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God Bless Louisiana
"If Landrieu loses, the Republicans will have a two vote majority in the Senate, and we'll finally be able to roll back the government," my dear friend proclaimed over the phone in his quasi-Aussie accent. (His father is an Aussie libertarian in good standing, and a heck of a good writer, and should be writing for LRC. He gave me the first libertarian book I ever owned, Mises' Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition. He's also a big fan of Lew, natch.) "Uh-huh," I replied, which was followed by a silence of significant length. He already knows how I feel, but he doesn't stop trying. "Oh, Brian ...," he begins. I respond, "Well, if you mean the probability of shrinking the government with the Republicans in control of the Senate is increased from one in a billion to one in a million, I would have to agree with you. But I don't think history provides much encouragement." Well, it wasn't to be – Landrieu won. But did you hear? There's been talk of election fraud. Imagine that – election fraud in Louisiana! At
least they like to keep their fraud local, unlike their neighbor
Florida. If a state wants to select a government official by reading
tea leaves, that's their own damned business. But there are far more interesting things to consider as I look toward my friends to the east. They're fierce independence, for starters. Some time ago (between three and seventeen years) I had to laugh when I crossed the border on I-10 into Louisiana from Texas (I swear there's a time warp when you cross that border). Even without a sign, it was pretty darned obvious when I'd crossed. "Chu-chunk, chu-chunk." They refused to cave-in to the feds, so they lost the fed money that would have kept up their interstates. I believe at the time the sticking point was the drinking age – Louisiana wanted to keep it at eighteen. In contrast, a former governor of Texas who happened to become president sold out to the feds for an amount approximately equal to the operating budget of the University of Texas for one day. As reward, Texans received a reduction in the Blood Alcohol Level (from 0.10 to 0.08%) by which the State can ruin your life for violating the rights of no one. Incidentally, a few months ago the legal driving age in Texas was increased from sixteen to eighteen. (Overnight, the high school parking lots are empty.) Of course, the ferocity of these ragtag Bayou folk (including Jean Lafitte, who spent a lot of time here on my home of Clear Lake) repelled the English in The Battle of New Orleans. (Providential weather also surely played a part.) Sadly,
until The Battle of New Orleans, the war was all but won by the
English (with the White House, Capitol, and War and Treasury buildings
in flames, British generals are said to have been making toasts
at Rhoades Tavern, in proximity to the famous Old Ebbitt Grill),
and New England was ready to secede and rejoin the "mother country."
Oh, so close. Just think how U.S. history might have gone without New England in the fold – no radical and violent revolutionaries trying to tell everyone what not to drink, what to think, with whom to associate, etc. Probably no War Between the States. And perhaps best of all, no Kennedys, and no Bushes. (Sigh.) (Oops, I had better shut my big mouth – this is how Trent Lott got into hot water. I don't want to end up in the same re-education camp as he.) But
of course neither the famous English-hater Andrew Jackson (he had
very personal reasons for being so) nor any of his brave comrades
could have foreseen any of this. And after all, they meant well
– at least they were trying to re-expel the British Empire. The world owes so much to Louisiana culture – musical, literary, and culinary – it's in fact obvious to say so. But I must say the greatest influence on me has been the culinary. I would hate to think of life without my morning Café du Monde coffee. Aside from the wonderful smooth taste, the chicory makes it easy on my sometimes acid stomach, especially when I've just returned from Margaritaville. (And no, I don't prefer the burnt offerings found at Starbucks.) (The French also introduced this coffee to the Indochinese – so I'm able to buy it a local Oriental market (no, I won't say Asian) for about half the price I would pay in the yuppie markets. When one walks into the market, crates and crates of Café du Monde and sweetened condensed milk are stacked near the front of the store.) And one of my very favorite restaurants in Houston is Brennan's. My preferred meal there is the three-soup sampler (including the world's most heavenly turtle soup – you wouldn't believe how many ingredients go into that soup), Southern Pecan Fish with a Creole Meunière Sauce, accompanied with Popcorn Rice and a sauté of green vegetables. And naturally, complemented with champagne throughout. To top it all off, bread pudding with coffee. (My only complaint is that they stopped serving coffee with chicory, supposedly because of customer preference.) As you're leaving, a giant mound of pralines (the taste of which is not to be believed) is present, which the proprietors encourage their customers to stuff into their pockets as they depart. (You can learn how to make all of this with Brennan's of Houston In Your Kitchen.) I prefer the Sunday brunch. When I was last there, entertaining the guests was a small jazz ensemble and a vocalist – a charming and very rotund black woman who looked and sounded as though she were right off the plantation. I haven't attempted very much Creole or Cajun cooking, but I have developed a recipe for gumbo that suits my taste. And, as with so many great Louisiana recipes, it starts with bacon drippings, from which the roux (fat, flour, and seasoning) is made. Just as Julia Childs starts with a stick of butter, Cajuns are more likely to start with a glob of bacon fat. (Of course, when we East Texans aren't making gumbo, we're making Tex-Mex – chili, refritos, etc., which starts in the same glorious way – but that’s a whole 'nother subject.) (Incidentally, I believe there's a movement afoot in Louisiana to nominate Dr. Atkins for sainthood.) Now all sorts of stuff can go into a gumbo, and as the jokes go, Cajuns will eat anything – which reminds me of one of the jokes. (Of course, I'll get all sorts of correspondence informing me that I've told the joke wrong.) Here
it is: Two Cajuns are sittin' out in the middle of nowhere in the
middle of the night sippin' Whiskey, when they see a bright object
descend from the sky. "Boudreaux, wot dat?" "I don know, Pierre."
The object lands, a hatch slowly lowers onto the ground, and a strange
alien creature makes its way down the gangway. "Well look at dat,
Boudreaux!" "Pierre, wot is dat?" "I don know, Boudreaux,
but you betta start the roux."
I'll be blunt – Cajuns scare me a little. They're more than "different" – they're, well, a little "off." One never really knows what a Cajun is going to do. And you can't really believe anything they say, especially because they're brilliant raconteurs and usually stewing in alcohol. During my junior year at college I lived next door to a Cajun, and he was typically off-kilter. I remember one day he walked by my window with a big bag. He yelled, "Come on over!" Apparently, the bank where he did his business had offended him in some way, so he withdrew all of his money, and made them pay him in nothing but small bills. I recollect there was about $50,000 there. He dumped it all on his bed, and we stood there and looked at it for a while. But
since I had known him for quite some time, this seemed normal.
I remember one "get together" with the three of us. I noticed they wouldn't stop talking about food. They said that whenever a new Louisiana cookbook came out, they would get together and cook every recipe in the book. The younger taught me all about the Methode Champenoise (dosage, tournage, degougement), the process used to make all genuine champagne. I've never met a Cajun that wasn't superstitious. I don't remember how we got on the subject of voodoo, but being intelligent and educated men, they laughed it off as silly superstition. But in the span of a moment, both of their faces turned from joviality to darkness. One of them said, "But I've seen things," and shook his head. The other reluctantly agreed. "Like what?", I asked with fascination. The older Cajun looked down and quickly said, almost under his breath, "I don't want to talk about it." The younger shook his head in agreement. I also never met a Cajun that didn't love to dance. The
younger Cajun related to me what I now call "The Pope Story" (emphasis
on the word "story" – you can’t believe anything a Cajun
says, or did I already say that?). My friend told me that while
the Pope was visiting Louisiana, there had been some terrible flooding.
He and his friends took the opportunity to find some muddy place
where they all got drunk and danced and sloshed in the mud to Zydeco.
Momentarily alarmed at their depravity, the younger Cajun screams
out to his friends, "Don't you realize that the Pope is less than
fifty miles away?" Everyone stops in a moment of reflection, then
resumes their revelry. If anyone deserves the title of Louisiana's "adopted son," it is he. But his music seems to even more closely fit the attitude I've seen from Cajuns.
There's
something so proud and stubborn in the lyrics and music that it
seems to say, "I was born on the bayou, this is my home, I'm
never leaving it, and you had better leave me alone." The Acadians (Cajuns) were originally kicked out of Canada because they would not pay homage to the crown of England. They still seem pretty intent on doing things their way. So
who gives a flip who won the runoff?
Brian Dunaway [send him mail] is a chemical engineer and a native Texan. Copyright © 2002 LewRockwell.com
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I
often think that if Texas seceded we would be able to better establish
our rights of association and property; that is, control our borders.
Sometimes I also think that we'd be safer if not only our border
to the south, but also to the east were a little less porous. (New
Orleans is a long way away – seven hours hauling butt – but Acadiana
is just a stone's throw from Houston.) I love both the Mexican and
Cajun cultures, but I'd like to see them stay put, thank-you.
I
also got to know another couple of Cajuns here in Clear Lake pretty
well. They didn't know each other until they met at our apartments
– one was in his mid-twenties, the other around fifty. And they
were both Looney Tunes.
December
24, 2002
