The word lagniappe is frequently used in Louisiana. It means a little something extra; a small gift. During the two weeks between the Saints winning the NFC Championship game against the Vikings and Sunday's Super Bowl, you heard lagniappe used this way: "I'm happy enough the Saints are in the Super Bowl. If they win, that's lagniappe."
If I were to give a foreigner advice on Louisiana culture, I would say the two important points of reference are lagniappe and destiny. New Orleans is a city of impulses, it is governed not so much by the mind as by instinct: by necessity and desire. This is why in a Streetcar Named Desire Blanche Dubois remarks "when you get off of the streetcar named desire, you get on the streetcar toward cemeteries." That's life anywhere, I suppose -love and death-but it is especially characteristic of the way it feels in New Orleans.
The point in between your heart's longings and death -though Blanche unfortunately never said much about it -is lagniappe: those frivolous little gifts you enjoy along the way.
I learned a lot about watching football from the Championship game between the Saints and the Vikings. We were at a little bar on the corner of Chartres and Bienville in the French Quarter. An artist sitting at the counter with a pencil and pad of paper sketched the faces of the bar crowd watching the game: the faces at first were apprehensive, alternating between worried, angry, joyful, elated. As the Saints scored the final winning points, the bar broke into a frenzy of Who dats! And we broke out onto the French Quarter streets, hugging strangers and slapping high fives. College kids in black and gold drove sports cars with the tops down through the streets, hollering and cheering. People were in a bliss of Who dats; people yelled they loved other people; people broke into spontaneous, joyful tears.
Aside from Who dat?! (as in, Who dat says dey gunna beat dem Saints? Who dat?! Who dat?!) Saints fans like to say "winning is an attitude." The slogan is printed on tee-shirts and bumper stickers, done in the Saint's black and gold and with the symbol of the fleur de lis. For many years, since the Saints weren't winning games so much, the team's winning attitude was all they had. That, and, perhaps even of greater importance, the faith their fans placed in them.
Used to be I didn't know if the slogan was about the Saints or the city of New Orleans, and even still, I forget the two are not one and the same.
"We did this for the city of New Orleans," Saints receiver Marcus Colston said Sunday, after the Saints' victory.