The Cowan Man.
It doesn’t particularly bother me that people think that I make things up. I live in New Orleans where the possible is probable. No matter how hare-brained it would be anywhere else (in Birmingham, Alabama, for instance), New Orleans is the city where missing puzzle pieces gather. So does a sizable proportion of the world’s lost socks.
A few months ago (!) I wrote a long article about a man who keeps cowan in his back yard. Nobody believed me.
How does it feel to have egg on your face?
The Cowan Man is located at an address that is both highly visible and almost impossible to get to. It has taken me months to find his house again. I found it, alright. I will never again forget where it is.
A person with a hankering can buy alligator meat at any supermarket in New Orleans. It comes frozen. Alligator season is a short window so fresh meat is a rarity, reserved for big gator fêtes held around an open rotisserie pit. Barbecued alligator tastes like chicken. It is very lean.
Someone in the market for raccoon, nutria or snapping turtle is in luck. The cowan man is there to make mealtime tasty with swamp meat. He knows a lot of Cajuns.
You say, “snapping turtle.” You are not from here. In New Orleans, we call it turtle meat, the thing that turtle soup is made of when it isn’t made of veal. Turtle soup is made from the meat of Macrochelys temminckii or from veal. Not every chef can afford turtle meat.
A cowan is an alligator snapper, a turtle endemic to the swamplands surrounding the city. Cowan can be found all over the United States and Canada but they are only called that in southeastern Louisiana. It is only in southeastern Louisiana that it is savored for the delicacy that it is.
Go and get yourself some good turtle soup. It will do your body and soul good.
