Song of the South

As you approach Mulate's in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana you will hear zydeco music drift across the parking lot. As you pass into the restaurant the smell of steaming crawfish will greet your nose. Your eyes will watch while pounds of the succulent crustacean are piled in the center of the table on a paper bag. Feel the warmth with your fingers when you break the tail off & taste the spicy yet mild sweetness of this Cajun favorite. Breaux Bridge, east of Lafayette, is the crawfish capitol!

The song of the South impinges on all the senses. I've had the privilege & pleasure to travel throughout the Deep South, from Myrtle Beach, S.C. to Macon, GA, Tuscaloosa, AL, Yazoo City, MS, Alexandria, LA, Port Arthur, TX, places in between & back home to Pensacola, Florida. The notes of the song change as do the seasons, location & people, but the pervasive melody is as constant as a compass needle.

Indianola, Mississippi is to catfish as Breaux Bridge is to crawfish. Here the ponds are plentiful & the processing plants huge. Farm raised catfish is a staple of the South along with sweet tea.

In my travels from New Orleans to Morgan City, Louisiana, I would see folks fishing in the bayous & swamp lands, some with long cane poles, their bobbers laying still on the placid water in anticipation of a bite. The flesh of wild caught catfish, like many fresh water fish, tastes like the environs from which it came. There is a difference between seafood & what I call swamp food. Catfish & crawfish(never crawdads, sometimes "mud bugs") are in this category, along with alligators if eaten.

Pecan groves are plentiful in the South. Some groves are irrigated, others not. In dry years the trees benefit from the extra water. The nut heavy limbs bow under the weight & the yields are good. Last to leaf out in the spring & first to shed in the fall, the pecan is a bellwether for season's change in the South.

The piney woods of Northwest Florida & an abundance of Naval Live Oak trees, gave way to the building of wooden ships. The oak's gnarly limbs were perfect for framing a vessel, while the tall, straight long leaf pine was ideal for masts & spars. Thirty miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, we are now surrounded by pine trees - when the wind blows through them, a soft, low pitch whistle or whine is issued, a song of the weather's change perhaps.

Perhaps also, the Gulf Coast has a song of its own. Pensacola is very much a part of the Deep South, its palette of flavors determined by the sea as well as land. This port city dates back to 1559, our Nation's first European settlement.

Southern cooking best describes the region. Soul food is comfort food here. Grits, biscuits & gravy, greens, hush puppies, soft shell crab & New Orleans po boys are ubiquitous.

New Orleans, a food mecca known world wide, adds more than a few stanzas or verses to the song of the South: music is The Crescent City, The Big Easy. The Mississippi River is an historical conduit for music flowing upstream and down. Bourbon Street, often teeming with people, is considered the birthplace of jazz. Here the song is fine tuned from a cacophony of sights, sounds, smells, tastes & feelings into a flavorful medley.

I've listened to the song of the South for many years now, but I'm still learning the tune.