10 Festivals We Don’t Have in Louisiana But Need
Festival season is taking a break until everyone gets back from Gulf Shores. But once it returns, baw, it's on like Donkey Kong!
We all know how much Louisianians like to celebrate everything by making a festival everything (mostly food)!
Over time, we've slowly created a festival for just about anything you can imagine. But there's still a little room to grow.
Here are some ideas we came up for new festivals we need but currently don't have in the Bayou State.
- 1
Praline Festival
If there's one of these, I haven't seen it, and that's a low-down dirty shame. We could even make it a one day festival as June 24th is "National Praline Day". Maw-maws across Louisiana, unite!
Ideal location: New Orleans
- 2
Fried Food Festival
I can picture the line-up of vendors now providing us with piles of fried deliciousness -- fried fish, fried crawfish, fried shrimp,...fried "whatever we caught on the trot line that morning".
Ideal location: Catahoula
- 3
Snowball Festival
Finally a summer festival we'd somehow be able to tolerate. One of the big attractions could be the "Snowball Fights" featuring the Maurice Volunteer Department versus the Maurice Police Department. (Yes, I know, a one-on-one throwdown.)
Ideal location: Maurice
- 4
Trash Fish Festival
Enough of this "tilapia" crap, call it what it is -- a "trash fish". There's nothing wrong with a sheephead or choupique every now and again. Let's catch them all and throw a big party for them!
Ideal location: Cypremort Point
- 5
White Rubber Boots Festival
These are only the official shoe of the state of Louisiana! Could you imagine the media attention we could get with this bad boy whenever we try to break the world-record-for-people-line-dancing-to-"The Freeze"?!
Ideal location: Delcambre
- 6
Backstrap Festival
Now this is some good eatin' cher! Of course, we're really only talking deer backstrap here. We'd need a good camp-type setting for this festival.
Ideal location: Henderson
- 7
Cane Syrup Festival
You are not really Cajun if you use anything other than some Steen's Cane Syrup on ya lil pancakes. I love you Aunt Jemima, but I'll leave you for the out-of-state stops at the Waffle House. Picture it now - "crawfish races in cane syrup"!
Ideal location: Abbeville
- 8
Nutria Rat Festival
A few years back, the state of Louisiana actually had a push to include these rodents in our restaurants. But instead of calling it nutria rat on the menu, they went with their french name "ragondin". I say let's cook some rice and have a party!
Ideal location: Krotz Springs
- 9
Hog Head Cheese Festival
We have a festival for all the other parts of the pig, so why not this one? (OK, so the feet are still waiting to have their little party.) I bet we could even pull in some folks from Texas to enjoy this one.
Ideal location: Ville Platte
- 10
Boudin Ball Festival
We do have a boudin festival, but these treats, when done right, are better than Rob Perillo during a tropical storm. Let's give them the attention they deserve.
Ideal location: Scott (you can never have too many boudin festivals in one town)