Acadian Occasion
Though Cajun culture and cuisine are pervasive throughout the state, Louisiana’s Cajun home base is Lafayette in south Louisiana, where Acadian settlers from Atlantic Canada settled and planted the seeds for what would become the Cajun lifestyle. Lafayette’s Acadian Village highlights the history and lifestyle of these people, and hosts the annual South Louisiana Blackpot Festival and Cookoff.
Taking place over two days in late October, this event is built on the tradition of Cajun “blackpot” cooking, which involves concocting rich, flavorful dishes in large cast-iron cookware. At the center of the festival is the cook-off, in which dozens of teams from around the area compete to create the best gravy, gumbo, jambalaya and desserts they can, all in cast-iron pots over gas or coals.
Festival visitors can enjoy authentic live Cajun music while sampling the dishes that competitors cook up.
Peachy Party
In Ruston, a town in north-central Louisiana, traditional Cajun and Creole cuisines take a backseat to the peach, a staple crop in the area since the 1930s. In the 1950s, Ruston peach growers decided to band together to celebrate their crop, and the Louisiana Peach Festival was born.
This year marks the 65th edition of the festival, which draws some 20,000 people to Ruston over two days in late June during the height of the peach harvest. Attendees can buy plenty of fresh peaches and taste numerous other dishes made with the fruit, among them classic peach cobbler and a delicious peach ice cream produced by a local dairy.
The festival also features peach-eating contests and a peach cookery competition, as well as an arts-and-crafts market, a parade, an antique-car show and live music.
