Bayou Harvest
Helen A. Regis, Shana Walton · University Press of Mississippi eBooks · 2024
To inhabitants of the Gulf Coast region of Louisiana, food is much more than nourishment. The acts of gathering, preparing, and sharing food are ways to raise children, bond with friends, and build community. This book examines how coastal residents deploy self-reliance and care for each other through harvesting and sharing food. It explores the harvesting, hunting, and foraging practices by Native Americans, Cajuns, and other Bayou residents. This engagement with Indigenous thinkers and their neighbors yields a multifaceted view of subsistence in Louisiana. Readers will learn about coastal residents' love for the land and water, their deep connections to place, and how they identify with their food and game heritage. The book also delves into their worries about the future, particularly storms, pollution, and land loss in the coastal region. Using a set of narratives that documents the everyday food practices of these communities, the book concludes that subsistence is not so much a specific task like peeling shrimp or harvesting sassafras, but is fundamentally about what these activities mean to the people of the Gulf's shrinking coast.