During the fall season, there are many festivals honoring the diversity of crops grown in south Louisiana. One of my favorites is the Yambilee Festival held in Opelousas, Louisiana. During the festival, there is always a lot of music, dancing, and of course food—most of which has sweet potatoes featured. When I was a youngster, my mother always had a baked sweet potato waiting for me for my after-school snack. I liberally slathered it with butter and drizzled cane syrup over it and gobbled it up. I ate so many sweet potatoes my father called me Patate Douce (Sweet Potato). I still love them and have a collection of sweet potato recipes, which come in handy for Thanksgiving. I suggest that you stock up now with some of the yam products at cajungrocer.com. SWEET POTATO PUDDING

• Makes 10 to 12 servings
• 3 cups drained and mashed sweet potatoes (or one 29-ounce can)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup grated coconut
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup margarine, melted
• Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the sweet potatoes, sugar, butter, eggs, coconut, milk and vanilla. Pour into a 8×8-inch buttered baking dish. Combine the brown sugar, pecans, flour, margarine and salt until well mixed. Spoon the mixture over the sweet potatoes. Bake for one hour.

If you prefer your ducks roasted, here is my mother’s recipe that I promise will satisfy any appetite. RHENA’S ROAST DUCK Makes 4 servings

• 4 teals or 2 mallards or pintail ducks
• 3 cloves garlic, slivered
• Salt
• Cayenne
• 2 cups coarsely chopped green bell peppers
• 2 cups coarsely chopped onions
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• All-purpose flour
• 4 strips thickly sliced bacon
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 1 pound tompinambours (Jerusalem artichokes), peeled (optional)
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Make one or two slits (number depends on the size of the duck) in the duck breasts with a sharp, pointed knife. Insert one or two slivers of the garlic in each hole. Rub the outside and the cavities of the ducks with a liberal amount of salt and cayenne. Place the ducks in a large deep bowl. Combine the bell peppers and onions in another bowl and mix. Stuff half of the mixture in the duck cavities and put the remaining half around the ducks in the bowl. Add the dry sherry. Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours, turning the ducks once or twice in the marinade. Remove the ducks from the refrigerator, drain and reserve the marinade. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Dust each duck liberally with flour and set aside. Fry the bacon in a large cast-iron pot over medium heat until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towels. When the bacon is cool, crumble and reserve. Add the ducks to the pot and brown them in the bacon grease, turning often to brown evenly. Add the chicken broth and cook for 10 minutes. Add the reserved marinade, cover and bake in the oven for about one to one and a half hours, or until the ducks are tender. Baste occasionally with pan gravy and add more broth if gravy becomes dry. Add the mushrooms and the topinambours, cover and cook for 30 minutes, or until the topinambours are fork-tender. Remove from the oven. Add the reserved bacon and the parsley. Let the duck sit for 10 minutes before carving to serve.