Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown

- The thundering hooves of many horses,

the sound of a thousand beer cans popping open...

Ah!

And music... always music.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

No, really.

Whoo!

Mardi Gras!

It's the Mardi Gras!

- There are parts of America that are special,

unique, unlike anywhere else,

cultures all their own...

Kept close, much loved, but largely misunderstood.

The vast patchwork of saltwater marshes,

bayous, and prairie land that make up Cajun Country

is one of those places.

While the rest of the USA

got stitched together by superhighways,

southwestern Louisiana remained

relatively isolated.

I-10 wasn't completed until the 1970s,

finally connecting this part of the state

to New Orleans, Houston, and the rest of the nation.

With that came chain restaurants,

drive-throughs, and strip malls, but fear not.

It's still magnificently weird.

- Take, for example, Cajun Mardi Gras.

Ordinarily, I loathe the idea of Mardi Gras.

Any kind of group celebration,

anything festive involving dancing

fills me with self-conscious dread.

Thousands of happy drunks

crowded into the French Quarter,

for instance... not for me.

But Cajun Mardi Gras is another thing entirely...

Closer to the ancient French tradition,

vaguely more dangerous.

Downright medieval.

Cajuns do things their way...

Always have, always will.

Whether it's hanging on to the French language

of their ancestors, their music,

traditions, or food,

Cajuns fiercely keep it all vibrantly alive.

Boudin is a ubiquitous sausage of Cajun Country,

and judging by the line up at the drive through,

Billy's Boudin is pretty damn popular.

So this is a boudin ball

stuffed with pepper jack cheese,

which I believe Billy's is responsible for its invention.

- What's not to like? - Ground-up sausage

and molted cheese, battered and fried?

Who's gonna hate that? No one.

In addition to boudin,

breakfast around here wouldn't be complete

without some cracklins, and of course, a cold beer.

- My father's first language is French.

I mean, as a kid, for him,

he was whipped at school for speaking French.

- Yeah, I mean, look, is it fair to say that

at most points in its history,

the Cajuns have been, if not, a despised minority...

An aggressively marginalized minority.

- Our depiction stops at swamp scenes and alligators,

and it's so much more than that...

Not just because of the food, not just because of the music,

because of the way of life, you know?

Especially Acadiana... This is the most European

part of America, in my opinion.

- So we're gonna eat well this week?

- Yeah, a lot of good food, a lot of house parties.

- Excited about Mardi Gras? - Mm.

- My first. - Never been to one.

- Here, it's a whole different thing.

I mean, the major difference is that,

here, you're the event.

If you're attending Mardi Gras, if you're running Mardi Gras,

you are part of it.

Right.

- Like, it's bigger than Christmas.

- Toby Rodriguez is about as Cajun as you get.

I met him nearly a decade ago

when I came here for a boucherie.

Back then, Toby and everybody else said,

"You got to come back for our Mardi Gras."

- Wanna give me a hand? - Yeah.

"We do Mardi Gras right."

And so, here I am.

It's the week before,

and there's anticipation in the air.

All over Acadiana, scenes like this unfold.

Out in the yard with friends and family,

kids playing, music, dancing,

beer, good Catholic whiskey,

gumbo cooking in a big pot.

Mardi Gras!

- Welcome back. - How you doing?

- Really good. - Good to see you both again.

- Good to see you too. - Thanks.

You might call the Savoy family Cajun royalty.

I know them from my last visit,

and it's good to see them again.

Marc Savoy was born and raised here

in the small prairie town of Eunice.

Together with his wife Ann and sons Joel and Wilson,

they make up the Savoy family band.

They've all been playing music since they were children,

and share a devotion... Dedication...

To Cajun culture.

- So how far does the family go back here?

Marc, here's the question.

How far does your family go back here?

- Well, I think back to the American Revolution

because the land that we live on

was ceded to one of our ancestors,

and part of that land is still in our family today.

- How the French-Acadian pioneers got here

and ended up becoming Cajun is a long story.

Forcibly deported by the Protestant British

from their homeland in Nova Scotia,

the Acadians became refugees,

eventually settling deep in the mosquito-infested

swamps and flatlands of Louisiana...

A place nobody else wanted at the time.

Over the years, the settlers absorbed,

to varying degrees, other cultures...

Irish, Spanish, German, Native American,

and West African, among others,

mutating into a distinctive culture unlike any other.

So how long has the family been playing music?

- Well, my grandfather was a fiddler,

but I don't know... I don't know more than that.

- I have that fiddle. - Yeah.

- Your grandfather's fiddle, and your uncle's fiddle.

- Yeah, which was your great uncle.

- Living in the same case here in the house.

- So what are you guys doing for Mardi Gras?

- Running. - Running.

- You ready? - Uh, I believe I am.

- What are you doing? - He's accounting.

- What are you doing? - I'm running Mardi Gras.

- What are you doing? - I'm running Mardi Gras,

right here.

- But, you know, in the old days,

it was just people walking.

It wasn't... it's become insane.

It's become insane, more and more insane.

- And every year, somebody dies in Eunice.

Every single year, there's one death at the Mardi Gras.

- Every year. - But, you know,

you gotta stay away from the horse's feet.

You know, like a lot of horse injuries.

- Like, their horses... - Right.

- Some horses will kick you in the head or something.

Oh, okay.

- I mean, there's a lot of really good reasons

that you're doing all these things.

I mean, it's the end of winter,

people are out of food...

- And it's right before Lent. - It's the last year.

Yeah, this is the last...

- You gotta stop everything for a good while.

- Let's just misbehave before Lent.

And then the next day, they go to church

and get a X on their forehead.

- So you go in, you got a black eye,

your shoulder's out of its socket, and you get the...

You get the cross at church.

- At the bayou church, praying, getting the ashes.

"I'm sorry for everything I did." "Okay."

- "Sorry for everything I did yesterday."

"Fais do-do,"

translated means, "go to sleep,"

something a mother would say to a crying baby.

This soothing phrase became, over time,

something else entirely.

- What the hell? - Finish that.

- I gotta drive. - Mardi Gras.

Mardi...

- Apparently mom was just lulling junior to sleep

so she could go party.

A warm up for Mardi Gras,

or simply a continuation of what seems like

an endless pre-game of drinking, eating,

music, dancing, and celebration.

Toby, a contractor and butcher and restaurateur

jack of all trades, is the host of this epic fais do-do.

And he's invited 170 or so of his closest friends...

Hey!

Everybody cooks.

Men, women... even kids appear to have a specialty.

Weather be damned.

We came to party, and party we shall.

Ho!

- Food has always tied communities here together.

Cajuns trace the roots of their culture and cuisine

to a particularly brutal diaspora followed by

a steep learning curve as they adapted

to the harsh environment of rural Louisiana.

Their culinary traditions