Cajun Hats

Cajun pride is worn loudly in Acadiana, from Lafayette and Houma to Lake Charles and the Texas diaspora. It is a rural south Louisiana heritage with its own words, and these hats put them on the front. KPEL lists the things Cajuns say that confuse the rest of the country: making groceries for cooking, saving the dishes for putting them away, raising down the window, and the car porch for the covered spot where you keep your car. Festivals Acadiens et Creoles filled Girard Park in Lafayette this October, one of 34 festivals chosen for the Smithsonian Festival of Festivals program. The food arguments are part of the identity. Who's your mama, are you Catholic, can you make a roux is the greeting that became the title of M.B. Bienvenu's cookbook, and the first-you-make-a-roux line has been in print since 1947. Garden and Gun reports that rural Cajun gumbo usually skips tomatoes, though recipes going back a century say otherwise, which is exactly why wearing the no-tomatoes stand takes commitment. Dirty Coast sells a Boudin Hat, proof that the sausage alone is enough of a flag. The badges name Cajun and Acadiana, and the sentence designs carry the roux bits, the dialect flags and the three-question greeting. Every design is custom embroidered on an unstructured dad hat. Choose one for your own camp, or give it to someone who knows their people.