BATON ROUGE - First, it was crawfish, then boudin. Now it's jambalaya. And there will be more Louisiana home-cooking on its way to Joshua Ledet for every week he remains a contestant on the Fox Television reality show, "American Idol," Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne said.
Dardenne said the Louisiana exports to Hollywood started a few weeks ago when Ledet, a singer and resident Westlake near Lake Charles mentioned on the show that he missed Louisiana food.
Dardenne and the state's Seafood and Marketing Board got Randol's, a Lafayette restaurant to ship him 60 pounds of crawfish which he peeled and ate on the air and showed some of the non-Louisiana judges how to do it.
Last week, the singer got boudin sausage and this week some spicy south Louisiana jambalaya will be on its way to Hollywood.
Dardenne calls the program "Feed the Dream" and promised that every week Ledet is in contention to be the next American Idol some more Lousiana food will be en route to him.
"We wanted to be supportive of him," Dardenne said.
He said his office has incurred minimal expense, mainly the cost of shipping.The products have been donated by Louisiana restaurants and food manufacturers, he said.
Dardenne, whose office oversees tourism promotion and advertising, said the show is not only a good opportunity to showcase Louisiana's musical talent but Louisiana products.
He said that if his office had to buy the air time to promote Louisiana on the highly -rated prime-time weekly show it could not afford it.
He estimated the state received $2.5 million to $3 million in national exposure when Ledet and the judges chowed down on crawfish.
U were great. A wonderful role model for the stAte of la.
ReplyDeleteI am not Joshua, just a fan, but thank you for your comments. He truly is a great role model for Louisiana!
ReplyDelete