Acadians and zydeco

By Steve Beard and Troy Meier

Entry 8. Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Click photos to enlarge

This morning was lazy. We got up and had a cup of coffee in our room. By the way, there is not one single Starbucks that we have seen thus far in the entire state of Louisiana. I am sure there must be one somewhere, but you can be blindfolded and dropped out of a plane over Los Angeles, London, Chicago, Seattle, or New York City and hit a Starbucks. Here, it is Community Coffee with chicory (here is why). Anyway, we had our cup of Community Coffee and then hopped on over to Edie's for lunch.

Edie's is actually too nice to be our kind of place. All of the patrons were well scrubbed middle-management types who flock to Edie's for the great food. What it lacks in any kind of cool stuff on the walls or atmosphere, it more than made up for an exceedingly helpful and radiant food servers (called Edie's Sweeties). Today's special was fried chicken (which they call "world famous"). So be it. It was great. The veggies, mashed potatoes, and yams were terrific, but the chicken is the star.

My cold has migrated to my ear and it is driving me nuts. Memphis was freezing and rainy. Louisiana is hot as blazes and humid. Ugghh. I am taking medicine, but apparently not the right kind. This is a real drag. It just hurts to swallow now. Not great when you are traveling around wanting to eat.

We decided to be studious and went over to the Acadian Cultural Center run by the University of Louisiana and the National Park Service. Yeah, it is ok. They show two movies. The first one is the history of these poor French Catholic Canadians from Nova Scotia (New France) who got kicked out of their country and ended up in Louisiana. It was a bit melodramatic, and in some places kinda spooky, but it was helpful. The second film was about the Atchafalaya Swamp. Now, that was great. Too bad it was only 15 minutes long.

We then drove across town to Acadian Village, which is kind of a Williamsburg type deal (pictured above and to the right). It was pretty cool if you like that kind of thing.

Dinner was had at Randols, a highly-recommended Cajun restaurant. Monday night is not a great night there because hardly anyone was there. It is a cavernous place. When there are only a half dozen tables being used and a Cajun band is about a 75 yard dance floor away, it is kind of strange.

We had some spectacular crawfish cakes with just the right amount of zip. I had crawfish enchiladas and Troy had the catfish etouffee. Mine was superb, his was good, but not as good as the same dish at D.I.'s in Eunice.

There was a group of jr. high students who showed up to receive Cajun dance lessons. We were watching the Yankees vs. Red Socks game while we kept a second eye on the lesson in the event we are ever asked to dance. Fat chance.

Troy did some digging and found out that there was a zydeco and blues jam session at the Flamingo Club (these pictures were taken the next day in the sunlight). Zydeco is kind of a jazzed up and funked up version of Cajun music with more of an R&B feel. As we drove through the neighborhood, I got a little nervous. I was, quite frankly, not sure how the locals were going to react to us.

When we walked in, there were exactly seven white people (two big lesbian gals, three Eurotrash folks, and us). Everyone else was from the neighborhood. It was the kind of juke joint that you would imagine being seen in a movie like Animal House when the frat boys went to go see Otis Day and the Knights at the all-black club ("Otis, my man. He loves us!"). Unlike the reception that the frat boys received in the movie, we were graciously welcomed. Everyone was way cool with us being there and we dug the show -- and it was free, which was the first thing we have done on this trip that didn't cost money.

Terry and the Zydeco Bad Boys tore the place to pieces. They are a terrific band. We chatted with Terry (pictured right) and a few of his bandmates out in the parking lot and then we hauled out of there.

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