There are no hard and fast rules about boudin.
People don’t even agree on how to pronounce it. Some people say this tasty, sausage-like,
south Louisiana finger food should be called “boo-dan.” Others add a little French flourish on the
end and say “boo-dehh.”
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| Boudin on a plate. Lake Charles CVB |
Either way, it’s usually pork mixed with rice, onion, green
pepper and seasonings, pulverized in a meat grinder, stuffed in a sausage
casing and eaten steaming hot.
But you
can also add beef, liver, alligator tails, shrimp or crawfish. You can snack on it for breakfast, lunch or
dinner. It can be served fancy on lettuce,
tossed on a hot dog bun, boiled, smoked, grilled, made into little balls or
jammed in an egg roll and deep fried.
Just about the only thing certain with boudin is, if
you’re eating it, that means you’re somewhere in south Louisiana. And as they say down there, that means “you’re
eat’n good.”
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| Boudin on a bun |
Homemade boudin is found in snack shacks, Cajun restaurants
and convenience stores along the Boudin Trail, which follows Interstate 10 as
it slices west to east across Louisiana from Texas to Baton Rouge. This is where the West meets the South, with a
whole lot of African, French and Spanish culture thrown into the pot, all making
for one rich and tasty gumbo of a regional cuisine.
And it’s culinary tourism of the Boudin Trail that is
helping Lake Charles, Louisiana, a city of 75,000, explode with gorgeous new
resorts and Las Vegas-chic gambling casinos. Of course, Lake Charles is also the 12th
largest port in the U.S., but it’s certainly not the oil & gas industry
that’s causing a boom right now.
There
are more than 6,000 hotel rooms in the Lake Charles area (roughly one for every
12 residents) with more on the way. The
thousands of tourists heading this direction are coming for food, golf,
gambling....and strangely enough, gators.
Nearby Cameron Parish (they call a county down here a “parish”) has the
highest concentration of alligators in North America – two gators for every
human. There are also 400 species of
birds, making it one of the principal birding centers of the nation.
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| Pretty Lake Charles |
Of course, it hasn’t hurt that southern Louisiana has also
become the new Hollywood with dozens of film and TV series from True Blood to True Detective being filmed in the area. The word has gone out to film producers, if
you want crazy, from vampires to voodoo to ritualistic serial killers, in a
bizarre and atmospheric landscape of petro-chemical plants, bayou waterways and
cyprus swamps, all with a distinctive regional music, language and food, then
south Louisiana is the place for you.
So bring an appetitie and a belt with some extra loop
holes and here are some things to do in Lake Charles.
EAT:
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| Shrimp boil |
Boudin, like almost every type of food in southern
Louisiana, goes back to the region’s complicated cultural past. Cajun refers to French colonists who were
thrown out of eastern Canada by the British in 1755 and ended up scrubbing out
a living in the bayous, prairies and backwoods of Louisiana as hunters, anglers
and trappers. They brought with them the
French language, Catholic religion, a love of fiddle music and flavorful and
spicy food, such as blackened fish that got its taste from being cooked in a
hot iron pan. Most of their dishes can
be made in one pot.
Creole comes from the Portuguese word “crioulu,” which
means “homegrown” and originally referred to anyone of European or African
descent who was born in the New World.
Today, it’s come to mean a mingling of African, French and Spanish
language, culture and cuisine, which features more elaborate ingredients and
courses.
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| Oysters on the shell |
But in the end, who cares? You’ll see both words used to describe the
seafood gumbos, jambalaya, crawfish Étouffée, shrimp creole, fried catfish,
shrimp boils, smoked sausage and po-boy oyster sandwiches that are just some of
the local treats.
RESORT:
There are four massive casinos in Lake Charles, but it
does them a disservice to describe them as such. They are actually full resort cities. The Golden Nugget with 740-rooms and 300 more
coming and the 1,000-room L’Auberge are connected by a boardwalk and beach
along the Bayou Contraband. There are
golf courses, stunning pools, spas, a dozen restaurants … and a view of a
petro-chemical plant with huge tanker ships sailing by. Welcome to Louisiana. It’s strange mixture that somehow all
works. Locals and tourists blend in the
resorts, which have live music, food and much more than gaming.
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| The Golden Nugget |
NATURE:
The Creole Nature Trail is one of only 43 roads in the
nation proclaimed to be “All-American Roads.”
It’s the perfect introduction to the wild ecosystems of Louisiana’s
Outback, which includes fresh and salt water marshes, cypress swamps, and some
other nasty looking terrain – all teaming with alligators, snakes, frogs and
some of the most beautiful birds on the planet.
You might not want to be out here walking alone at night, but with
guides, it can be wonderful.
GrosseSavanne EcoTours will take you by boat onto their 500-acre private marsh, where
you can glide silently up to herons, roseate spoonbills, sandhill cranes and
pelicans. There are 30 miles of marsh
between Lake Charles and the gulf. This
is the type of “off the grid” area where True
Blood takes place.
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| Boat tours into marshes and bayous. |
It’s easy to
believe that a town of vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters could exist completely
unknown back here. At Cameron Prairie
National Wildlife Refuge, you can stroll on boardwalks through the swamp and
get fabulous photos of hundreds of birds taking to the air. There’s fishing and crabbing…and if you make
it to the gulf, 26 miles of beaches for swimming and shelling.
MARDI GRAS:
Although America’s most famous party parades through the
French Quarter of New Orleans, Lake Charles offers the nation’s second largest
Mardi Gras – a more family friendly affair where regular people can mingle with
the krewes (the groups that stage the parades) the night before Fat Tuesday
(something that would NEVER happen in exclusive New Orleans). Lake Charles has 75
floats where the Kings, Queens, Maids and Dukes of the crew throw literally
millions of beads to the throngs of people along the route.
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| King Charles at the 2016 Mardi Gras |
Any day of the year, you can see the world’s largest collection
of Mardi Gras costumes in a simply incredible, rat’s nest of a museum – the
Mardi Gras Museum of Imperial Calcasieu.
It’s a hoot. Twisting and turning
hallways take you through a never-ending collection of over-the-top feather and
sequin costumes, many of which you can try on for photo opps.
Or even better, hop on a float yourself and participate
in one of the true fun events of the region – a Chicken Run. In the nearby town of Iowa (pronounced
Eye-Oh-Way) a half-dozen floats (flatbed trucks with a port-a-potty strapped
on) drive through rural neighborhoods, stopping at various houses where the
“Captain” will dance until people in the house provide an ingredient for
gumbo. The parade continues, collecting
chicken, rice, okra, spices, and other ingredients, which are all then cooked
up into a giant meal for the whole community.
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| On the Chicken Run |
Along the way, the captain lets loose a poor rooster, which is then
chased by dozens of kids across the countryside. Don’t ask why. It’s just fun. There’s a zydeco band (a blend of accordion,
washboard, spoons, fiddle and anything else that makes noise)…and each float
has plenty of beer (hence the strap-on port-a-pottys.)
CULTURE:
South Louisiana is a strange and different land inhabited
by friendly and fun-loving people who know how to cook. Millions of visitors are familiar with New
Orleans, but it’s definitely worth the time to get out into the countryside and
see the wild landscape that created Cajun and Creole cooking, meet the people,
and enjoy their language, accents, music and absolutely unique lifestyle.
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| Crayfish boil. www.lindseyjanies.com |
You can do no better for a guide than to
search down Harold Guillory, the Lake Charles King of zydeco dance, and get a
lesson on this easy dance step. Google
him on Youtube, and you’re on your way!
IF YOU GO: www.visitlakecharles.org
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