Rachel Nederveld

We've all had crabs at some point or another, but the freshest are always plucked straight from the swamp. I learned how to cook and eat blue crabs the Cajun way from two of the most well-respected Acadians I know.

I live in the Cajun bayou by myself. After finding a poisonous snake nearby, I did what I had to do: kill it or risk being bitten. What happened next involved my most prized ingredient, truffle salt, and an activity I never expected I would find myself...

In the third installment of this swamp series, Rachel Nederveld runs into a legendary master fisherman who makes his nets by hand in the Cajun swamp. What happened next involved sweet talk, catfish, and dead, bloated beavers.

In the second installment of this swamp series, Rachel Nederveld realizes that life can get pretty damn lonely when you're living alone on a houseboat in the middle of the Cajun swamp, especially when your male neighbors ignore you altogether.

I left city life behind to try to live alone—with my dog—on a houseboat on the disappearing Cajun swamp, where living conditions involved finding cottonmouth snakes in my bed, no neighbors or grocery stores, and a lonesome propane tank to cook my meals.