Having Fun on the Bayou by Claire Gervat

For weeks, I'd been telling anyone who'd listen that I was heading to south Louisiana to eat my way through a Carpenters' hit. So it seemed only right that when my guide Ron "Black" Guidry moored up the boat by the side of the bayou and pulled out his guitar, he should choose to sing "Jambalaya". At least he'd put the accordion away. By his own admission, Black's grasp of this local musical favourite was shaky. Nor did it help that his one-blue-and-one-brown-eyed dog Gatorbait had joined in, howling what sounded a lot like "stop, will yoooou".

I'd heard Cajun music before, in England, and eaten what was described as Cajun food. But this was my first venture to its homeland, that corner west of New Orleans that is forever France. This is where many of the French Catholic settlers who were expelled in 1755 by the Protestant British from Acadie, later Nova Scotia, ended up, settling to farm, fish and hunt. But for now the history lesson could wait; I had a swamp tour to enjoy.

I lay back against the cushions, sniffing the hot, damp air, as Black told us about how he and his brothers used to go fishing for crawfish with a bag of chicken necks as bait. The lush greenery of the marsh to one side and the swamp to the other was splashed with purple mallow and pink hibiscus flowers, and there were blue herons and white egrets flapping through the trees. It was going to be a good day.

By early evening, it had turned into a perfect day. This time I was on another boat, skimming through marshes around Dulac with fishing guide Leland Ledet. The sun was setting, and the light reflected on the water had turned it into a glowing patchwork of powder blue and rose. I had a photograph of myself holding a 2lb redfish and a small insight into south Louisiana culture. After all, according to Joe Provost at Wildlife Gardens in Gibson where I was to spend the night in a cabin over the bayou with alligators for neighbours - and you don't often get that with a B&B - "Fishing, fishing's part of our heritage."

The early settlers must have worked hard to feed themselves. Their descendants, though, plainly had an easier time of it on that score. Everywhere I went, it seemed, the food was plentiful and delicious - spiced rather than spicy, a rarity in America. The Carpenters still in mind, I had crawfish pie in the Bayou Vue in Houma, jambalaya at La Place D'Evangeline in St Martinville, but couldn't find any filé gumbo and had to make do with the rich duck and andouille sausage gumbo at Prejeans in Lafayette. By the time I reached Poche's in Breaux Bridge, my appetite was flagging, but I managed some high-cholesterol boudin and cracklin' and watched the local farmers chomp their vast lunches contentedly.

I'd timed my visit to coincide with the yearly Festivals Acadiens in Lafayette's Girard Park, a celebration of all things Cajun - though mostly the music. Not that I'd have missed out at another time of year. Many bars and restaurants had dance floors and bands: fiddle, guitar, accordion, drums rattling out another infectious two-step or catering for the less energetic with a graceful waltz. If you'd gone off food, the weekly Rendezvous des Cajuns show in Eunice - half in English, half in French - provided two bands for five dollars, the waltzes in particular drawing the mostly older couples on to the floor.

Back at the Festivals, though, the dust-dry area in front of the main stage was packed as a succession of big-name bands - Balfa Toujours, File, Jo-El Sonnier and more - rolled out old favourites and new creations to a much younger crowd. They all seemed impervious to the heat; in fact people had been telling me all week how lucky I was that it was so nice and cool, though I'd never thought of 89 degrees as cool before. Still, I was happy to see that one particular bit of Cajun culture clearly had a future, even if hardly anyone understood the French lyrics.

If I wasn't careful, though, I'd be heading home with the warped notion that Cajun life was only about fine food, foot-tapping music and letting the good times roll. So it was lucky I came across Ed Laviolette at the Acadian Memorial in St Martinville. "Bonjour," he said, rolling the final "r" hard. It was these kind of vagaries - accent, and also unfamiliar words - that had made it so hard for me to speak to people in French. Ed pointed out another reason: many Cajuns didn't speak French either.

"My parents didn't speak English at all, but they had to get their son educated," he said. "And in school, you were beaten for speaking French. A lot of people had the language beaten out of them." Ed had been able to hang on to his mother tongue, but others had not. Audrey Broussard, who runs a B&B on the edge of Lafayette, confirmed Ed's story. "Oh, yes," she said in English with an unmistakable French lilt. "Both my parents spoke only French. It was my first language, too, and I only learned English at school because French wasn't allowed."

Now the tide was beginning to turn. The music was thriving, the food was more popular than ever, and language lessons were springing up to teach not just French, but Cajun French. It all spoke of a new pride in a people who were once sneered at for being different, but who had, to translate a local phrase, not let go of the potato, not given up.

But it wasn't "lache pas la patate" that was going round my head as the zydego kings CJ Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band packed out a square in Downtown Lafayette to launch the Festivals. As I two-stepped with a succession of sweaty men, who coped cheerfully with my lack of dance ability, what I was thinking was "laissez les bons temps rouler" - let the good times roll. And if ever a people deserved a few good times at last, it surely has to be the Cajuns.