South puts on charm
TAKE a beautiful national park complete with nature trails, alligators, wildlife including pink cranes, add a beach, some casinos, plenty of local history, some great local food and a rum distillery and what have you got?
Lake Charles in southwest Louisiana, about two to three hours’ drive west of New Orleans and about the same distance east from Houston in Texas. It’s a town of about 100,000 people with its own port, airport and rail connections, as well as the interstate highway.
I had the opportunity to spend 48 hours there breaking my journey from New Orleans to Houston and was entranced by the variety and the beauty.
The first thing that struck me was that this was not Louisiana as I knew it. There had never been a plantation economy here; no slaves toiling in the field because the soil didn’t allow sugar or cotton or tobacco to grow here.
From the early 1800s, this was a corner of the state for independent farmers raising cattle and selling lumber. From the early 1900s the Lake Charles area was developed for its oil deposits, now largely exhausted, but is now sustained by its natural gas deposits. LNG is exported from its thriving port. Tourism, recreation and petrochemicals are now its main businesses.
At the Sabine waterway (pronounced “say-bean”), a large area of protected swamp and marshland about 30km outside Lake Charles, look for air bubbles in the creeks and canals. That’s a sign there are alligators lurking just below the surface. Their fearsome faces break the surface and the big eyes stare at you. Look but don’t touch.
Visitors can walk around the wide pathways and drive slowly to see alligators, turtles, bunnies and abundant birdlife. And at the wildlife rescue centre visitors can get up close and personal with baby alligators.
At Holly Beach, where the brown-coloured surf roars in, the houses are on stilts reminiscent of the Australian Federation style. People come here for the colourful shells, which are constantly washed up by the tidal actions from the Gulf of Mexico.
At T Boys Cajun Grill, a nondescript redbrick building at an intersection of two long flat roads, I enjoy some seafood gumbo and a fish po’boy. Food in the South is always taken seriously, and lunch is usually a substantial sit-down affair.
Try crawfish poppers. These are jalapeno peppers stuffed with crawfish, breaded and deep fried. A delicious snack.
Likewise, at Momma Retta’s in downtown Lake Charles, I am eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes with good brown gravy with some blackeyed peas on the side plus cornbread. A slice of soft chocolate sponge sweetly iced is included with all servings. The place is full: rightly so, this is good-quality, modestly priced Southern food. Not fancy, just tasty and filling.
While you are in the area try boudin sausage. Green and white onion are minced and added to cooked rice. Pork is minced and added along with pork brine. It’s the pork fat that gives the richness of flavour.
Some varieties have liver; others have hot spices. Smoked meats are common.
“We smoke a lot of meats down here,” says Sean the sausage maker at the Sausage Link where I sample some freshly made and deliciously mild pork boudin.
There is an organised trail of 11 larger boudin makers to see the manufacturing – mostly still done by hand – and to sample the wares.