Adventures of a foodie part II

New Orleans Day III

I've had more fried food in the last three days than I've had in my entire life. I have no idea how any native Louisiananian lives to fifty-five without triple by-pass surgery. Who knew you could deep-fry spinach?

In all respect to our foodie hosts I'm sure if a delegation from Louisiana came up to Canada they would be going home and writing about the inordinate amounts of Timbits and Poutine we eat in the Great White North. But I think it's fairly safe to say that Southerners really love their fried foods.

We started Day III in New Orleans at the famous Cafe du Monde sampling a chicory/coffee combo served with a beignet: a deep fried French-style doughnut that tastes a bit like a high end light and fluffy apple fritter without the apple and smothered in icing sugar. Double whammy today - fat and sugar.

I haven't had any vegetables in three days, unless you count that deep fried spinach, some deep fried okra and the small amount of onions, celery and green peppers in the roux that was in the gumbo. My pants were so tight this morning that I had to lie on the floor to do up the fly.

The way I see it the real problem with fat is that fat and especially deep fried fatty foods taste fairly good so convincing a deep fried fat lover that they need to change their eating habits is like trying to convince a die hard Montreal Canadians hockey fan that the Toronto Maple Leafs don't stink. Okay, the Toronto Maple Leafs actually do stink right now, but it's early in the season.

Somewhere between New Orleans and Crowley, Louisiana:
Swampland is like nothing I have ever seen before. You can just feel the mosquitoes and gators biting y'all. Miles and miles of flat boggy earth dotted with hard cypress trees, moss, and a whole lot of water.

Just outside of Crowley, Louisiana:
We arrive at the Rice Research Centre and meet Steven Linscombe Ph.D. Regional Director of the facility. His job along with his research team is to develop new varieties of rice. The centre has released 44 new varieties and is always working on a newer seed that will produce improved quality and bigger yields, along with one that is more disease resistance, has a shorter growing season and in some cases - a more aromatic strain.
Jazzman, an aromatic long grain white rice introduced this year, is Centre's version of Jasmine rice and it looks like it's really going to give Thai Jasmine, the variety available from Thailand, a run for its money.

Rice is a staple crop for 50% of the world and an economical choice to add to meals. More and more Canadians are jumping on the rice band wagon and choosing it as their grain of choice.

Depending on who you talk to you'll get a slightly different version as to who introduced rice to Louisiana. My favourite account gives the credit to the ousted early Canadians: the Acadians. These French-speaking rural people made their way from Nova Scotia to settle in Louisiana via the Carolina's around the 1700's when the Red Coats burned down their homes and set the majority of the Acadians onto ships headed for France, the West Indies and the Carolinas.

Southern Louisiana was predominately a French community with the same religious beliefs which helps explain why the Acadians eventually left the Carolinas to set up camp in the southern swampy lands in what we now call Cajun country. A triangle of land located in southern Louisiana that encompasses St. Landry Parish at the tip of the triangle all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico to the south. The Cajun cities of today include Lafayette, St. Martinville, New Iberia, and Eunice.

Plantation owners started growing rice as a cheap staple for their slaves. Cultivating rice requires intense labour and many bodies. After the Civil War growing rice petered right out. It wasn't until the farmers from the northern states arrived with their knowledge of wheat farming that growing rice made financial sense. Add in the creation of workable irrigation systems and the building of the railway and rice farming was off to the races.

Crowley Day IV
First highlight of the day - I'm a judge in the Rice Cookery Contest at the 73rd Annual International Rice Festival, one of Louisiana's largest and oldest Agricultural Festivals. My category is desserts but there are other categories ranging from main courses to vegetable dishes.

So far I've sampled seven different desserts and have four more to go. My co-judge Jann and I have tried something really pink and sweet that actually tastes pink (who knew that was even possible), a pineapple ambrosia type dessert, a red velvet cheesecake, two rice puddings, and a cookie all using rice. We have a bar cookie, another pudding, and two fluffy looking things left to try, I'm on a sugar high! So far we're both leaning towards the red velvet cheesecake. The creator of the recipe boiled medium grain white rice with a hot chocolate mix and then added it to a traditional baked cheesecake recipe. It was awesome and I don't even like cheesecake.

The contest is over. The ultimate winner or Chef de Riz who beat out 176 entries was the lady who made the red velvet cheesecake! So glad I helped pick the winner.

Second highlight of the day - the Annual Rice Eating Contest. Twelve men between the ages of 15 and 61 ate as much rice stuffing as they could in 10 minutes. The winner? A guy around 30 who ate 16 cups of rice! Visualize a basketball made of rice and he ate it.

This part of the country is all about rice, Cajun history and their music. It's one of the things that sets it a part from the rest of the USA. It's been a fabulous education that brings together a part of our Canadian history and the development of Deep South.

You know; if you really think about it the Americans should be thanking the British for ousting the Acadians in the first place. Without that turn of events who knows if the rice industry would be as entrenched in the south as it is; funny how history plays itself out.

For more information on rice, recipes and how to cook it check out www.riceinfo.com