Jambalaya Festival

The Jambalaya Festival was founded in 1967 in Gonzales, Louisiana (located in Ascension Parish)[1] by the Jambalaya Festival Association, and has been held every year since 1968 in the community.[2][3] The Association consisted of founding members Steve Juneau, John D. Gonzales, Clarance Berteau, Sidney Amedee, Jr., McGuffy Fife, C.R. “Pete” Bourque, Melvin Hebert, Harvey Dupuy, and M.J. Decoux. Juneau was named its inaugural president.[4] The reason for starting the festival, was to promote the city of Gonzales to tourists,[5] and in the year following the festival's first edition, the city was named the "Jambalaya Capital of the World" by then Louisiana Governor John J. McKeithen. It is now held every year on Memorial Day weekend,[2] though it was first celebrated in the middle of June.[4] With the COVID-19 pandemic to blame, the event in 2020 was postponed and will be rescheduled at a later date.

The Jambalaya Festival includes an annual cook-off open to chefs on an international basis who cook and compare their jambalaya.[6] The annual winner is named by the festival as the "World Champion Jambalaya Cook".[7] In addition to winning the title, in recent times competition winners have also travelled to Gonzales' sister city Meylan, France to attend that city's own jambalaya festival in order to provide jambalaya for sale based upon their winning recipe.[1] The first world champion was Steve Juneau, who won amongst thirteen participants.[5]

Since 1971 there has been a secondary competition called the "Mini Pot" jambalaya cooking contest, in which the cooks use what is called by the festival the "world's smallest jambalaya pot". The contest winner is named the "mini pot champion". An annual beauty contest has also been held in conjunction with the festival called the Gonzales Jambalaya Queen,[2] first held in 2017. The inaugural pageant winner was Alyssa Latuso, a local 19-year-old girl and LSU student.[1]

The Jambalaya Festival also includes live music and carnival rides, in addition to the food and world championship competition.[8] The fiftieth anniversary edition featured twenty different bands from a variety of musical genres, in addition to a five kilometer long-distance running race and a classic car show.[1]

In 1968, during the inaugural festival, Steve Juneau became the first ever World Champion Jambalaya Cook[5] (he was also the festival's inaugural president). In 2017, during the fesitval's fiftieth anniversary, the festival held a one-off extra "Champ of Champs" competition pitting previous competition winners against each other. The winner of that competition was Joey Cornett. That same year, the 2017 champion in the annual world championship competition was Kade Lanoux.[1] The 2018 champion was Jarrett Marchand,[2] and Kade Lanoux repeated his victory in 2019.[9]