{"id":1791,"date":"2009-02-23T04:30:48","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T09:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.wordpress.com\/?p=1791"},"modified":"2009-02-23T04:30:48","modified_gmt":"2009-02-23T09:30:48","slug":"a-country-mardi-gras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourgrandmotherskitchens.com\/?p=1791","title":{"rendered":"A Country Mardi Gras"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Le Rendez Vous des Cajuns (Courtesy of David Simpson LSUE)<\/p><\/div>\n

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My favorite part of <\/span>Louisiana<\/span> is a place I have visited only by listening to its music, Cajun Country. <\/span>Southwestern Louisiana<\/span> is a sort of country cousin to <\/span>New Orleans<\/span>. It is inhabited by a mixture of Cajuns (French Acadians who were expelled from British Canada in the mid-18th century and who became peasant farmers in the South) and the descendents of Black Creoles. Their culture and music are a remarkable blend of French, American, African, Native American, and <\/span>Island<\/span> influences. Most of the Cajuns speak English, but a number of residents, particularly older ones, speak French dialects as well.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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My main contact with this area is a radio program called Le Rendez Vous des Cajuns<\/a><\/em>, staged weekly in <\/span>Eunice<\/span>, <\/span>Louisiana<\/span>. The program is hosted by Barry Jean Ancelet, a professor at the <\/span>University<\/span> of <\/span>Louisiana<\/span> (<\/span>Lafayette<\/span>). It airs partly in English but mostly in Cajun French. It showcases the two major music styles of the area, Cajun and Zydeco (an outgrowth of Black Creole music).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Ancelet grew up speaking French at home and has raised his five children in French. He explained in the introduction to the book Cajun Music and Zydeco <\/em>by photographer Philip Gould (1992, LSU Press) that he only discovered the music of his region while studying in <\/span>France<\/span>. A non-Cajun musician who played \u201cla musique de la Louisiane\u201d in Nice counseled the young Barry Ancelet to go home and talk to Dewey Balfa, a legendary Cajun fiddler. Ancelet took the musician\u2019s advice and has been involved in promoting Cajun and Zydeco music ever since.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Rendez Vous<\/em> began in 1987. It is part of a revival of French language and culture in southern Louisiana outlined by Barry Ancelet in two journal articles, \u201cNegotiating the Mainstream: The Creoles and Cajuns in Louisiana\u201d in The French Review<\/em> (Volume 80, number 6, 2007) \u201cCultural Tourism in Cajun Country: Shotgun Wedding or Marriage Made in Heaven\u201d (Southern Folklore<\/em>, Volume 49, number 3, 1992).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The struggle of French speakers in <\/span>Louisiana<\/span> mirrors a larger debate about what it has meant to be an American. In the early 1900s and particularly beginning around World War I Louisiana and the nation as a whole experienced a wave of nationalism that tried to force all Americans into a single mold, to define what it meant to be an American by sameness. As my grandmother used to say, if we were all the same, we\u2019d all wear the same hat\u2014and wouldn\u2019t that be boring? Or as Ancelet wrote more forcefully in The French Review<\/em>, Teddy Roosevelt (one of the leaders of the \u201cone <\/span>America<\/span> movement\u201d) and his ilk do \u201cnot seem to have understood that people from all over the world came here to <\/span>America<\/span><\/span> to participate in a new experiment based in part on allegiance by choice.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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French-speaking children Louisiana<\/span> schools were not only taught in English but forbidden by law to speak French anywhere on school grounds. Over the decades this bilingual culture started losing a great deal of its identity.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Beginning after World War II and most strongly since the late 1960s southern <\/span>Louisiana<\/span><\/span> has seen a revival of popular and official interest in French culture and in the music and folk practices that gave much of this colorful area its personality.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

According to Barry Ancelet, when the Rendez Vous des Cajuns<\/em> was first planned no one was sure whether the program would be in French or in English. \u201cUltimately it was done in French because I was the host and I did what I wanted to do once the microphone was turned on,\u201d he recalled in Southern Folklore<\/em>. \u201cIt might not have worked, but it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

All was not settled on the first night, he went on to explain, particularly since the program received funds from the National Park Service. \u201cAt a meeting held specifically to address [the language] question, one Park official commented that the program\u2019s federal funding required that it communicate to Americans. Cajun musician and cultural spokesman Dewey Balfa retorted, \u2018But we are Americans. In fact, this two-hour show every Saturday night is one of the only indications I have that the money I turn over to Uncle Sam every April 15th is coming back to me in anything but interstate highways.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Eventually, the question of language for the Rendez Vous<\/em> was settled resoundingly in favor of French, although no one is a purist, and English is smattered throughout the broadcasts. The music played is in some ways new to northern listeners and in other ways familiar because of its multicultural and folk roots. Listening to it is like being invited into a new neighbor\u2019s living room and being enchanted to find that you have a lot in common with each other\u2014but also a lot to learn from each other.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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With\u00a0Mardi Gras\u00a0just around the corner I wrote to Barry Jean Ancelet to ask whether he by any chance cooked. He certainly does! In fact, he boasted that he won his wife with his Shrimp Creole. For Mardi Gras he shared his mother Maude Ancelet\u2019s recipe for Mardi Gras Gumbo\u2014as well as the following story:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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We make large quantities of this recipe (x10) for those who gather together to eat after our traditional Ossun Mardi Gras Run, a procession of revelers in masks and brightly-colored costumes that winds its way through the rural neighborhood visiting, singing, dancing, and collecting the ingredients for the gumbo. Some households contribute rice, onions, parsley or sausage, but ideally the offering is a live chicken that the revelers are expected to catch in the open fields. This is not easy to do, and the hilarity resulting from grownups and children alike running through ditches, over barbed-wire fences and under barns is part of what the households receive in return for their generous gifts. The procession is typically about 12 to 14 miles long with 15 to 20 performances. By the end of the day, the revelers have developed a mighty appetite and are eager to eat the fruits of their labor.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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I wouldn\u2019t want to try replicating the Ossun, <\/span>Louisiana<\/span>, Run in <\/span>Hawley<\/span>, <\/span>Massachusetts<\/span>, where the snow would definitely cramp the style of revelers. I love the way in which food, music, terrain, and celebration mingle in this story, however, and I think anyone who lives in the country can identify with the community spirit behind the Ossun Run.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I encourage readers to explore the world of Cajun and Zydeco music for themselves. Listen to the Rendez Vous des Cajuns <\/em>live via the internet one Saturday on KVRS-FM<\/a>. Buy a CD of Dewey Balfa, Iri Lejeune, Clifton Chenier, or any one of the other wonderful musicians Cajun Country has spawned. An LSU website devoted to Cajun and Zydeco music<\/a> is a good place to start looking.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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YouTube has many clips of these musicians. It also offers an authorized clip of the film Dance for a Chicken: The Cajun Mardi Gras<\/em> by Pat Mire, which depicts a Mardi Gras Run\u2014as well as link to the site on which you can view the entire film.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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