When Mardi Gras season comes around, there’s one sweet treat that every Louisianian craves, king cake. The “cake” title can be misleading as traditional king cake is more of a bready texture that’s braided with cinnamon and arranged into an oval. However, it’s just as common to find a donut king cake with a delicious sugary glaze to match. King cakes are usually topped by colorful icing and sprinkles often in purple, green, and yellow Mardi Gras colors. They can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Flavors of [...]

In a previous blog post “Haunted St. Landry”, the St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission collaborated with local paranormal investigative group, Louisiana Spirits, to connect history and evidence collected by the group’s investigations in St. Landry Parish. This Halloween, the Commission has collected 2 first-person accounts of unexplained phenomena and a piece of video evidence. You can visit where these stories took place and decide for yourself if what the accounts say are true. Haunted Highway 359 Thistlethwaite Wildlife Management Area Highway 359 is a stretch that [...]

From stunning natural scenery and native plants to murals, statues, and historic buildings, St. Landry Parish is a picturesque area with plenty of fun photo opportunities. Here are a few of our favorite places to catch a quick selfie. Clovis Crawfish First on the list is the Clovis Crawfish statue. This fun and happy statue of a large crawfish waves jauntily from the front of the Eunice Depot Museum in downtown Eunice. The crawfish is a 3D sculpture of Mary Alice Fontenot’s famous [...]

St. Landry Parish, Louisiana is known internationally for being a hub of culinary culture and heritage. Opelousas is the cradle of seasoning icon Tony Chachere and celebrity Chef Paul Prudhomme earning it the moniker, "Perfectly Seasoned". Add multiple Creole restaurants, Cajun eateries in almost every town, and a host of festivals centered around food, and the culinary heritage is clear. Yet, one of the often-overlooked culinary specialties of this area is fried chicken. While nearly every restaurant will have the crunchy-fried comfort food in one form or another, there are [...]

The Louisiana outdoors is well known for its lush swampland and legendary bayou waterways. So much of the local food culture comes from the water, be it catfish from rivers and bayous, seafood from the coast, or crawfish from flooded rice fields. St. Landry Parish has a national waterway, the Bayou Teche, that runs directly through several communities. While the Teche may be the most famous of our bayous, the Bayou Courtableau has a history that put a 300-year-old steamboat town, on the map. Along our waterways, you can find [...]

Nestled along sleepy Grolee Street in the Zydeco Capital of the World lies a not-so-hidden gem. Yam Country Pies is an unassuming bakery that is a popular stop for homemade traditional and folded pies. The holiday season is its busiest time of the year. During the Thanksgiving season alone, the family-owned business bakes thousands of pies. People line up in the bakery’s now socially-distanced, outdoor line for a taste of the Hertzock family’s prized pies. With soft and sweet pie crusts that fit into your hand, lightly spiced [...]

This Central Louisiana Regional Playlist is a collaborative effort of Acadia, Evangeline, and St. Landry Parishes. Contributors include Chris Soileau and Floyd Soileau with Flat Town Music Co., Mark Layne with KVPI, Sharon Fontenot with the Swamp Pop Museum, Elizabeth West with Evangeline Parish Tourism, Herman Fuselier with St. Landry Parish Tourism, and Amy Mathiew with Acadia Parish Tourism. Every Wednesday, a new song is chosen with care to represent an aspect of local culture. Their genres will range from swamp pop to zydeco to Cajun. By the end, you'll [...]

Continuing from our previous post that you can find here, we've listed even more ways to enjoy the outdoors in St. Landry Parish. Hunting If you want a more active way to appreciate the outdoors, St. Landry Parish’s WMAs also provide ample hunting opportunities. The culture of this area, to hunt and catch your own food using every piece of the animal is a practice that has persisted from Native American tribes, including the Opelousas and Attakapas, to the frontier cowboys in the 1700s, and [...]

Accordions are a signature instrument in the traditional music of our parish. Click the button below to learn more.

With two towns turning 300 in 2020, it is inevitable that our parish would collect a few ghosts along the way. Click the button below to learn more.

Singer Rod Bernard, who died Sunday, stirred pride and controversy in 1958. The then-teenager from Opelousas was the talk of St. Landry Parish and beyond when he performed his Billboard Top 20 pop hit, “This Should Go on Forever,” on “American Bandstand.” Still a baby like the rock ‘n’ roll music it featured, “Bandstand” grew into an American television institution. Bernard’s history-making moment also showed how times were much different. Legendary “Bandstand” host Dick Clark received a viewer complaint objecting to “sinner” in Bernard’s ballad. Bernard sang, ‘If it’s a [...]

St. Landry Parish is the largest parish in Louisiana by landmass. Among these sprawling lands, we are blessed to have several diverse ecosystems and wildlife, including coastal prairies, upland hardwood habitats, bottomland hardwood habitats, and the iconic wetlands. The coastal prairie, or Cajun prairie, is characterized by rolling fields of grasses and wildflowers, some of which were used by indigenous people as healing items. Some locals who have native prairie plants in their gardens report the rejuvenating effects of wild bergamot just from maintaining them normally. Upland hardwood can have [...]

Read about the zydeco and Cajun music albums of St. Landry Parish in this list put together by world-renowned writer and music expert Herman Fuselier. More music will join these five albums in the future. Click the button below to learn more.

From local shops and art to delicious food, the black community of St. Landry Parish adds so much to our local flavor. Help us celebrate the people who make our parish great. Click the button below to learn more.

Learn to cook like a local with Ken Durrousseau. His videos on his YouTube channel Cajun Creole Cuisine walks you through how to make authentic Creole food. Learn about his inspirations and how to make southern Louisiana crawfish pies, shrimp & crawfish pasta, and fried fish by clicking the link below.

The music of Acadiana speaks to the soul. The distinctive sound of Cajun waltzes and high energy feeling of zydeco accordions cannot be found anywhere else. If you would like to learn genuine Cajun and zydeco styles and instruments, here are a list of musicians you can practice with online: Sam Broussard (Mamou Playboys) | Guitar lessons. Msg him on Facebook. Gina Forsyth (Bruce Daigrepont, The Malvinas) | Fiddle lessons (and also guitar) online using Skype, Zoom, or FB Video messenger, whichever, whatever, and whenever they prefer Contact ginaforsyth@gmail.com. Jonno [...]