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Big Fun on the River

By Marty Martindale

Good-bye, Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh …
Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou.

                   Hank Williams

It was a fine day aboard the River Explorer, heading from the Gulf north to New Orleans. Chef Eric and his galley crew were clearing the top deck and setting up for a giant crawfish boil. The Riverbarge is a floating hotel on a barge, plying the mighty waters of the Mississippi River. 

The prize jewel of the Louisiana Purchase was the mighty Mississippi River, a commercial boon for our  young country’s economic health. With its 37 locks and dams, the river stretches 2,350 miles from her small beginnings in northern Minnesota, at Lake Itasca, to the tips of her toes which touch the Gulf of Mexico at Heads of Passes, Louisiana. She’s the linchpin for this land of teaming bayous and swamps. One of her bustling crowns is New Orleans, through which countless silent, seamlessly-connected barges and massive worldwide vessels course her teaming waters day and night. More than 6,000 ocean vessels move through New Orleans on the Mississippi River each year. It is the largest waterway for bulk freight in North America.

With the increase in U.S. land mass after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, came a new, rich blend of peoples and their foodways. Her Creole people are a mix of French, Spanish, African and Native Americans. French Arcadians added to the mix around 1755. Dubbed “Cajuns,” they were driven out of Nova Scotia by the English eventually settling in Louisiana.

For the most part, the Creoles were rich planters, and their kitchens aspired to rich, fancy cuisine. Their recipes came from France or Spain as did their chefs. In contrast, the Cajuns were a tough people used to hard, meager living. They tended to serve pungent country food usually prepared in one pot.

Each group, while applying their own foodways, created a whole new cuisine. Both groups used rice extensively and based dishes on a roux of oil and flour.  Common to each group were the locally available foods such as: crab, river shrimp, lake shrimp, oysters, crawfish (crayfish, crawdads), freshwater and saltwater fish, plus squirrels, wild turkeys, ducks, nutria, muskrat, frogs, turtles, pork, beans, tomatoes, hot peppers, okra,  corn, potatoes, soybeans, citrus fruits, yams, pecans, strawberries, pecans and sugar.

Latter-day Louisiana “festival foods” are a Cajun, Creole blend  and have evolved to be dishes like these: Cochon de Lait (pork sandwiches), Shrimp & Crabmeat Stuffed Mirliton, Chipolte Ribs, Crawfish & Goat Cheese Crepes, Eggplant Funky Butt, Crawfish Pie, Gumbo, Corn & Crawfish Bisque, Crabmeat Cheesecake Caribbean Fish, Sweet Potato Praline Pie, White Chocolate Bread Pudding, Creoles, Po-Boys, Jambalaya, Etouffe and Remoulade. Celebration is big time and food no small part of it in bayou country.

Specifically a big crayfish boil aboard the River Explorer starts with on-deck raw oyster shucker handing freshly opened oysters to all eager takers. The fine science of oyster eating on the River Explorer was simple:  Hold oyster on its shell, doctor it with red sauce, lemon juice, horseradish and hot sauce. “Slurp” the oyster  from the shell in one or two bites. Its cool, slightly salty and wondrously smooth tastes evoke swoons and smiling faces. Check yourself for “mudmouth,” pitch the shell back to its Mississippi River origins and hold your hand out for another muddy shell.

Chef Eric’s food notes for the big boil stacked up something like this: Round up sacks of brown crayfish, whole mushrooms, red spuds, corn on the cob, hot dogs, garlics, alligator sausage, barbecued ribs, potato salad, coleslaw, beans, hamburgers, fried chicken  and generous bowls of condiments. Serve up on newspaper tablecloths. Add cold beer, iced tea and a hot zydeco band.

For more information on Riverbarge Excursions Lines’ River Explorer, http://riverbarge.com/default_real.asp or call 1-888-Go-Barge.

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