Frenchy in the USA: Lafayette Cajun Festival

A couple weeks ago I went to the Festival Acadiens and Creoles in Lafayette to listen to some cajun music and Zydeco and eat good cajun and creole food. Lovely afternoon.

For those who don't know, who are the Cajuns?

"Acadians, or Cajuns as they are now called, were exiled from Nova Scotia in 1755. They carried away a rich cultural heritage, which included a blend of French, Celtic, Scots-Irish and Native American influences. This mixture is evident in a rich oral tradition and repertoire of songs and dances. By the turn of the twentieth century, increasing homogenization of the United States threatened to doom the French language to obscurity. Early versions of the Louisiana constitution made valiant attempts to legitimize the use of French, but America charged on with the nationalism movement. The approach of World War I induced a quest for national unity, which suppressed regional diversity.
In 1916, mandatory English language education was made available to the rest of Louisiana and was imposed in the South. French was trampled in a frontal assault on illiteracy. Several generations of Cajuns and Créoles were eventually convinced that speaking french was a sign of cultural illegitimacy. In the late 1940's the tide seemed to turn. Soldiers in France during World War II discovered that the language and culture they had been told to forget made them invaluable as interpreters and made surviving generally easier. After the war, returning GI's immersed themselves in their own culture. Dance halls throughout South Louisiana once again blared the familiar and comforting sounds of homemade music.
In 1968, the State of Louisiana officially recognized the Cajun cultural revival by creating the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL). CODOFIL began its efforts on political, psychological and educational fronts to erase the stigma Louisianans had long attached to the French language and culture. In addition to creating French classes in elementary schools, CODOFIL organized the first Tribute to Cajun Music Festival in 1974."

My own video didn't want to load, so I am showing here a video found online from a previous year. I chose it because you can hear them talk and sing in French. A very particular kind of French obviously. It is almost impossible for me to understand anything when they sing it...

Zydeco dancing:

You think those two are happy to dance?

Bringing your own couch to the event seem to be the thing to do

Little girl playing in the mud

Of course the best local restaurants and caterers prepare their specialties. You can go from one booth to another and taste all those yummy local dishes:

Soft-shell crab - crab cooked when it's molting. Its shell isn't hard, so you can it it all.

Boudin - Cajun boudin is a sausage stuffed with porc, rice, a mix of onion, bellpeppers, celeri and spices. Nothing to do with our french boudin (blood sausage).