Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler--Let the Good Times Roll
by Sophie Pelafigue
“Cher Baby, come here and give me some sugar,” my grandfather Dee Dee would call to me in his thick Cajun-French accent when I stepped off the plane at the New Orleans airport. I would fly from Orange County, California to visit my grandparents in a small town called Grand Cateau, in the heart of the Louisiana bayou. Other than those warm greetings, almost everything seemed strange and unusual where my dad spent the first 18 years of his life.
The St. Charles highway snakes away from the suburban sprawl of New Orleans and into the inhospitable landscape of Cyprus trees, swamps, and sugar plantations. As the road narrows to a one-lane highway near Lafayette, I notice small groups of people sitting on front porches watching the world go by. Having always lived an agrarian lifestyle, Cajun people live life much slower and simpler than what I experienced in the fast paced world of prosperity and the sharper image.
Fullerton, a city about 10 minutes from Disneyland, provided an ideal setting for someone oblivious of traffic, pollution, and uptight attitude problems. As a young girl, I could visit ‘The Greatest Place on Earth’, swim in the ocean on a hot sunny beach, or shop for clothes at any of the 12 malls within a 30-minute drive. Although I enjoyed these pastimes when I lived behind the plastic curtain, they weren’t filled with the colorful characters that made up my family portrait.
My grandfather, the town sheriff, acknowledged everyone he passed in Grand Cateau. He stopped the car to talk (in French) to anyone close enough to the car to hear him. No one seemed rushed or annoyed as he lovingly introduce me as his “petite-fille (granddaughter) from California”. Once when I was eight years old, a woman name Willie Mae smiled, nodded her head, and knowingly said “California? We know what you all do in California.”
Having no idea what she meant as I gave a puzzled look and asked “What?
What do we do in California?” I felt uncomfortable as she just kept shaking her head saying, “uh huh, we know!” Dee Dee didn’t try to explain what she meant but instead told me her family name, who her children were, and how she was related in some way to our family: The Pelafigue’s.
Throughout my elementary school years, my best friend’s name was Jenny Brown. How I wished to have a name that could be said on the first try and have little potential word play. I cursed my unusually difficult last name: Pelafigue. As one official after another would read “Parker, Pierce, Peterson,” there would be the inevitable pause…..and then the attempt “Pel, Pel, Pel a…..oh I don’t know, Sophia.” Usually, I tried to stop them after the first pause and would call out “here!” in order to save myself the agony of name mutilation. While in Grand Cateau, I could rejoice in hearing my name said with the proper accent on the second syllable. I also realized that everyone else’s name was as unusual as mine: Daigle, Petitjan, Pitre, and Jagneaux.
Cajuns center their social gatherings around food. On every special occasion, some family member hosted a crawfish boil (“bol”). As a way to honor our family traditions, we got together on long picnic tables to suck on and eat dozens of pounds of live crustaceans. (There are photos of me as a two-year old baby, sitting next to three laundry baskets of crawfish waiting to be eaten.) Eating from a communal serving place creates a sense of purpose and helped me work through some of the silent pauses that come from not personally knowing countless numbers of family members.
I remember slurping crawfish juice next to my dad’s best friend, Bubba, from high school as he told me, “Yo daddy and me used to fish for crawfish down on the bayou when we were boys. Did he ever tell you about the time when a big water moccasin fell into the boat yo daddy just pulled it right out with a stick. He was never afraid of anything. He is a true Louisiana boy.” Dad left Louisiana (the day after his 18th birthday) to join the Air Force. Although most of his friends and family never moved farther than 20 miles of where they were born, they still viewed him as the first-born, second generation, male Pelafigue. He could do no wrong.
Since I becoming a vegetarian, I have had difficulty time finding food without the essential Cajun ingredient: Meat. Not being overly concerned with cholesterol levels and heart disease, people from the south use some form of meat in everything they cook: boudin (seasoned pork and rice served in a thin sausage casing), andouille (stuffed large intestines), chaudin (stuffed small intestines) chourice (stuffed stomach), tasso (pork or beef jerky), as well as a glob of grease in everything they cook. Of course, I can’t forget to mention the ever-popular Cajun dish, Gumbo, which contains any combination of different meats the chef has laying around the kitchen. I have had more than one confused great auntie stare at me in shock as I delicately tried to tell her I actually chose to eat the Wonder bread and American cheese I found in the fridge, because I would not eat her blessed boudin. Perhaps my unusual choice of diet was part of what Willie Mae talked about when she eagerly inquired about Californian’s alien traits.
In addition to good food and company, most social events include live zydeco music. People of all ages seem to have no inhibitions about getting up to dance, clap, and sing in front of each other. Visiting as a teenager proved particularly painful as I watched with embarrassment as people smacked their legs, hooted out loudly, or jumped up and grabbed a dancing partner. The closest I had been to shaking my booty was to do the limbo at the roller skating rink on Saturday night. I certainly did not gyrate my body in front of people and clap along with smiling musicians with strange instruments.
Fortunately, after my term as a teenager passed, we discovered an outrageous musical experience. Each Saturday, a zydeco breakfast in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, goes down just outside of Opelousas. The music starts at 9:00 a.m. and does not stop until 1:00p.m. No one leaves his or her table, so you must get there by 8:00 to sit down. After you have eaten, there is no reason to sit down because everyone is up dancing in whatever small space they can find.
Since getting married, I have kept my family name (who would have thought!) and I try to listen to my dad when he details particular experiences of his childhood. Although my grandfather has since passed away and my grandmother now lives in a care home, we continue to go back to New Orleans and Grand Cateau to “laissez les bons temps rouler” every chance we get. I often hear people make endearing comments like “Cher baby” when my daughter Amelia passes and I can hear my grandfather’s sweet voice and see his sparkling smile as I arrived from California years ago. As I watch Amelia boogie freely around on the dance floor, I begin to wonder whether boudin could be made with tofu.
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