Have you ever smelled a real Cajun kitchen at work? You can usually smell them about 1/2 mile away, and they don't always smell so great. Somehow the food usually tastes great though.
Well now ... I dunno ... guess that depends one what one considers
"real" ...
I did stop at this place once:
Shrimp Boat Mannys
... on the way out of Tejas for a real sit-down type dinner (somewhat of a rarity when I'm out on the road) ... have eaten at a few places in Louisiana as well. All smelled pretty good to me.
If ya ever get over around Livingston way, check 'em out ... good eats ...
I remember reheating some crawfish etoufee at work 1 day in the microwave. Some guys almost wanted to fight me for smelling up the breakroom so bad. I told them when they stopped smoking, I'd stop bringing in cajun food.
Ever been inside a working fish processing plant ?
When I was on the factory trawler up in Alaska, the gastric juices from the Pacific cod could get so bad that they would actually make your eyes
burn and
water ...
Now imagine dealing with that first thing in the morning ...
after just having a nice breakfast which included greasy sausages, bacon, and eggs ... and in 20' or better seas ...
There was one old boy (Kenny) that had never been fishin' and who could never quite get his sea legs under him. Every day it was pretty much the same thing ... he'd come on shift and before too very long he'd be running over to one of the holes in the floor where the macerators were and would get rid of whatever meal he'd just eaten ... guy was perpetually green ... lol ...
I've got gear (sweats, gloves, etc.) from up there that probably still stink ... and that was about 30 years ago. Could never really get the smell out.
The really bad part though was when we were full and ready to head back to port ... that's when the factory would get cleaned up ... as part of the wash down you had to go around and find all the old fish pieces/parts - really stinky stuff - that had gotten hung up in the machinery and had been hanging there for a few
weeks and dislodge them ...
