Rightfully so, for many people the end of April in New Orleans means it is once again time for that glorious experience we know as Jazz Fest.
As usual with this column, I will only briefly touch upon this mega event, leaving OffBeat to present its excellent coverage we have come to expect in this jam-packed Issue.
Jazz Fest is one of the best parties we put on in the state. I say we because as much as it would like to think of itself as the Supreme Being, it takes the entire city coming together to cultivate an experience that most music lovers see as fantasy. Local music clubs and musicians work until dawn to entertain the crowds after the Fair Grounds gates have closed.
To say nothing of a few hundred workers at the Jazz Fest: carpenters, the staff caterers, clean-up crews, office workers, artists, food vendors and the 800 volunteers who put in their sweat for weeks to build the Jazz Fest city.
Local residents good-naturedly endure traffic jams and packed restaurants as they graciously play host to thousands of visitors. And it is all worth it. Each year the Jazz Fest organizers present us with an unparalleled music experience that reminds us how lucky we are to live in a state with such an abundance of music, food and thriving cultural traditions.
But on to other festivals of the month and the Capitals of the World. The first weekend of May, the little town Breaux Bridge explodes with thousands of visitors as they stop in to enjoy the annual Crawfish Festival (April 30 – May 2).
For those who want to immerse themselves in Cajun culture, this festival offers some of the best music to be found in South Louisiana. Musically, once the festival officially opens on Friday evening until the 5 p.m. closing on Sunday, two stages present the best Cajun bands in the world with some zydeco thrown in too.
Although I wasn’t able to.get the exact line-up for this year, many of the same bands come back year after year. Acts such as Bois Sec Ardoin, BeauSoleil, Blackie Forrestier, Beau Jocque, Chris Ardoin and Wayne Toups can usually be heard, as well as Nonc Allie, File, Boozoo, Jambalaya, Keith Frank, the Bluerunners, Nathan & Zydeco Cha Cha’s, D.L. Menard, Hunter Hayes and Rosie Ledet.
Pounds of crawfish are boiled on the spot (about $6 for a portion) and about 20 other food vendors offer everything from crawfish etouffee, stew, fettucine and boudin lofried mls. Non-crawfish dishes include red beans and rice, Asian food, blackened fish, grilled chicken, sausage and poboys.
Throughout the weekend various demonstrations are staged-cooking, bouree, fiddle making and Cajun dancing. You might also want to time your visit to coincide with the crawfish races and crawfish eating contest around 3 p.m. Saturday.
Every eating contest abides by particular rules and for this one they’ve gone to the limit by allowing 45 full minutes of consumption before crowning the winner. That’s a long time! The contestants, if they don’t drop out, eat in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 pounds each. There are dozens of local craft booths and carnival rides all weekend.
This festival has also turned into something of a freak event because of the massive amount of cars that clog the roads. Not only will you find about 300 RVers camped out along the main thoroughfares, but this festival has built up quite the reputation among college kids who use this event as a chance to have a big cruise-fest throughout. the town.
Once you’re on the festival site in Parc Hardy, the crowds are large but very tolerable, it’s just making your way there that seems to be a problem. (311-332- 6655)
Breaux Bridge isn’t known as the “Crawfish Capital of the World” for nothing. Ever since the decision was made to move the festival in 1982 from its downtown location, to help get a grip on some the rowdiness, there have been two crawfish festivals in this town on the same weekend.
But this year it gets even more confusing. Apparently city officials haven’t been too happy with the way the Crustacean Festival has been produced in the last few years so the latest scuttlebut says that it has been turned over to a new group.
This particular festival, located on the Armory Hall grounds, is primarily a zydeco music festival with plenty of boiled crawfish and a few carnival rides.
The Crustacean Festival may take place as scheduled, but the previous organizers have already decided to have a crawfish boil of their own. According to Felix Menard, who was a little difficult to understand on the phone, he’s gonna be about 3-4 miles outside south of Breaux Bridge (towards the town of Parks) at the True Friend Dance Hall boiling up crawfish.
On Friday evening and Saturday they plan to have plenty of zydeco with Beau Jocque, Keith Frank and others performing. This should be a pretty down-home gathering, just the thing zydeco lovers from around the country are looking for when they come to Louisiana. My best advice is to just sran asking questions once you make it to Breaux Bridge. (Felix Menard, 318- 332-0974).
We are meat eaters here In Louisiana. Forger dainty bar-b-ques. Why not just fill a pavilion the size of a basketball court with burning wood and let it burn through the night as it cooks the sides of hogs that dangle around the perimeter?
Mansura’s Cochon de Lait, (May 6 – 9) basically a pig roast, has been a popular event for this sparsely populated part of the state for 25 years. Throughout the weekend there are carnival rides and games with all kinds of contests on Saturday hog calling, beer drinking, watermelon eating, boudin eating and greasy pig chasing. This year they also have the special attraction of a Monster Truck Show and Rides. Alright, Bubba.
The band Cajun Born plays Thursday evening, and on Friday, there’ll be a street dance with Richard Le Bouef & Two Step plus music by Joe Stampley and the Original Uniques. Saturday is a full day of music performed by The Monica Cajun Band, The Cary Cooley Band and the James Younger Band, and that evening Waylon Thibodeaux as well as Swamp Pop Review with special guests Johnnie Allan and G.G. Shinn.
During the weekend there are about a dozen food booths serving up regional favorites: jambalaya, boudin, cracklins, sausage and hogs head cheese. On Saturday night you’ll want to rake a break from the music and beers to rake in the unusual scene of the huge fire that’s continuously fed by truckloads of wood. By Sunday morning the pork has been fully cooked and Cochon de Lait plate lunches are served up with rice, stuffing, yams and slaw.
The festival winds down by about 2 p.m just after a performance of music by Hank & Elvis, King to King, A Tribute. Mansura is located about 30 minutes offl-49 about 45 miles southeast of Alexandria. (318-964-2887, admission)
Practically every festival in the stare has at least one booth that serves up a bowl of jambalaya, bur you’ll find much more than one bowl at the “Jambalaya Capital of the World.” Gonzales’ Jambalaya Festival (May 28 – 30) begins the important task of choosing the World Champion Jambalaya Cook early on Saturday morning when about 15 contestants show up for the firs of three preliminary hears that take place over the next two days. The final competition between the top three winners of each of the previous hears is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.
This is a very precise competition. Each cook is supplied with 45 lbs. of chicken, 15 lbs. of long grain rice and rhe cook’s requested quantities of garlic, green onions, bell peppers, celery, salt, ground pepper or hot sauces. This means that all the jambalayas are very similar and it is the skill and finesse of the individual cooks that makes one version stand out from the others. After the judging, around 11 a.m. and 5 p.m each day, all the pars of jambalaya are brought inside the American Legion Hall and served to the public, plate lunch style with coleslaw and bread for around $4.
My only real gripe about the festival is because the way the plate lunches are sold, you really don’t get to do your own taste comparisons and more importantly, you never know from which pot the jambalaya is served. My rip of the day would be to bring your own bowl and wander around, just after the samples have been provided to the judges, and the cooks should be more than willing to offer a little sample for your own taste test.
The hears are followed by live music, mostly country with touches of 50’s & Cajun thrown in, performed on the parking lot stage erected if front of the hall. A small park area contains about a dozen small carnival rides. Also on hand are half a dozen food vendors who sell burgers, hot dogs, poboys, crawfish etouffee and drinks. The last heat includes the top nine cooks of the weekend and the new Jambalaya Cooking Champion is chosen, winning bragging rights and $500. (225-647-9566).
