Ask a resident of Lafayette and the surrounding Acadiana parishes to list the most Cajun and Creole of Cajun and Creole foods and the answers will not surprise: dark-rouxed gumbo, boiled crawfish, shrimp or crawfish étouffée, boudin and cracklins. But you’ll also likely hear about a white-bread brand synonymous with southwest Louisiana’s cuisines: Evangeline Maid, a brand that is, more or less, the same old slice of American white consumed nationwide.
For decades, Acadians have sopped slices of Evangeline Maid white bread in their gumbo. Throughout the region, fried bone-in pork chops arrive sandwiched between the same. Plate lunches and school lunches, whether made at home or in a cafeteria, always come with a slice or two. Its name long ago achieved grocery-shelf ubiquity: there’s the original Evangeline Maid Thin Sandwich loaf, the slightly larger Giant sack, Evangeline Maid hot dog and hamburger buns, and, of course, Evangeline Maid po-boy loaves. If you’ve spent time in Acadiana, you no doubt know the packaging well: a red, white, and blue plastic sack stippled with yellow fleurs-de-lis—thus combining the four colors of the Acadian flag.
And then there’s the Evangeline Maid logo, the Evangeline Maid herself, wearing what appears to be a mid-twentieth-century cross between a sailor dress and a nurse’s uniform. Is this what Longfellow had in mind? I remember thinking as a confused youngster familiar with the poet’s epic poem. As I grew older, my thoughts turned inward, and only more muddled—Am I the only one who fantasizes about the white-bread lady?
To read the rest of the story, click here.
