Mardi Gras in Louisiana

The Mardi Gras Parade in Lafayette Friday evening included many marching bands, gaily costumed women and large floats. We were early to get a good parking spot and spent time walking about town. We dropped into an antique store, a warehouse with thousands of antique articles. Then we mixed in with the locals at a bar called “Artmosphere” overlooking the street with exciting anticipation. People, young and old, families with little children were all very friendly especially when they learned we were from Canada. The parade itself was not a disappointment. There is this tradition called bead throwing where the parade participants throw beads at the spectators! Faye is now the “Mardi Gras Bead Lady” as she really got caught up in the excitement and everyone very generously shared beads with her!
Today, Saturday we took in La Grande de Boucherie in St. Martinville. What an event! Hundreds of people were milling about in a carnival atmosphere, drinking beer and eating Cajun food, listening to a live band and dancing in front of the bandstand. Craft and Cajun food booths were everywhere in this park.
A novel to us was the Cajun microwave, a unique stainless steel cooker with the heat source being hard wood charcoal. The guy cooked a whole pig spiced with garlic salt and dished it out piece by piece. Awesome taste! Check it out at www.cajunmicrowaveS.com.
Paul watched and took pictures of the “boucherie”, a gruesome event whereby this live pig was slaughtered as a demonstration of the traditional festivities associated with Mardi Gras. However, the animal was not cooked on site due to local health inspection regulations so was quartered and iced up and packed in a cooler.
A huge quantity of pig cracklings and boudin balls were being cooked up all day to feed the hungry crowd. Boudin balls ingredients are ground pork with rice,spices and deep fried resulting with hot after burn which is easily remedied by cold beer! Lots of other Cajun food, all of it deep fried, was available in the many food booths.
We bought a couple of $2 raffle tickets on the Cajun microwave but were not lucky, not sure how we would get it home anyway. It is quite an appliance which would come in handy at any summer family reunion event!