Louisiana Eats/ The Bible Belt

Casey and I had our first real Louisiana eating experience last night.... well, Casey did.... I am not that adventurous.

Let me give you the breakdown of his meal:

First course- Seafood gumbo, served with a scoop of rice to soak up the juices and mustardy potato salad.

Second course- (this is where you are going to be impressed) 1/2 dozen shrimp each cooked inside an oyster shell, covered with a mushroom cream sauce and then slathered in melted cheese. Take a look at the close up. 

Desert: A half-cooked brownie, surrounded by brownie goop and topped off with vanilla ice cream (this was my meal.... very tasty)

And, of course, beverage: Two large margaritas, with salt.

While we were in the restaurant we started a conversation with a fellow diner (or rather were forced into conversation after being attacked by her young son) who proceeded to tell us about the Mardi Gras tradition. Apparently the main event is a chicken chase, which some people choose to do on horseback. When you catch a chicken you kill it, skin it, and put it in the gumbo (there ends up being quite a lot of gumbo). Oh, and everybody gets completely wasted. Schools let out for three days and everybody parties and listens to cajun music. Much different from our one-night event up north.

The woman then gave us her phone number and told us to call her, but we left it in the car and the dogs ate it.

We probably wouldn't have called anyway.... 

Oh, but one other thing she told us was that we were in the Bible Belt.

As if we hadn't noticed. Check out the pictures I took of a rack in a local bookstore.... this is the real deal.