Laissez les bons temps rouler! Trouble is, ever since Katrina, the good times haven’t exactly been rolling in Louisiana. Has a state been more affected by disaster, for as long of a time, than Louisiana since late August 2005? Not so far in our lifetimes.
Louisiana State Capitol
I had the good fortune to visit southern Louisiana a little more than five years before Katrina. My vivid memories are of the food, the music, the food, the people, the food, the history, the food, the culture, the food… Louisiana deserves my highest compliment: it’s unlike anywhere else on earth.
I just love Cajun cuisine. There is no such thing as too spicy, in my book, so I’m in heaven there. The seafood is so incredible; the flavor pairings so unique. The people there LOVE to eat; they have a joy about their region and a welcoming, warm attitude towards visitors.
The best starting point for this experience is, of course, New Orleans. It’s my understanding that the areas most frequented by tourists have long since returned back to normal. Although we only spent the equivalent of a day there, we covered a lot of ground, including Bourbon Street, which, like Las Vegas or Orlando, is worth seeing… once; the Garden District, which is beautiful… be sure to take a streetcar; a swamp tour (very, very touristy); and one restaurant after another.
Surprising for us, our best meal, though, was not in New Orleans but in Baton Rouge. I wish I can remember the name of it; no matter, because there are so many Cajun- and Creole-cuisine restaurants in this region, you can’t go wrong. My sense, however, is that Baton Rouge’s charms are primarily limited to the kitchen. Maybe it’s because, just north of the capitol complex, there are seemingly miles and miles of chemical plants belching God-knows-what into the sky. Or maybe it’s because the capitol itself, America’s tallest, just doesn’t do it for me (the bullet holes from the assassination of former Governor and then-U.S. Senator Huey Long are pretty cool, though.) It’s kind of a gussied-up North Dakota capitol… built around the same, utilitarian time.
Louisiana is, like Florida, more like the rest of the socially conservative South the farther north you go. The spicy, exotic stuff is all in the southern part of the state.
