Jazz Feast

If you have never been to New Orleans, you are missing out. I went for the first time this past April and can definitively say, I will be back. The city is going through a Renaissance following the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina in September of 2004 and now is a great time to join in on it's rebirth.

The great thing about New Orleans is no matter what time of year you decide to go, there is always some sort of festival or event taking place. This trip happened to fall during the first weekend of their 30th Annual Jazz Fest. Every year during the last weekend in April and the first weekend in May the fairgrounds turn into a giant music venues with several stages playing all sorts of music and hundreds of local restaurants serving up their classic Louisiana cuisine.

With the popular bands not playing until late in the day, my friend and I arrived with empty belly's to take on the numerous food booths. Colorful signs displayed the dishes you could purchase; classics like Gumbo and Jambalya as well as a few dishes I'd never heard of, like cochon de lait and alligator pie.

Not knowing where to begin, I jumped on the line that seemed to be the longest. While normally I have an aversion to long waits, in this case, I figured the longer the wait, the better the food. Not wanting to pass on anything, my friend and I moved from line to line picking up craw fish etouffe, alligator pie, fried chicken, cochon de lait, jambalaya and gumbo. You only live once, right?

The bright pink craw fish, peas and carrots dotted the light cream sauce that filled the hollowed pastry of the etouffe. The doughy bowl flaked apart from the light touch of my fork and all of the rich flavors melted together in my mouth. That was my first foodgasam.

The second one came when we moved on to the fried chicken, jambalaya and gumbo, all staples of the Louisiana diet. Each of the dishes delivered from the fried chicken that was moist with a perfect crunch, to the gumbo (creole style) delicately flavored by andouille sausage to the jambalaya which had spice that whet my palate for more.

We finished off our meal with alligator pie and cochon de lait, two local dishes you cannot pass up. Alligator pie (which really does taste like chicken) was a hand held meat pie. Filled with cubed alligator and vegetables, the pastry that encased it all added the perfect balance to an otherwise blend of cream and meat. To finish off our marathon meal, we dove into a cochon de lait, which is commonly known up north as a glorified pulled pork sandwich. The meat was tender and juicy, and each bite sang, with the sweetness of the pork that fell apart as I bit into the rich hero bread that served more as a tool to eat the sandwich than apart of the dish itself.

While the temperatures rose, and our once hungry belly's sang with joy, we sat on the grass and took in the live music we'd gone there for. Needless to say, after having multiple foodgasms, there was nothing else we could do but relax and wait for the next one.