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By Root 1058 0

you won’t find on menus outside Louisiana, from crisp-fried crawfish boudin balls and catfish Catahoula (stuffed with crawfish, shrimp, and crab) to eggplant “pirogues” (canoes), hollowed out, fried, and filled with crawfish and red snapper fillet, and drizzled with buttery lobster sauce. Laura’s recommendation of crawfish enchiladas is a good one. The crawdads are rolled with chilies and cheese in flour tortillas, baked, and smothered in crawfish sauce with zesty “dirty rice” on the side. It is also possible to get a monomaniacal all-crawfish meal of crawfish bisque, fried crawfish, crawfish étouffée, crawfish pie, crawfish boulettes, and a salad dotted with crawfish. The one dessert you need to know about is bread pudding with Jack Daniel’s sour mash sauce.

Robin’s

1409 Henderson Hwy.

337–228–7594

Henderson, LA

LD | $$$

It occurred to us as we traveled through southern Louisiana that a vast majority of restaurants have names with the possessive apostrophe. It makes sense, because these places tend to be defined by the personality of the owner/chef whose possession they are. Robin’s is a perfect example. This is Lionel Robin’s restaurant, with a menu that reflects his culinary taste and expertise. And chances are good that if you make any sort of inquiry about the menu or cooking techniques, you will meet Robin himself, who loves to come out of the kitchen to chat with strangers about his current culinary adventures, whether they be frozen and ready-to-heat crawfish étouffée or Tabasco ice cream.

Monsieur Robin cooks some of the most distinctive restaurant meals in swamp country. Year-round, but especially in crawfish season from early in the year through spring, this is the place to have them either simply boiled or in all the many ways Cajun chefs like to celebrate it. A crawfish dinner starts with bisque, which is smoky, complex, and rich. You then move on to a few boiled and fried ones, étouffée over rice, boulettes, stuffed pepper, and a superior pie in which the little crustaceans share space with vegetables and plenty of garlic in a translucent-thin crust.

The one crawfish dish we might not recommend here is gumbo—not because it isn’t good (it is), but because the shrimp and okra gumbo is even better. And chicken and sausage gumbo, while containing none of the seafood for which Robin’s is renowned, is wonderful—brilliantly spiced and thick with sausage you will remember for a long time.

Russell’s Short Stop Po-Boys

119 Transcontinental Dr.

504–885–4572

Metarie, LA

BLD | $

Here is a place to have gumbo and jambalaya, which in our experience are very, very good, or a po-boy, which is even better than that. In fact, this is one of the best po-boys in New Orleans. The sandwich is available in one of three sizes and comes loaded with whatever meats and/or cheeses you wish, top of the heap being the “Four Meat Special.” Meatball po-boys are wonderful, but our preference is basic roast beef—king-size, please—which is a heap of moist beef that is guaranteed to ooze and tumble from the crusty length of bread as you hoist the sandwich.

There are no reservations and service is do-it-yourself in this humble 1966-vintage Creole lunchroom, but credit cards are welcomed.

Mississippi

Abe’s Bar-B-Q

616 State St.

662–624–9947

Clarksdale, MS

LD | $

Folklore designates the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale as the spot where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar mastery. In 1924, when Johnson was thirteen, Abraham Davis began selling sandwiches in Clarksdale. He opened Abe’s Bar-B-Q at the infamous crossroads in 1937, and today his grandson Pat Davis runs the place, which is known for pecan-smoked pork and hot tamales.

Abe’s barbecue is Boston butt that is first cooked over pecan wood, then allowed to cool overnight, then sliced, then heated again on the griddle when it is ordered. While it is getting heated, the pork gets hacked into a rugged hash. The process results in meat with lots of juicy buzz in its pale inside fibers and plenty of crusty