Breaux Bridge is the crawfish capital of the world. Crowley is the rice capital of the world. Rayne, as we know is the frog capital of the world. With the 44th Annual Rayne Frog Festival happening May 11th - May 14th, I was thinking, why is Rayne the frog city capital of the world? Obviously, having a bunch of frogs is one reason, but that's not the main reason Rayne earned the title.

The story goes that in the 1880s businessman Jacques Weil and his brothers were in Rayne and were sampling frog legs. They were so impressed by how good they were, they figured it could be a profitable industry.

The brothers started selling frog legs to a high end restaurant in New York called Sardi's. Sardi's put the frog legs on the menu as "Frog Legs from Rayne, Louisiana. Frog Capital of the World."

Rayne took that ball and ran with it, and rightly so. Rayne's frog legs were so popular they were actually sold in Paris. At that time, if you ate frog legs anywhere in the world, chances were they came from Rayne!

 

 

More From 97.3 The Dawg