World Championship Gumbo Cookoff Festivities Start Today In New Iberia

The famed World Championship Gumbo Cookoff starts today in New Iberia. At Bouligny Plaza in downtown New Iberia today and tomorrow no gumbo will be available but a variety of other foods will be.

The site will have different Louisiana favorites over the next two days, including burgers, corn and crab bisque, jambalaya, boudin, étouffée and much more. The festivities start today with 5th Avenue playing music and booths will be serving food starting at 7PM.

Tomorrow, the festivities start 10 AM with the first band, The Joel Martin Project starting at 11:30 AM, Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band starts at 3 PM and Chris Ardoin starts at 6 PM. About 50 teams will be cooking on Saturday and plenty of events will be around to keep everyone busy.

The big day for gumbo is on Sunday, a day in which around 90 teams will be competing for the title of best gumbo in the world. One team coming from Japan will be competing for the first time.  Contestants start making their rouxs on site at 6:00am with the gumbo ready to eat at 11 AM.

The festival coordinators want to remind everyone that the festival goes until 4 PM, but most of the gumbo pots will likely be completely empty by 1 PM.

The bands playing on Sunday are Geno Delafose and French Rockin’ Boogie starting at 9:45 AM and Wayne Toups starting at 1:30 PM.

Rules and more information can be found here.