Useless Rant: Popeye's

I love Popeye's.  These are some reasons:

• Everybody eats it during Mardi Gras, just like the good old days. 
• Nobody has better sides.  
• The chicken strips don't need any sauce, because they are prefect when dipped in mashed poptatoes.
• They invented the loaded chicken wrap.  A chicken strip, with red beans and rice, inside of a tortilla.  It is retarded.  And when you have had a few libations, it is also delicious.  (Ok, I even like it sober)

Unfortunately, while Popeye's has some great things still going for it, the place has completely lost touch with its roots, and risks embodying more of generic America than the gritty New Orleans environment from which it came.  I submit to you as evidence, the recent rash of commercials featuring some "Aw shucks" Southern-accented spokeswoman who tries in no way to back up her claim of being Louisianian, because clearly the firm no longer knows the difference between the two.  And that is the problem.  Generic America thinks the following things:

1. Southern and Louisianian are the same thing
2. The Cajuns must have invented spicy foods, because all spicy things are called Cajun
3. All people from Louisiana are Cajun

The current Popey's "spokeswoman" has managed to shoot a perfect score with their latest commercial, in which she talks in her adorable Southern accent about "her" Cajun barbecue sauce.  The problem, of course, is that:

(A) She is Southern and not Louisianian.

(B) She calls her barbecue sauce "Cajun" simply because it is spicy.  There is actually no defined "Cajun" style of barbecue.

(C) She is not Cajun at all.  She is African American.  In Louisiana, African Americans are most typically of Creole or simply African descent, but you'll have a better chance finding an African Irishman (Shaq O'Neal excepted, of course) before you'll find an African Cajun.  Creoles are known for "Creole Cookin'," which has given us most of our tomato-based goodness down here, like Shrimp or Crawfish Creole (connecting the dots there?), and the most popular forms of jambalaya.  Red beans and rice can be credited to this lineage as well, among many other Louisiana - and New Orleans - favorites.  The Cajuns come from a group of French refugees, expelled from the Acadia region of French Canada in 1755, following the French and Indian War.  They settled west of New Orleans, in the Atchafalaya Basin, and cook their own style of jambalaya, etouffees, and sausages, among many other Louisiana favorites.  Both styles were influenced by local indigenous peoples (Injuns, if your textbook is dated before 1970).  It was the Cajun's spices that inspired Al Copeland's original Popeye's chicken recipe.

Of course, Popeye's has been based in Atlanta for long enough now to drive anyone representing the firm's Louisiana heritage out of its culture, per its plans when it moved (link).  That makes it difficult to maintain a "Louisiana" brand and image.  After all, one would expect that such a place would know the difference between New Orleanian and Cajun (or even Cajun and simply spicy), but apparently they no longer do.  So it is that monumental disconnect that has finally led to this: a "Louisiana" chicken restaurant parading out a not-even-Louisianaian character to sell wares that aren't even Louisiana-inspired, as an attempt to emphasize their Louisiana roots.

Popeye's picked up those roots years ago, and they have officially dried up.  Take me to Chick-Fil-A, please.

There, I said it.