura's Here to Stay."
All of southern Louisiana seemed to echo that sort of attitude--here to stay and open for business.
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IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
For an arbitrary trip starting March 13 and returning March 19, various Web sites showed round-trip airfares from Chicago to Lafayette, La., ranging from $256 to $357. These are one-stop flights on Northwest, Delta or Continental with a change of planes and short layovers. For those willing to drive for two or three hours, non-stops to New Orleans or Houston range from $210 to $240 on several airlines.
GETTING AROUND
A rental car would be ideal, although taxis are available in the larger towns, and tour buses cover some attractions.
STAYING THERE
The major hotel and motel chains are well represented in Lafayette and environs.
For something different, I tried Aaah! T'Frere's ("little brother's"). That "Aaah" may put it first in the phone book, but it's descriptive too. The bed-and-breakfast in Lafayette is a stronghold of charm in an otherwise ho-hum commercial area. The rooms were homey and nicely decorated, all with private bath.
But the piece de resistance is hostess Maugie Pastor's "Oooh! La! La! Breakfast" that one day featured Parisian crepes, bacon and a bananas Foster dressing. Breakfast No. 2, an Italian creation, involved melted imported cheese over eggs, and a muffin with a medley of spices and boiled red potatoes. Rates are $120 per room, plus tax. 1905 Verot School Rd., Lafayette, LA 70508; 800-984-9347. www.tfreres.com.
Another stop was Chretien Point near Sunset, an 1831 cotton plantation on the banks of Bayou Bourbeaux. The place still oozes ante-bellum grace.
Warning: Chretien Point conducts house tours ($10 per person), so hide belongings in your room's armoire, or the staff will hide them for you. Each of the five units has a private bath, not all en suite. Rates: $150 to $250 per room, plus tax. 665 Chretien Point Rd., Sunset, LA 70584; 800-880-7050; www.chretienpoint.com.
DINING THERE
Look for Cajun and Creole, naturally: oysters, crawfish, crab cakes, spicy sausage, catfish, etouffee and, of course, gumbo. Almost no place has the nerve to do it badly.
Blue Dog Cafe in Lafayette features the famous Blue Dog and other paintings loaned by native-born artist George Rodrigue (son Andre is a part owner), and delicious crab cake benedict (think crab instead of egg) at Sunday brunch.
Also in Lafayette, Don's Seafood & Steakhouse downtown, and Randol's and Prejean's farther out keep the standards high. And don't forget Mulate's in Breaux Bridge, which dares anyone to dispute its trademarked claim as "the original Cajun Restaurant."
INFORMATION
There's a lot more, of course. Find it through the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission, P.O. Box 52066, Lafayette, LA 70505; 800-346-1958. www.lafayettetravel.com.
Robert Cross
rcross@tribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/chi-0602250268feb26,1,6485433.story?coll=chi-travel-hed
