The real purpose of Tabasco

If Cajun food is known for one thing, it is known for being spicy. These people have a whole different relationship with hot sauce than you can find anywhere else in the country. Tobasco, the most famous and the name that has come to mean hot sauce (like Kleenex means tissue), is made in Louisiana. I could spend all day reading the names of hot sauces. Names like Slap Ya Mama, Kick Yo Ass, Insanity, and Red Rectum. There's even a brand of spicy peanuts called, and I apologize, Fuckin' Hot Nuts.

DH loves spicy food. He normally orders things extra spicy. But not down here. He made that mistake when we first moved here, and we both paid for that mistake for the next couple of days. I say "we" because the odors produced from his body as it attempted to first digest and then rid itself of the extra spicy gator-on-a-stick were painful for anyone trying to take a breath within a 30-foot radius of him.

Why does this one group of people eat so much hot sauce that they have built up a tolerance of it until they can snack on habanero peppers like they're pretzels? I think I've finally figured it out. They are just trying to cover up the taste of what passes for meat around here. Don't believe me?

Gator sausage: alligator tail and pork (who knows what part) ground up and stuffed in a tube
Andouille: various ground animals and GRISTLE...stuffed in a tube
Boudin: we won't ask what's in this, but it's stuffed in a tube
Crawfish: it's just wrong to eat something that involves "sucking the head"
Catfish: a bottom feeder; just ask yourself WHAT they are eating from the bottom of a swamp
Shrimp: would YOU eat shellfish sold out of the back of a truck on the side of the road in100 degree heat?
Squirrel gumbo: enough said
Crab: not Alaskan King or Dungeness or anything like that; plain ol' little brown crabs washed up after the last good flood
Cracklins: I believe we've already covered this
Alligator (not in sausage form): still from the tail and rather tough

Before you ask, no, these are not specialty items. These are the foods that make up a good deal of the cajun diet. Just about any dish you can imagine--and many you wouldn't want to--can be made by substituting one of the "meats" listed above and dousing it heavily in hot sauce. Red beans and rice...sausage. Jambalaya...sausage. Gumbo...sausage, crab, squirrel, shrimp. Po boy sandwich...all of the above. Heck, at certain times of the year, you can get crawfish and shrimp on your pizza! It's no wonder that, sitting down to dinner and staring at the meal, so many Cajuns say, "Pass the Tabasco."