Draft:Slap Ya Mama

Slap Ya Mama is a brand of Cajun seasoning mixes that are marketed in the United States by Walker & Sons and originally created in Ville Platte, Louisiana.

The original seasoning is a blend of salt, black pepper, red pepper, and granulated garlic. Including savory and sweet spice mixes, the brand also sells sauces, dinner mixes, and apparel. Slap Ya Mama sells these products in sizes meant for home and commercial kitchens.

History
In 1996, Anthony "TW" Walker and his family founded a convenience store in Ville Platte, Louisiana. TW was searching through various vendors to find a Cajun seasoning mix that was low in dietary salt to use in his food sold at the store's delicatessen. Unable to find the mix that he wanted, TW decided to create his own and started to use it to season the food. Customers gave positive feedback to TW and started to ask for samples of his seasoning blend. In 2001, TW decided to package and sell the mix in jars to his customers due to its success.

The name of the brand, Slap Ya Mama, is based on the saying "tastes so good it makes you want to slap your mama." TW's wife, Jennifer "Jen" Walker, decided to name the mix after his potato dish "World Famous Slap Ya Mama Atomic Potatoes". However, it also said that TW's mother, Wilda Walker, coined the name when she said, "when you use this seasoning, the food tastes so good that it will make you want to go home and slap ya mama because she could never make something taste that great."

In 2009, Walker & Sons sued entrepreneur Kirby Falcon for trademark infringement after he started to sell his own blend of seasoning mix called "Punch Ya Daddy". Walker & Sons claimed that the name and packaging design closely imitated their own brand.

In 2014, the company received national attention when it was forced to pull a series of local promotional red-zone advertisements replayed on national NFL game coverage from a preseason New Orleans Saints - Baltimore Ravens game “in light of the domestic violence issues facing the NFL.”

Usage
Slap Ya Mama is marketed as a versatile seasoning for meat, seafood, and desserts. The seasoning is used as a topping for french fries, popcorn, baked potatoes, tacos, salads, snack mixes, and dips. It is added into soups, meat marinades, gumbos, jambalaya and other rice dishes, and salsas. The dessert seasoning mix, Kiss Ya Mama, is a cinnamon and sugar mix made to be used in or as a topping for cakes, fresh fruit, oatmeal, cocktails, cookies, and pies.

In 2018, The Walker Family released the cookbook Growing Up Cajun: Recipes and Stories from the Slap Ya Mama Family and was published through Hoffman Media. The book features recipes for Cajun and Louisiana Creole dishes.