Southern hospitality and Iowa nice meet

“We wanted to bring something from our old home to our new home.”

A city not generally known for its spice, Des Moines has been welcoming to new flavors, ideas and experiences. Downtown has welcomed food and culture festivals of various backgrounds such as CelebrAsian, Italian Fest, Greek Food Fair, Latino Heritage Festival and the World Food and Music Festival. This month, it adds another name to that illustrious list — the fifth Cajun Fest founded by Stephen and Jacey Smith.

The Smiths, hailing from Louisiana, now living in Beaverdale, found themselves in Des Moines after Stephen was finishing college and accepted the first job offer he received in 2013 that ended up placing him in central Iowa.

“We came up for a recruiting trip. Honestly, I was pretty surprised. I didn’t know what it was going to entail to be honest with you… but the first chapter stuck, and we’ve been around ever since,” said Stephen. A sentiment that is shared by those during their first foray into Des Moines, the city has a tendency to charm many into staying long term.

Something the South and Midwest share that has made the transition easier on the Smiths is the connection between your average “Southern Hospitality” and the “Iowa Nice” consensus. 

“Both places are friendly, but a different kind of friendly in my eyes. There’s a lot more outgoing kind of friendly down south, come-on-over neighbor type of feel. Up here, it’s just how it is in the Midwest. A smile, a little wave, not so much the engagement piece,” said Jacey. 

“There is some overlap between the Southern hospitality versus the Iowa nice. Both are going to have some similar values and feelings,” said Stephen.

Something the Smiths felt was missing from Des Moines that they wanted to bring into their new home with them was that spice the South and Cajun culture are known for. While they do enjoy the Midwestern staple “meat and potatoes” style meal, the Smiths saw this as a chance to imprint some of themselves on the community. Most notably, the Smiths wanted to share their love for seafood that’s understandably missing in Iowa.

“To bring specifically the crawfish up here was very different for individuals, and then bringing the spicy food up to the Midwest was, I think, a huge no-brainer because it’s, again, so different,” said Jacey. “There’s a history of supporting cultural things here. Des Moines is curious and supports different kinds of fields and flavors, and ours was missing,” said Stephen. 

As the cultural makeup of Des Moines has continued to expand, so has its tastebuds. This has allowed festivals like the aforementioned cultural and heritage festivals to thrive and is a reason why the Smith’s Cajun Fest has been able to snowball from a backyard gathering made up largely of friends and family into a full-blown event hosted in the heart of downtown. Even with the festival now making its way into the city, Stephen feels the overarching meaning of it will stay the same. 

The impact that Stephen and Jacey have had when it comes to introducing the food and flavors they grew up with is important to them, and it shows when they mention some of their favorite memories from previous Cajun Fests. 

“Two individuals showed up, one being a little boy who had never experienced southern food or crawfish and his dad, who was super stoked to have him there. We have a picture of our friend Jordan teaching him how to crack the crawfish, and then he even sucked the head of the crawfish. From there on out, he was gone,” said Jacey.

“Last year seeing people show up in our shirts from the first year, to feel that people know your thing enough for somebody to still have a shirt and be proud of it, I thought that was just cool,” said Stephen. ♦