Family, Friends, & Good Southern Food

One of the things that I miss about the South is the emphasis on family.  Almost everyone that I knew when I was growing up still gets together with their family once a week or so.  These "get-togethers" inevitably revolve around good food and often around some type of seafood boil or fry.  Every holiday or birthday party that my family shared together when I was growing up took place around a newspaper-covered picnic table outside of someone's house.   Actually, they still do; only I'm not around anymore to take part.

There are crawfish boils, crab boils, shrimp boils--you name it!  I remember the men in my family carrying large, steaming baskets of these delicious delicacies to the picnic tables with various boat oars and dumping them out in gigantic piles.  I can still taste the potatoes and corn on the cob boiled right there with the seafood, burning your lips with cayenne pepper and crab boil.  Often, we'd have some kind of freshly-caught fish frying in a giant fryer outside; and they'd be dumped out into large, paper towel-covered Pyrex dishes and passed around.  I can still hear my Dad or my brother or even my Grandpa telling us that another batch was about to come out of the water.  We all knew what that meant:  dump the heads and shells in a trash can and put down some extra newspaper so we could start all over again.

After everyone got their full of whatever they'd been peeling and eating, the kids would go off to play some type of game, ride the 4-wheeler, or hunt for eggs while the moms and grandmothers sat down to finish peeling the rest. You see, none of that food ever goes to waste; it's peeled and packaged in individual ziplock bags so that they can be distributed to those who want to cook a fettuccine or gumbo or what have you.  Then, everybody'd come back and wrap up all the newspaper and break out the desserts.

Most cultures show their love for their families and each other through good food; so I am not writing about any kind of out-of-the-ordinary custom.  I just feel that South Louisiana is a bit different.  People there are so close to each other; they understand each other.  They/We also share a beautiful, centuries old custom that will last for centuries more.