Culture, Cuisine and Killer Hurricanes

With New Orleans again in the bull’s eye of an approaching hurricane, it is important to remember what a national treasure the city is. Although founded by the French, many other nationalities have combined to shape the Big Easy’s diverse culture. I’m not going out on a limb when I say that no other geographical setting has influenced the cuisine of the Nation, and the world as has New Orleans.

Cuisine isn’t the only remarkable aspect of New Orleans. No other location in our nation has experienced such a diverse combination of cultures as has the Crescent City and this has resulted in an extraordinary mixture of language, art, music, literature, and architecture.

Truly the jewel of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans is in a broad region that is critically important to the rest of the nation because of proximity to this country’s largest single source of oil and gas, along with its tourism, shipping and it refining.

Almost three years ago to the day Hurricane Katrina critically injured New Orleans. Many parts of the City remain much as they were days after that horrible storm. It is sad that few of the problems exposed by Katrina and Rita – primarily a sadly deficient levee system – remain uncorrected in the face of yet another killer hurricane.

Louisiana Mystery Writer