Eating at New Orleans’s Jazz Fest

Getting to see some of the best jazz, blues, zydeco, and gospel musicians in the world is a fine reason to go to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which will take place this year (for the 41st time) in late April and early May. But what keeps this Crescent City resident coming back to Jazz Fest every spring is the food. In addition to the 12 stages, there are more than 60 booths run by local cooks and chefs. Among the delicacies I devoured at last year's Jazz Fest: a gumbo chock-full of pheasant, quail, and andouille sausage; deep-fried boudin balls; tender alligator tail meat in a red pepper "sauce piquante"; pasta in a creamy crawfish sauce; po' boys stuffed with softshell crab and suckling pig; delicious etouffee and jambalaya; fried green tomatoes with remoulade sauce; superfresh Vietnamese spring rolls; and shaved-ice "sno-balls." I'm hoping to outdo myself this year. —Jamie Cangelosi, New Orleans, Louisiana