Exploring The Culinary Back Roads Of Louisiana And Mississippi

If you want to embark on a culinary adventure, consider traveling the back roads of Louisiana and Mississippi.  What better way to immerse yourself into a different culture then to dig into the cuisine of the local eateries?

This is a fun way to experience new and enticing flavors to delight your taste buds.  Some of the best places to find that distinctive down home taste of the South is off the beaten path.  So, fill up the gas tank and make sure you’re good and hungry, then see where the back roads take you! 

Local Food Festivals

Dishes typical of Louisiana Creole cuisine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

No matter where you are in the South, you can tell food is a huge part of the culture.  People celebrate their love of food by holding festivals throughout the year.  Locals and tourists alike can experience everything there is to offer in southern cuisine by just taking off down the road.  If you smell food in the air, there's probably a festival going on somewhere.  Just follow your nose! 

Visitors can participate as 'taste testers' in gumbo, jambalaya, sausage, sweet potato pie, or barbeque cook-offs just about anytime of year.  Crawfish boils are going on in just about every roadside joint in the region.  And, we can’t forget about Mardi Gras.  Even though the big celebration you may hear about takes place in New Orleans, almost every little town in the region has some sort of celebration during the week before Lent.

Culinary Trails

Over the years there have been a number of culinary trails created to showcase the local food and heritage.  These trails span across the states and give visitors the chance to experience the cuisine of that specific area.  Cooks in the region come together and promote their culture, bringing stories of past history to life with their food.  You not only get to experience the cuisine in a different light, but meet the people behind these amazing dishes. 

Mississippi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Mississippi check out 'The Delta' trail, which contains such a mixture of many different people and their cultures that each dish shows off the diverse history and culinary abilities.  In Louisiana you will find yourself immersed in the heritage along trails like the 'Bayou Bounty.'  Both of these destinations will give your tastes buds their own little holiday.

Ask the Locals

The locals love to express and share their passion for food and will have no problem giving you suggestions on what to eat and where to find it.  Be prepared to take the side roads if you are serious about immersing yourself in Southern cuisine.  It’s not uncommon to find some of the best dishes you'll ever enjoy this way.

Get out your maps and plug in your GPS.  Be spontaneous, prepare yourself for the back roads, and experience all the tasty cuisine and intriguing culture these Southern states have to offer!

Recipe: Pecan Praline Macaroons

For dessert, or a special treat, try these Louisiana-inspired treats! New Orleans is famous for it's pecan pralines, and this easy and scrumptious recipe shows you why. This one is a twist on the classic praline, and it's so simple you'll want to make it again and again.

Pecan Praline Macaroons
(Makes about 24 macaroons.)

(Photo credit: Pomax)

Ingredients:

3 large egg whites, room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 cup pecans, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a cold mixing bowl, put the egg whites and beat with a mixer until they form peaks. Then, with mixer running, slowly add in the brown sugar, beating until you get stiff peaks.
3. Carefully fold in the pecans using a rubber spatula.
4. On a cookie sheet, drop heaping teaspoons of mixture allowing for room to spread.
5. Bake in preheated over for 30.  Keep your eye on them.  You want the macaroons to be hard and still shiny.
6. Remove and allow to cool at room temperature on a cooling rack.

Louisiana Celebrates - Food & Festivals Around The State

If you want to learn about a region's culture, eat their food and join in their festivals!  When a state celebrates, you get a serious taste of what the local history is all about.  When you dive into the cuisine of a local festival, listen to their music, and listen to the people, you can't help but hear the heartbeat of a region.

The state of Louisiana has more than her fair share of festivals.  Louisiana has been referred to as the 'Festival Capital of the World' due to the sheer number of festivals found throughout the state.  At one count there were over 400 festivals throughout the year, some big, some small.  No matter what the focus – music, food, heritage, arts, crafts, dance, holidays – a Louisiana festival is bound to please every participant.  Let's take a look.

Festivals You Might Expect

Crawfish and tiki people. Mardi Gras street costumers in the French Quarter. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We can't talk about festivals in Louisiana without talking about Mardi Gras.  But, do you know what Mardi Gras is all about?  This is a huge celebration in early Spring, culminating with Fat Tuesday (tomorrow!), the  day before Ash Wednesday which is the beginning of Lent on the church calendar.  This festival is all about having a last big party before the sacrifices of Lent begin.  Fat Tuesday is meant to be a 'devil may care' day of decadence; eat, drink, and be merry.  Even though New Orleans has become famous for merry-making during Mardi Gras, other cities, like Mobile and Baton Rouge have huge celebrations, many dating back to before New Orleans even considered having a Mardi Gras parade.

Along with Mardi Gras, seafood festivals abound!   Location demands this abundant resource be celebrated, cooked, and eaten in large quantities.  You certainly expect to find festivals like the Louisiana Seafood Festival or the Bridge City Gumbo Festival.  And, you know there's got to be some good catfish at the Franklin Parish Catfish Festival in Winnsboro.

When crawfish are in season, you can hardly turn a corner without finding a festival featuring these tasty crustaceans.  At the Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival in May, you'll be able to sample huge flats of boiled crawfish, along with crawfish baked in pies, cooked up in gumbo, or featured in all sorts of ways you simply can't resist.  Remember, when you search for crawfish festivals, include the word 'mudbugs.'  Otherwise, you might miss out on a few, such as the Mudbug Madness Festival in Shreveport.  Truth be known, you could eat nothing but crawfish, or 'mudbugs,' for months at Louisiana festivals. Crawfish were one of my favorite things about living in Louisiana, and I still miss them all these years later!

Music festivals are also abundant, which shouldn't surprise you in this land of American music.  You'll find the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, and the Creole Zydeco Festival, just to name a few.

Crawfish mound (Photo credit: izik)

Festivals That May Surprise You

Once we wander beyond the well known Louisiana favorites, there are some celebrations that may surprise you.  Louisiana is nothing if it is not diverse.  Beyond seafood and jazz, what does Louisiana have to offer?  A lot!

Enjoy a sweet treat at the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival.  Find new and wonderful ways to enjoy tomatoes at the Creole Tomato Festival in New Orleans,.  If you're in the vicinity of  Farmerville, sink your teeth in some sweet goodness at the Watermelon Festival.  If you think yams and sweet potatoes need celebrating, dig in at the Yambilee Festival in Opelousas.  There's even a Rice Festival.  Trust Louisiana to make rice exciting and delicious!

Want more food?  Join in the fun at the Natchitoches Meat Pie Festival in September.  Craving sweets?    Take a trip to enjoy a few slices of  pie at the Lecompte Pie Festival in October.  If you haven't had your fill of music yet, but want to experience something surprising, check out the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans or the Zydeco Festival in LaBeau.

Scroll through any Louisiana festival website and you'll find pages and pages of festivals, big and small, literally every day of the year.  You can hardly throw a stone in the state without hitting a festival tent!  Fill up your car and hit the road.  You will never regret exploring the Louisiana festival scene - or it's food.

And if you want to bring some Louisiana flavor to your own kitchen, be sure to check out this week's and last week's recipes for some good eats at home!

Recipe: Sweet Potato Pecan Crusted Beignets

Nothing says New Orleans like beignets! In this recipe, these classically rich fried pastries are given a special twist with the addition of sweet potatoes and pecans. Pack some of these in your satchel and head out to the parades for a day full of tasty fun!

Sweet Potato Pecan Crusted Beignets

Ingredients:

Beignets! (Photo credit: cplbasilisk)

2 medium sweet potatoes, baked
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed tight
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 egg whites
Oil for frying
1 cup finely ground pecans, put in shallow bowl
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Directions:

• Bake the sweet potatoes in 350-degree oven for about 1 hour, or until soft. Cool, then cut in half and scoop insides out into a large bowl and mash with a potato masher until well blended and as smooth as you can get them.
• Add the egg yolk, brown Sugar, flour, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg; use a hand beater or masher and mix until well combined.
• In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form; fold the egg whites into the sweet potato mixture in bowl. Be gentle when you fold in the egg whites so you don't deflate them.
• In a large deep heavy skillet or saucepan, heat about 2 inches of frying oil until hot, but don't allow to get hot enough to smoke. Use a high heat oil, such as peanut oil.
• Form the beignets by dropping a spoonful of sweet potato batter into the pecans in the shallow bowl, rolling it around until it's coated with the pecans.
• Carefully drop the balls into the hot oil and fry until golden brown, turning once; about 4 to 5 minutes total time.
• Be sure not to overcrowd the saucepan or the oil will cool and the beignets will get soggy.
• Remove each beignet as it browns and put it on a paper towel covered cooling rack; sprinkle with sugar.
• Keep warm if you wish on a baking sheet in an oven set on low.

Mardi Gras Cooking Cajun Style

This time of year always makes me think of my time spent down "on the bayou" during graduate school.... While I didn't love everything about Louisiana, one thing I did love was the food! And during Mardi Gras was no exception. (I have some VERY fond memories of a Mardi Gras table laden with crawfish.... One of the best dinners I ever had in my life!)

Cajun Zydeco A. Kassebaum (28) (Photo credit: EBRPD Public Affairs)Mardi Gras is a special time of year down in Cajun Country. Even if you don't live down around New Orleans you can still celebrate some of the fun revelry associated with Mardi Gras by throwing a grand old meal fitting of King Rex himself. The trick with bringing Mardi Gras to the Midwest or wherever you may be is to also bring the celebratory state of mind that makes Mardi Gras such a fun and enjoyable event for people from all over the world. And if you're having trouble getting into the spirit, a bowl or two of gumbo followed by a hand grenade or hurricane and topped off with some Mardi Gras music should do the trick quite nicely.

A large part of the charm and intrigue of Mardi Gras and the city of New Orleans is the food that has made this city almost as famous as its ability to party. If you are wondering what to cook to bring the spirit of Mardi Gras into your home from afar try any of the traditional favorites. If ingredients prove difficult to come by, you might want to add a little rice, a little spice, and a lot of hot sauces to your favorite family meal.

Those who live in New Orleans often use rice to stretch the budget of the food. Rice is filling and has traditionally been quite cost effective. This makes rice a great meal for many of the families of New Orleans that have traditionally been quite poor. Rice is used in all manner of dishes from gumbo to red beans and rice to jambalaya and many dishes in between. It is probably the one staple of Cajun cuisine that you will find very few restaurants in the city without. Otherwise there are wide variances in cuisine according to cost and culture (though the more expensive foods are typically considered Creole rather than Cajun).

Spices are prevalent in these dishes for much the same reason that rice is. They have traditionally been an inexpensive method of seasoning dishes that would otherwise be quite bland (or that weren't quite fresh, back in the old days before refrigerators abounded). Expect to find plenty of spices and a little bit of heat in most traditional Cajun dishes throughout the city. Some restaurants that cater to tourists have slightly watered down versions of local favorites but for the most part you will find that Cajuns handle the heat quite well though they do keep plenty of iced tea on tap to help combat those dishes that get a teensy bit too hot to handle.

Image via WikipediaIf you want to try something with a little less kick a po-boy or muffaletta might be what hits the spot. These sandwiches are more than a little deceiving in appearance however as they are very filling. French fries are still a Cajun favorite though we also have a popular dish called fried sweet potatoes (yes in the south we fry everything, but it is something a little bit different and the sweetness of the fried sweet potatoes can often counteract some of the heat of other Cajun favorites). You can find recipes for all of these online quite easily though you will probably have a bit of time finding the perfect bread for a po boy anywhere outside the Crescent City. There is a unique "chewiness" to the perfect po boy bread that may be imitated elsewhere but I've never quite found anything to compare and I've been all over the country.

For the perfect finish for your Cajun cooking you should make a point of purchasing some chicory coffee. This is easily accomplished online if your local coffee shop doesn't have any on hand. Historically, chicory was added to coffee and often used instead of coffee because it was much cheaper than actual coffee. This meant it could stretch the more expensive coffee beans and provide a similar taste and texture with that hint of chicory. It's a rather unique flavor and for many people is synonymous with the city itself.

Try out some of these ideas, and you'll find it quite easy to plan your Mardi Gras cooking no matter how far from New Orleans you may roam. And for some great Cajun recipes, be sure to check back later this week - I'll be sharing one of my favorite gumbo recipes, which I've been greatly enjoying this past week!

More Cajun Cooking Resources: