Tonight’s snack for LOUS 303:  locally grown strawberries, Smith’s Creamery creole cream cheese, and Steen’s cane syrup, intended to highlight Louisiana’s climate and agriculture.  Creole cream cheese almost disappeared from the local food scene, but small producers like Smith’s and Mauthe’s Dairy stepped up production in response to consumer demand.

The strawberries were grown near Springfield, LA, by Liuzza-Poche Farms, located in the middle of Louisiana’s belt of rural Italian settlement.  Smith’s Creamery hails from Mt. Hermon, in Washington parish, where their mostly Holstein and a few Jersey cows graze on grass.  And Steen’s has been making cane syrup for more than 85 years in Abbeville; read this nice NY Times article on Louisiana cane syrup & sugar from 2006.