23rd Annual Wild Rabbit Cookoff–Poche Bridge, La.

One thing about staying at Betty’s RV Park is you will find yourself often visiting regional events not widely advertised. One such event we found ourselves looking forward to attending was the 23rd Annual Wild Rabbit Cook Off in Breaux Bridge, La. Wild rabbit cook off! You bet, sounds like fun so let’s go… and off we went a group of about 10 of us from Betty’s.

This annual event apparently developed from of a gathering of friends who wanted to get together to eat a wild rabbit dinner. What it has unexpectedly grown into is a competition of as many as 50 teams competing to see who can cook the best wild rabbit dish. And for those that are not rabbit aficionados they recently added a venison category as well. We learned there is a panel of judges and the prize is a big cooking pot presented to the winning team.

The location for this event was a place near Breaux Bridge, Louisiana known as Sherman’s Camp. There was no charge for parking so our group parked alongside the road and trekked our way over to a somewhat muddy field surrounding a little bar where the event was taking place. There were about 20 or so groups making up some delicious rabbit or venison concoctions. And since this is Louisiana you know that most of this food was going to be excellent and there was likely going to be a lot of it in some sort of roux based sauce.We purchased a beer at the bar and were given big bowls to use for sampling when walking through the competition.

Now a little story comes to mind here… I haven’t eaten rabbit since I was a young child about 8 or 9. My grandfather enjoyed rabbit hunting and always asked me to tag along. He would shoot the rabbits and I would fetch them so he could put them in a burlap sack for later skinning and eating. I didn’t know it then but it was apparent that I was my grandfathers rabbit dog!

Anyhow this cook off was a blast as we had the opportunity to try some stewed rabbit, rabbit spaghetti, rabbit etouffee rabbit quesadilla and even had several dishes of venison such as grilled back strap wrapped in bacon with cream cheese and jalapeno inside… YUMMMMMMMMYYYY! An added treat was getting to know two of the contestants at one of the booths as Sharon and her new friend Roxie hit it off from the get go…

What can I say… some of the friendliest and nicest folks live in the Acadiana region of Louisiana and it is these people as well as their culture that lure us back time and time again to this area…