Qualla: Acadiana https://qualla.com/acadiana en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/v/q/e/acadiana-wk/related-sibling-downtown-lafayette-la-2021.jpg Qualla: Acadiana https://qualla.com/acadiana Acadiana: Introduction https://qualla.com/acadiana/ Photo credit Christophe Landry, CC BY-SA 3.0. Whatever you do, do not call them crayfish. In Acadiana -- the 22-parish region of southwest Louisiana that locals call Cajun Country -- that is roughly the equivalent of ordering a steak well-done in Buenos Aires. The word is crawfish, and the proper way to eat them involves a communal boil, a newspaper-covered table, and a fierce debate about whether the fat sucked from the head is the best part. This is a place where around 30 percent of residents still speak French, where the courthouse in Lafayette posts its signage in both English and Louisiana French, and where the dominant religion is Roman Catholicism -- a conspicuous outlier in the overwhelmingly Evangelical Protestant South. Acadiana is the birthplace of Cajun cuisine, Cajun music, and zydeco, and none of those things taste, sound, or feel quite the same anywhere else.

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Image: Christophe Landry | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/v/q/s/acadiana-wk/9vqe-acadiana-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Acadiana: The Long Road from Nova Scotia https://qualla.com/acadiana/ Photo credit Infrogmation of New Orleans, CC BY 3.0. The name tells the origin story. Acadiana is a reference to the Acadians -- descendants of French speakers expelled from Nova Scotia by the British in 1755 in a brutal deportation known as le Grand Derangement. Those who eventually found their way to the prairies and bayous of so...

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Image: Infrogmation of New Orleans | CC BY 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/v/q/s/acadiana-wk/9vqe-acadiana-the-long-road-from-nova-scotia.mp3 0:06 2 full Acadiana: A Table Set Like Nowhere Else https://qualla.com/acadiana/ Photo credit Russell Lee, Public domain. Cajun food is not Creole food -- a distinction residents of Acadiana will make with cheerful insistence. Where Creole cooking from New Orleans leans on tomato sauces and European refinement, Cajun cuisine is more provincial, often spicier, and trades red for brown. Boudin -- pron...

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Image: Russell Lee | Public domain

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/v/q/s/acadiana-wk/9vqe-acadiana-a-table-set-like-nowhere-else.mp3 0:06 3 full Acadiana: Dance Halls and Accordion Wails https://qualla.com/acadiana/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The music of Acadiana splits into two interwoven traditions: Cajun music, with its French lyrics and accordion-driven melodies, and zydeco, which layers in African American rhythmic traditions and a washboard called the frottoir. Both are meant for dancing, and the dance halls of...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/v/q/s/acadiana-wk/9vqe-acadiana-dance-halls-and-accordion-wails.mp3 0:06 4 full Acadiana: Prairies, Bayous, and Plantation Ghosts https://qualla.com/acadiana/ Photo credit Kingfish27, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the air, Acadiana reveals itself as five distinct sub-regions stretching from the Texas border eastward, where Cajun and Creole peoples adapted to dramatically different landscapes. The western reaches are open cattle prairie. The central territory fans out through rice fiel...

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Image: Kingfish27 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/v/q/s/acadiana-wk/9vqe-acadiana-prairies-bayous-and-plantation-ghosts.mp3 0:06 5 full