I love how serious Cajuns and Creoles are about their food.

You can insult many parts of our culture and people will get upset but you will probably be safe. Walk into a stadium filled with Cajuns and say “Cajun French sucks” and a few will turn their heads, grumble something like "dumbass" and carry on. Next, try “Cajun Music Sucks” or “ Zydeco Sucks!” You will get a lot of turned heads and maybe some yells back, hey even a few will get up to fight you. (Say “Keith Frank Sucks” run because they are coming for your ass.) Now walk in and say “Rice and Gravy Sucks” or “Tomatoes belong in Gumbo” or “Down with Boudin” and you better have an escape plan because all of Acadiana is coming for you.

"Say “Keith Frank Sucks” run because they are coming for your ass."

We will defend our food until our dying breath. If you don’t feel that way when your eating at a Cajun/Creole restaurant your not eating at the right place. I bring this up because I find it’s the one topic that "pretentious know it all's" don’t broach when they move here. I am not talking about all transplants here. I have numerous friends who moved here from other areas that not only love the South but immerse themselves in the culture - better than I do sometimes. But, y’all know the folks I am talking about. The ones that go on and on about where they are from. "Where I come from they would never do this." "Where I come from we believe in a certain infrastructure." Listen Y'all we know shit is messed up here, we aren’t blind. We have just been living with a hell of lot longer than you. I can tell you how to fix your frustrations with the South. Move back to where your from or join the people trying to fix it. It seems to me all your doing is bitching and moaning about what you don’t like. All that make you is a gnat in my ear not a solution to the problem. Hmm, you wonder why so many Southerners use the word Yankee as derogatory? Maybe it’s because unfortunately along with the good ones there are the "snotty, let me show my education and help you poor dumb Southerners understand" folks. Hey, how about screw you.

I know that so many want to believe that the South is full of racist, uneducated red necks, poor black people, fancy white people with soft accents and of course the occasional Cajun rowing up in his pirogue with a fresh alligator for dinner. We do have all of these things. We also have highly educated people, acclaimed artists and authors, musicians, revered chefs and a whole lot of damn culture. Real culture, not your stolen washed out version. I don’t trust any music event that involves sipping Rose and sitting quietly enjoying the music (Okay except for the symphony, carry on classical music lovers). If there isn’t a bunch of rowdy loud ass bud light drinking fools dancing it up on a patch of dirt while the smells of jack millers and boudin are wafting in the air then why the hell am I here? You want to call us backwards and idiotic, go right ahead. I am sure some of that Is true. You know what though? I’ve lived and traveled all over the United States. Gone to some of the most progressive places. Where everything is the way it should be. I wanted to like these places, I wanted to convince myself this place makes more sense. They do make more sense but there is one giant problem. If I moved there I would become the “where I am from lady.” I would walk around all day saying “where I am from we eat real food, you know with spices and flavor” and “where I am from we don’t sit on lawn chairs at a festivals we get up and dance” and “ where I am from we don’t just try to make fun of each other we try to beat the other person at it” and “where I am from it is hot as hell, our government is a mess, our education system is struggling, our prisons are overcrowded, our treatment of women has a lot to be desired - all of this is true."

But you see, even with all of this I am proud of where I am from because I know who these people are and where they come from and even if you were able to fix all problems you will never know what it is to sit down after a friends funeral over a cup of coffee as thick as mud and have a deep laugh over the time she peed on her own face, because that’s what we do here - we just keep going and we do it with a lot of coffee and a lot of laughs.

Oh, btw - Louisiana has a large population of Vietnamese. See - we have diversity. This dish is great as is or incorporated into another dish as an ingredient.