Hot Stuff in Louisiana

The Cajun cuisine combines French and Southern cuisine in a style of cooking developed by the Cajun-Acadians who were deported to Louisiana from French Acadia during the 18th century. Popular, well-seasoned food we sampled includes gumbo, crawfish etoufee, boudin sausage and shrimp & grits. We found all of these items deliciously tasty and the spices did not destroy our taste buds.

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Shrimp fleet                                                           Harvesting crawfish

Etoufee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89touff%C3%A9e
Crawfish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crayfish

 What is boudin sausage?

Tabasco Sauce
Avery Island, the home of the McIlhenny Co is under laid by a great salt dome which provides one of the necessary ingredients for the production of Tabasco Sauce. This fiery brand of pepper sauce was developed by Edmund McIlhenny shortly after the end of the Civil War. The tabasco pepper is a moderately pungent pepper which scores between 30,000 and 50,000 on the Scoville hot pepper scale compared to 2,500 to 8,000 for the jalapeno pepper and 100,000 to 350,000 for the habanero pepper.

After sampling several of the hot sauces we choose the deliciously spicy but not too hot red pepper sauce for both cooking and snacking.

    
Aging the sauce in salt covered barrels                                                      Bottling lines

 
Tabasco comes in all sizes

In the adjacent Jungle Gardens, the Bird City sanctuary is home to more than 20,000 herons and egrets during nesting season.

 
Nesting flocks

   
Close encounter in the swamp                                          Alligators and heron

 

A Buddha, built by order of Emperor Hui-Tsung (1101 – 1125) stands in this park’s Chinese Garden.  When the Chinese Temple was looted by a rebel general, the Buddha was sent to New York to be sold.  In 1936 it was purchased by friends as a gift to McIlhenny.

Ancient Buddha

 

Mardi Gras
The tradition of Mardi Gras dates back thousands of years to the celebration of the arrival of spring. In present cultures, this festival marks the close of the pre-Lenten season and the beginning of fasting and abstinence until the arrival of Easter. We found that in Louisiana, Mardi Gras is celebrated not on a single day but for several weeks before Shrove Tuesday (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday) with numerous small town parades and lots of party activities.

    
Parade in the RV Park

FYI: In 2023 Mardi Gras is February 21 so start planning the festivities now.

Texas 

Cross and Crown

Spanish Colonialism in Texas 

San Antonio de Valero Mission (aka The Alamo), was the first of five Spanish missions established along the San Antonio River between 1718 and 1731. The purpose of these missions was to protect and convert local Native Americans and to expand Spanish culture north from New Spain (present-day Mexico). Franciscan missionaries taught the Native American how to farm the land in order to live safely in a protected, permanent settlement.

     
Mission Concepcion                                                     Mission San Jose

   Mission Espada

 The Founders

 After a 6 month ocean voyage and walking 1,200 miles from Veracruz, Mexico, 56 Canary Islanders established the village that is today San Antonio. Having been sent by the Spanish King they were greeted warmly by the Franciscan Friars.

 
Historic San Antonio

Texas Barbecue and Brew

Beef brisket makes the Texas barbecue special although the sausage and pork ribs are also delicious. Texas barbeque is grilled and smoked with a simple dry seasoning of salt and pepper and cooked over mesquite for its smoky flavor.

 
Making the brew

   
Texas BBQ                                                                World Renowned BBQ

 

Traveling East to New Jersey

Due to unseasonable cold weather predicted we left the south earlier than originally planned and had time to stop and visit relatives in Memphis and Knoxville, TN

    
With brother Charles and Betty Ann                                             With niece Linnea

 

We are home now for a few months before again traveling west in the fall.

Hope everyone has a healthy and happy spring and summer.

Last posting for this trip
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