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and all this happened over the course of a hundred years.) The Houma and the Acadians were all pioneers — they came in small groups and had to subdue some seriously hostile lands amid multiple wars being waged all around them. I don’t need to tell you that things didn’t go great for the tribes. Spanish Louisiana territory returned to the French in 1803, who then sold it to the United States, who did not honor the Spanish agreement with the Houma people. How does this relate to crawfish? The name “Houma” is a Choctaw word meaning “red,” and the tribe’s symbol was — you guessed it — a crawfish. It represented bravery. The Houma, who had been doing it for centuries in the South, excelled at harvesting crawfish and other seafood. It was a pretty useful skill that their new Acadian neighbors learned as well. By all accounts I could find, the Acadians and the Houma had cordial relations. This was a tough, sparsely populated place, and cooperation, cultural exchange and intermarriage were common behaviors for generations. (That is one reason why your grandmother insists that you are ¹⁄ 16 Choctaw, regardless of what 23andMe says.) There are other crawfish origin stories as well. According to Cajun folklore, crawfish were not waiting for the Acadians when they got here. Rather, they brought the beloved bug with them, though in a different form. As the fairytale goes, when the British kicked out the Acadians, the lobsters went with them. (I mean, it’s not like the British know how to cook anything, and if you’re going to be boiled and eaten, at least die to become magnificent cuisine.) As the lobsters journeyed to Louisiana, leaving behind the cold Atlantic waters, they began transforming magically, and by the time they reached the warm bayous of Louisiana, they were well-adapted to their new environ ment, much as the Acadians had likewise transformed. Regardless of whether crawfish were magic lobsters or already here, the point is, when the Acadians arrived, they weren’t the first to eat them. What they likely were first to do, however, is prepare crawfish with French panache. It didn’t take long for the Acadians to apply what they knew about cooking lobsters to cooking crawfish.

The Houma’s war emblem, the crawfish (Image from LSU Library)

particularly with respect to goods like cotton and sugar from the Southern states and grain from the Midwest. The port of New Orleans was one of the busiest on Earth, and the cotton exchange here was likewise one of the largest. The city, quite simply, was the major financial center for the South and the Midwest, and one of the USA’s key inter faces with the world. It probably even had good roads back then. Things have changed quite a bit. Though the Civil War proved ruinous for much of the South, by the mid 1900s, the economy of New Orleans yet again seemed unstop pable, largely due to its port. Moreover, the discovery of oil in the Gulf of Mexico during that time further boosted the city’s economic prospects. New Orleans became a key player in the oil industry, with companies establishing bases here, creating jobs and fueling growth. The city was seen by many scholars as a burgeoning hub of prosperity, with the chance of one day surpassing in all aspects nearly any city in America, and most cities in the world. Then the oil bust came. The collapse of oil prices led to a severe, immediate economic collapse. It is hard to imagine a more signifi cant setback. It wasn’t just the oil companies. In the government sector, the subsequent end of the Space Shuttle program meant NASA would likewise no longer be an anchor in the area. Then a series of catastrophes, the

To clear up one more thing: No one likely called the Acadians “Cajuns” for another hundred years. That word came along during the Civil War, when northern soldiers came to town. Historians found one of the first recorded uses of the word in a letter from a Union lieutenant, who described a typical Cajun as a “half-savage creature, of mixed French and Indian blood, lives in swamps and subsists by cultivating small patches of corn and sweet potatoes. The wants of the Cajun are few, and his habits are simple...” This remains pretty accurate overall. During all this, there was one more big journey in store for the crawfish. The Houma had already mastered the humble crusta cean, and the Acadians had given it the French culinary razzle-dazzle, but it took New Orleans to launch the creature into the stratosphere. THE CRESCENT CITY Just as it’s hard to imagine the scale of Acadia or New France, it is almost impos sible to understate the importance of the city of New Orleans to the United States of America. Before the Civil War, it was the wealthiest city in the nation, and the third-most populous. It was a vital port for the country with a strategic location crucial for both national and international trade,

20 ROUSES SPRING 2024