Westwego Piggly Wiggly.

Blame MJ. She’s the one who wanted to read about the Piggly Wiggly in Westwego. I thought I had already shared this. Apparently not. Feast your eyes, mes amis:

I don’t normally go to Westwego. I dislike taking the bridge over the Mississippi River on the Vespa. I can do it, but it’s windy up there. I prefer to stay on the ground, where I’m wanted.

The closest Piggly Wiggly to New Orleans is fourteen miles away, by road and bridge, in Westwego. It is essentially where Audubon Park is, but on the West Bank. The postal address of the closest Piggly Wiggly in New Orleans is 909 West Bank Expressway, Westwego, Louisiana 70094.

70094 is a zip code of plenty.

In the bygone year of 1916, in Memphis, Tennessee, Clarence Saunders opened the world's first self-service grocery store at 79 Jefferson Street. There is a historical marker on the sight to commemorate the birth of the modern supermarket.

Why name a self-serve grocery store Piggly Wiggly? Saunders went to his grave keeping that secret. Saunders was a savvy, cagey businessman,

There are more than 500 Piggly Wiggly Stores in eighteen states. The closest one to New Orleans is fourteen miles away on U.S. Route 90. 909 West Bank Expressway will be on your right. You can't miss it if you take your eyes off the road for a moment to glance to the right. There is never much traffic in Westwego.

Westwegans of all stripes and backgrounds, there are about 9000 of them, grouse amongst themselves about what they call rush our traffic. West Bank Expressway is a stroll in the park unless a tanker truck hauling toxic chemicals tips over and explodes. That doesn't happen often.

There was a time when a truck carrying feta cheese from Atlanta to Phoenix overturned in a wreck. The good people of Westwego were picking cheese out of their tire treads for weeks. The whole city smelled like a Greek festival.

Most Westwegans are descendants of transplants from Cheniere Caminada, a fishing village that was destroyed in a storm in 1893. Storms were unnamed in 1893. They were not anticipated and tracked and dreaded. They are just something people lived through. The people who lost their homes in Cheniere Caminada moved to Westwego, where the zip code is 70094. They are still fishermen to this day.

The ethnicity of Westwegans includes Creoles, Acadians, Swamp Cajuns, Sicilians, displaced Prussians, metropolitan French, and a small percentage is of Spanish descent. Roughly a third of the population is descended from slaves or free people of color. You can still sometimes hear French being parlayed back and forth, bantered between docks.

Nothing much happens very often in Westwego except for the sales that happen ever week at Fasullo's Piggly Wiggly. New Orleans may be where the action is but no greengrocer can compete with Fasullo's fresh produce.

The Fasullo family has long believed in supporting local growers, truck farmers, the economies of surrounding parishes. Such is the noble calling of the humble food peddlar. By featuring local foodstuffs on the shelfs, Fasullo's Piggly Wiggly in Westwego stands apart. Every Piggly Wiggly is unique. The stomach doesn't tell the heart what to do, it only makes suggestions. Sometimes, you have to think with your gut.

Westwego is a Choctaw Indian word, the native inhabitants of this swath of Louisiana. The word means, "We are going West," in the Choctaw language. A few Choctaws still live in palmetto wigwams back in the swamp where they fish and trap from their pirogues. You can always tell where the Choctaw have been. The shell middens give them away.

Ask a Choctaw what Westwego means. They will tell you, if you can find one. Good luck.

Westwego is not a false friend.