Gumbo Diplomacy in Greenland: A Novel Approach?

Memo to Gov. Jeff Landry: Now that the president has temporarily renounced military action, and you’ve been part of negotiations action to acquire Greenland, your star is rising. Here’s what you can do:

Call up the Cajun Navy and launch a peace-through-strength-of-ingredients barrage of Zatarain’s spicy jambalaya and gumbo packets across Greenland. When you arrive in the capital, Nuuk, in March, firmly plant the Louisiana state flag and issue an NLP (New Louisiana Purchase) declaring the island the state’s 65th parish.

Open a Frozen Assets Glacial Ice snowball stand in every settlement, put Ronnie Lamarque in charge of dog sled sales and announce that Popeye’s new walrus and biscuits will be served at Emeril Lagasse’s Gas Station (Venezuelan gas refined in Louisiana only) and Diner.

Appoint your aunt, former Times-Picayune food writer Marcelle Bienvenu as cultural attaché, so she can reprise her 1991 cookbook, “Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make a Roux?” as “Who’s Your Anaana, Are You Inuit, and Can You Scramble a Seagull Egg?”

With Greenland a Louisiana parish, and the invasion being the state’s culture and cuisine, Oxford-educated, folksy U.S. Senator John Kennedy could create the new parish’s motto: “Glacies Bonum Gumbo Facere Non Potest,” ‘cuz it’s true that, sadly, a glacier can’t make a good gumbo.

KEITH MARSHALL

New Orleans