FEASTING SEASON

IN LOUISIANA, CARNIVAL IS A SEASON OF CRAWFISH, KING CAKE, AND COMMUNITY.

- MELISSA M. MARTIN

THE SEASONS ON THE BAYOU ARE NOT NECESSARILY SUMMER, FALL, WINTER AND SPRING.

They are marked by nature, traditions, and distinct emotions. They are rituals playing out on a stove every day. We mark years with dishes and celebrations-some so small that they are personal to my own table, or those at my New Orleans restaurant, Mosquito Supper Club-and some, like Fat Tuesday, that are worldrenowned. We commemorate, reminisce, and harvest through the year. We celebrate holidays and memorialize the days life marks for us, like the passing of a loved one or the date a hurricane made landfall. We never need an excuse to gather and toast to life, love, and supper.

As a result, there are countless versions of Cajun life and Cajun food. But all the parishes that make up Cajun country sit on delta soil and have bayous running through them, old pathways and tributaries of the Mississippi River that appear as arteries through southern Louisiana.

On the bayou, folks are tethered to the heart of Cajun life: food, family, and the rhythms of a year. Neighborhoods, homes, and businesses flank the bayous. Directions are given as "up the bayou," "down the bayou," and "across the bayou," and folks identify themselves by the bayou they come from. Chauvin is nestled on Bayou Petit Caillou; Montegut and Bourg are on Bayou Terrebonne, to the east of us. Lower south is the epic, lush, Amazon-like Bayou Pointe-auxChenes, and Isle de Jean Charles, an island cut off from the mainland that is near extinction and home to American Indian tribes. To the west of Chauvin is Dulac on Bayou Grand Caillou. Louisiana is home to countless bayous; they all spill into the barrier waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and all are home to fishing communities. The bayou is part of our identity and a lifeline to our culture.