 "Photo: Karl McDonald")
For one hot spring day, the capital of Texas was transformed into a Louisiana bayou where the only things missing were the swamps and Spanish moss on the trees. The smell of spices surrounded the Bob Bullock State Museum parking lot, while alligators were fried, crawfish were peeled and everything Cajun was eaten. Music from zydeco to the blues played all afternoon, and whoever wasn't eating danced to the beat.
The Louisiana Swamp Thing and Crawfish Festival, held by Roadway Productions, took over downtown Austin on April 5 for its 15th year (actually the 14th, but year 13 was skipped for superstition's sake). The highlight of the event was the 6,000 pounds of crawfish. If it can be found in Louisiana, it was probably fried and ready to be eaten.
"Great music, great friends - it's great to see Austin bring in some Cajun cuisine and culture," Louisiana native Robert Romero said. Romero traveled to Austin with a group of friends to hear the music and eat some
good food.
"This reminds me of festivals I go to out in southern Baton Rouge," he said.
The crowd was there for the food, but the music kept them out in the sun all day enjoying the sounds of the culture. From the blues to funk to brass bands, the 14 bands brought their own style to the festivities.
The crowd favorite was the traditional zydeco music, which originated in southern Louisiana. The sound combines energetic grassroots music with modern beats and instruments to create something that is always easy to dance to. But in case you didn't know how, the festival offered free zydeco dance lessons to get your feet moving.
"Louisiana is one of those few places you go to where the food is unique, the people are unique, and the language and everything is different," said J. Bratlie from the band Dirtfoot. "It is a completely different culture."
From Shreveport, Louisiana, Dirtfoot calls themselves the only "Gypsy Punk Country Grumble Boogie" band in the land. Their unique outfits, including a bear hat and sunflowers in their instruments, and upbeat style were a definite crowd pleaser..
The event was packed with food venders serving up specialties. Some came all the way down from the bayou to cook up a storm, while others were locals with a little Cajun flavor.
The crawfish could be purchased by the pound. Bob Neutce of Texas Concessions and Catering spent the day dumping pound after pound into a boiler and spicing his jumbo crawfish with Zatarans crawfish oil.
"You have to try to get the crawfish to a medium spice, because if it's too mild, nobody likes it, but if it's too hot, no one will eat it," Neutce said. "When we serve it, we sprinkle seasoning on top. That's what burns your lips when you eat it."
But if peeling the shells off tons of crawfish sounds like too much work to enjoy Cajun food, most anything could be found fried, stuffed, spiced or etoufeed
to perfection.
David Griffin from Cajun's Unlimited fried alligator from morning till night, something he has done since he was a
little boy.
A family business from Lake Charles, La., Griffin has been cooking alligator for more than 28 years, but his other favorites are crawfish gumbo and crawfish etouffee, or crawfish smothered
in onions.
The more adventurous eaters headed to the Fontenot Cajun Creole Seafood stand where fried rattlesnake and fried rabbit were on the menu. Red beans and rice, frog legs, boudin - a type of stuffed sausage - seafood jambalaya, shrimp Creole, gumbo and crawfish pie (just to name a few) were served up alongside sweet tea
and lemonade.
"Louisianans, just like Texans, gather over food. You get a big table, lay out all the crawfish, and you sit around drink beer and peel crawfish," said Josh Harvey, the owner of Austin's Storyville. "So it is fun to see the food and zydeco music they brought out. It kind of feels like home."
Harvey is a Louisiana native, and other than coming out just to eat the food, he came to sell merchandise from Storyville, a store that makes locally designed and customized apparel.
The vendors lined a section of the festival, selling anything from handmade skirts to parakeets to jewelry. For the kids at the event, there was a petting zoo with everything from a yak to
three kangaroos.
Most items for purchase were inspired by the swamp thing theme, and to stay true to the Cajun culture being celebrated, the nonprofit group Pirates for the Preservation of New Orleans Music hoped to give back to the culture they enjoy so much.
"Pirates for the Preservation is a Texas nonprofit group that is dedicated to the rebuilding of the New Orleans music programs and the schools that were hit the hardest by Hurricane Katrina," said president of the organization Erik Brady.
Brady, along with the project director Phillip Nitch, advertised their group and sold the nonprofit single called "Buffalo Wing," featuring Austin artists.
Combining awareness for supporting the music of New Orleans with experiencing the culture was a big part of the festival for
people involved.
"That is what Louisiana is about ... saying, 'Come on, guys, let's get it together!'" said Matt Hazelton of Dirtfoot.
Once George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic ended their set, the event might have come to a close, but for crawfish enthusiasts, the season has
just begun.
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