Louisiana True – serie

In this compelling book, Rien Fertel tells the story of humanity's complicated and often brutal relationship with the brown pelican over the past century. This beloved bird with the mythically bottomless belly—to say nothing of its prodigious pouch—has been deemed a living fossil and the most dinosaur-like of creatures. The pelican adorns the Louisiana state flag, serves as a religious icon of sacrifice, and stars in the famous parting shot of Jurassic Park, but, most significantly, spotlights our tenuous connection with the environment in which it flies, feeds, and roosts—the coastal United States.In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt inaugurated the first national wildlife refuge at Pelican Island, Florida, in order to rescue the brown pelican, among other species, from the plume trade. Despite such protections, the ubiquity of synthetic "agents of death," most notably DDT, in the mid-twentieth century sent the brown pelican to the list of endangered species. By the mid-1960s, not one viable pelican nest remained in all of Louisiana. Authorities declared the state bird locally extinct.Conservation efforts—including an outlandish but well-planned birdnapping—saved the brown pelican, generating one of the great success stories in animal preservation. However, the brown pelican is once again under threat, particularly along Louisiana's coast, due to land loss and rising seas. For centuries, artists and writers have portrayed the pelican as a bird that pierces its breast to feed its young, symbolizing saintly piety. Today, the brown pelican gives itself in other ways, sacrificed both by and for the environment as a bellwether bird—an indicator species portending potential disasters that await.Brown Pelican combines history and first-person narrative to complicate, deconstruct, and reassemble our vision of the bird, the natural world, and ourselves.

Mardi Gras Indians explores how sacred and secular expressions of Carnival throughout the African diaspora came together in a gumbo-sized melting pot to birth one of the most unique traditions celebrating African culture, Indigenous peoples, and Black Americans. Williams ties together the fragments of the ancient traditions with the expressed experiences of the contemporary. From the sangamentos of the Kongolese and the calumets of the various tribes of the lower Mississippi River valley to one-on-one interviews with today's Black masking tribe members, this book highlights the spirit of resistance and rebellion upon which this culture was built.

Gumbo adorns menus from New Orleans to New York to New Delhi, appearing in variations such as chicken and sausage gumbo, gombo z'herbes, and seafood gumbo. Some cooks use roux, others okra, and adding tomatoes to the pot can provide extra flavor or start a fight. Within this spirit of diversity lies the beauty of gumbo.Two culinary creations--West African okra stew and Choctaw soup--helped birth Louisiana gumbo. The Choctaw ground up sassafras, called filé, while West Africans like the Bambara provided okra and rice. From there, Spanish Caribbean influences introduced hot peppers and spices, the Germans pioneered smoked sausage and andouille, and the French devised the roux. Gumbo traces the history of how colonization, slavery, immigration, industry, and seasonality all had an impact on which ingredients wound up in the gumbo pot.