Photo: Fee-Fo-Lay Cafe | Facebook
The cookie recipe handed down in Jo and Joy Banner’s family for 150 years, a ‘tit gateau cookie or a t-cake, is “like Louisiana in one little perfect-sized bite”, served at the Fee-Fo-Lay Café in Wallace, Louisiana. Before industrial development, this stretch of the Mississippi river was dotted with sugarcane plantations. “I wanted to have history out there that was being told from a descendant’s standpoint and to have an attraction that was descendant-owned,” says Jo. The twins created the Legends and Lore Trail so “everyone, locals but especially tourists who come here, understand what other stories we have beyond the plantations.” Sometimes people who tour the nearby Whitney plantation come to the twins' cafe to decompress. “Some of my ancestors walked right off the plantation and then invested right back into the community and had a plan to move forward," says Jo. "They laid the groundwork, and I figure we should still be here trying to foster that.” Now the cafe is ground zero to defend that heritage against a planned grain terminal that would tower over Wallace and destroy the cafe’s business.
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