Hooks, Lies & Alibis

John Folse begins his cookbook, Hooks, Lies & Alibis with a forward describing his boyhood along the Mississippi River, a boyhood stamped indelibly with the place of river, wildlife, fish, swamp and bayou. It is the story of a Cajun boy growing up along the twenty-foot high levee fronting his home in Louisiana’s St James Parish, a marshy land where bar pits along the river caught the overflow and filled with spoonbill catfish, channel cats, garfish, gasperou and sweet Mississippi River shrimp. For John Folse and his five brothers these bar pits were both a playground and the birthplace of an entrepreneurial spirit. Even as children the six boys earned a few pocket dollars with the sale of their fishing bounty from the bar pits and bayous.

By age twelve Folse had graduated to working his lines and traps on the mile-wide mighty Mississippi. But the river was a source of play as much as fishing ground. Folse describes it this way…

‘What we loved most about the shrimp season was that the Mississippi River water was warmed by the June sun and the monkey vines grew long and strong from the willow trees that leaned into the river. A trip to Disneyland could not compare with swinging monkey vines into the river back then. Swimming and swinging were always the payback for a job well done raising shrimp boxes. (Mamere’s stuffed eggplant was just a bonus.) Although we had been warned often of the many perils of swimming in the river, we always enjoyed a dip in Old Muddy. And, the fact is, we couldn’t deny our guilt when asked, “Have you been swimming today?” because our mud-stained Fruit of the Looms gave us away.’

From the river the boys moved into the swamps beyond the cane fields in back of the house. They poled their pirogues into these swamps to a spot where the big gators lived, looking to exercise skills handed down from their father. Following their father’s lessons the boys tied a six-inch steel hook to the end of a quarter-inch thick cord rope and baited it with half a chicken. One boy climbed a willow tree angling over the marsh and tied the cord with hook and bait to a thick branch dangling two feet above the water. In time an eight to ten foot gator leapt with a swish of its tail into the air grabbing the bait and swallowing the hook. Later, poling the bayous of home, the boys learned of the early summer bullfrogs. Excellent in the kitchen pot, they were also a source of income, shipped around the country to biology labs looking for specimens.

Apart from fish, the swamp-floor pantry provided big and small game, game birds and crustaceans, all of which were eaten more often than fish in the Folse household. Crawfish and channel catfish were the two staples, though crawfish did not become popular on Louisiana tables until the late 1950s. For the Folse’s, crawfish was a delicacy. It was Crawfish Bisque on Easter Sunday, Daddy’s River Road Crawfish Stew on Mother’s Day, and late in summer boiled crawfish with corn and potatoes was a common dish.

Folse tells a salty tale about cleaning a large channel cat…

‘Daddy said the head and skin were important because they added that wonderful gelatinous texture to the stew. He removed the gills and whiskers from the catfish, and then, with a Brillo pad in hand, scrubbed the whole fish under running water from the cistern. The slime that protected the fish’s skin had to be removed, and there was nothing better than Brillo for this task. Daddy also claimed that the skin kept the tender meat from falling apart during the two-to-three hour cooking process.’

From a small piece of land in Louisiana’s St James Parish, land strategically located between the river and the swamp, John Folse was bathed in a culture and cuisine that he came to make known worldwide. Mention his name in some circles and heads are filled with mouth-watering thoughts of Louisiana Cajun cooking.

Blue Camellia

A few weeks ago a name from way back cropped up in conversation with a friend, one that was immediately known to me not because of any familiarity with her work, but because at one time during my youth her name was not uncommon on bestseller lists. And possibly because she lived in New Orleans and wrote novels about Louisiana, it was a name more prominent that many in my small world of South Louisiana.

Frances Parkinson Keyes (the last name rhymes with 'skies’) was born in 1885 in Virginia, grew up in Vermont and Boston, lived most of her adult life in and around Washington D.C. and yet much of her fiction is linked firmly to Louisiana. The writer first visited New Orleans at the age of fifty-five and was fascinated by the city. Her first Louisiana novel set in New Orleans came out in 1942, and three years later she moved permanently to the city. She followed that first Louisiana tale with a dozen or so romance stories set in Louisiana, the most famous novel and the only mystery she wrote, Dinner at Antoine’s published in 1948. An outstanding feature of these Louisiana books is the extensive research. While writing her books, Keyes immersed herself in the history, culture and society of her characters in order to create an authentic milieu. Throughout her life she remained dedicated to her craft and maintained a rigorous writing schedule. She wrote more than fifty novels, biographies and memoirs.

Deciding it was time I learned a little more about this writer who dedicated so much of her work to the Louisiana of my childhood, I went to the library to see what I could find. Even though Keyes was a popular author of the 1940s and 50s, existing editions of her books are becoming rare, and many libraries have weeded her books from their shelves. For those looking to buy, there is fortunately still a trade in her books on Amazon, eBay and other auction sites. My local library didn’t have anything by Keyes on the shelves, but requesting titles from other libraries in the county proved easy. Using the “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” method, I came up with the novel published in 1957, Blue Camellia.

Blue Camellia is centered upon a rice farm set in the prairies of South Louisiana. Brent Winslow, his wife Mary and young daughter Lavinia are transplanted midwesterners who arrive in Cajun country in the year 1887 to build a new life. A story closely wrapped in Cajun culture, it is told through the eyes of these outsiders. Blue Camellia paints a picture of the development of south Louisiana from swampland to productive rice farms, and effectively describes society and conventions of the area and historical period. It is historical fiction written in a style of women writing for women readers and from what I understand similar in that style to many books by Keyes. That said, she is deserving of readers contemporary or otherwise. Unfortunate that her books are one by one being shed from public library collections.

Frances Parkinson Keyes had six top ten bestsellers between 1945 and 1957. Blue Camellia rose to number five on the 1957 bestseller lists. The writer died in New Orleans at the age of eighty-four.