Enjoying the good things in life in LA and MS

We’re lucky people to have spent the last few days enjoying food and music through Louisiana and Mississippi. And most importantly getting to savour it all slowly in the very best Southern way.

We’ve had a lot of good food on this trip but Louisiana is the first state where we’ve come across food that you don’t find everywhere else. So we’ve sampled as much as we could and in large quantity. We’ve feasted on gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, fried seafood in all forms (catfish, crawfish, mussels, shrimps), hush puppies (corn and jalapeno balls), boudin (pork, spices, rice sausages), po-boys (sandwiches), hogshead cheese (no dairy in sight just more pork and spices), cracklin, pralines (sugar, sugar, pecans and more sugar), pulled pork sandwiches smothered in the world’s finest BBQ sauce and slaw, BBQ beans and ribs. And all washed down with sweet ice tea, mint juleps, hurricanes and ice-cold beer. We think we shared an apple two days ago...

As for the music – live jazz in New Orleans (in several bars and on the streets) and a visit to the birthplace of Blues in Clarksdale, Mississippi, also home to some of the best BBQ at Abe’s BBQ (famous since 1924
www.abesbbq.com/index.html).

There has also been some culture and a lot of history thrown into the mix. Visiting old plantation homes like Oak Alley (see photo) and Laura, and roaming the French Quarter in New Orleans on a great walking tour, we’ve learnt a lot about the South and the influence of the French, Spanish, Africans, Cajuns, Creoles, Americans and the Mississippi in creating this unique place.

New Orleans is shabby and bruised (a few people told us that at last they feel like the rest of the country is feeling what they’ve been feeling since 2005), but she is also beguiling and charming. You can’t help but be won over by the beauty of the French Quarter, and by the friendly locals who wouldn’t live anywhere else and want you to feel the same way. There were moments when we did!