Ron McFarlain, owner of Cajun Connection in North Utica, Illinois, holds a piece of alligator he gets from his native Louisiana.

UTICA, Ill. — The broad corn and soybean fields of north-central Illinois are a few bayous and alligators short of Cajun country, but on a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 6, Ron McFarlain’s Louisiana roots are carried on the wind.

Steps outside of Cajun Connection, things smell different enough from the usual rural Midwest to make you wonder: What is that? Seafood sizzling in golden oil? Blackened alligator on the grill? Salt and paprika meeting garlic and butter? In a word, yes.

If you doubt, just wait until the waitress speaks: "Our appetizer special is barbecued shrimp, and the entree is fried turtle and fried gator," she says.

Goodbye to the Midwest.

Amid a constellation of small Illinois towns — Peru, LaSalle, Utica, Ottawa — McFarlain has served the flavors of his Lake Charles, La., upbringing since the mid-’90s. Housed in a modest, 90-year-old former single-family home, Cajun Connection sits just north of Starved Rock State Park, which creates one of the finest mini-road trips a Chicagoan can imagine: drive 90 miles southwest, hike for an afternoon through Starved Rock’s compact canyons, then fill the belly with Cajun food rooted in McFarlain’s cooking-rich heritage.

"As a kid, it wasn’t nothing to kill a gator and say, ‘Hey, we’re having fried gator tonight,’" said McFarlain, 55. "What we killed, we cleaned, cooked and ate."

The restaurant also is heavy on McFarlain himself. The affable, gray-goateed Southerner likes to get to know his customers and banters readily with them in his long drawl. As I walked in one Wednesday, he sat with four customers while telling stories before pausing to say to me — though we’d never met — "I’m having trouble with this table."

"Look out," he said, turning back to his audience. "This guy’s a cop." (I’m not.)

The point is this: The odds of getting through a meal without interacting with Cajun Ron are close to zero. But that’s OK because along with the accordion-laced Cajun hits churning from the speakers and the walls adorned with Cajun witticisms, his banter is part of the experience.

"When I started, I couldn’t sell one piece of gator," he said. "Back in 1995, they didn’t know nothing about the swamp here."

Now customers line up for it. Beyond the frills — the decor, the music, Ron himself — Cajun Connection offers a legitimately Southern culinary experience, all the way down to a drink list thick with bottles of Abita, a beer made east of Baton Rouge. Though Cajun Connection serves the classic American macro-brews, McFarlain’s biggest seller is the brewery’s staple, Abita Amber.

I too started with an Abita — Turbodog, a dark medium-bodied ale that’s drinkable enough to cut through the thickness and spice of Cajun food. It arrived with a frosty mug that turned the frothy head to a boozy, icy slush. On this warm day, nothing was ever more right.

The next obvious order was an appetizer of boudin, that gloriously greasy take on ground pork mixed with rice and spices that comes in link or ball shape. Links are the more traditional version, but balls — fried, of course — are a slightly more palatable method for those who don’t want to suck pork out of an animal casing. Ron, to his credit, offers both.

Boudin in the middle of Illinois? How does that happen?

"We make it," the waitress said. "We make pretty much everything."

The link arrived, curving across a shallow white bowl, trailed by a few drips of orange grease and a serrated knife. Nothing fancy, but it was the real thing: hearty, meaty and fresh, gliding decadently from its tube. The balls might have been even more impressive: four plump, lightly breaded orbs encased in just a moderate amount of crisp, which allowed them to remain tender and savory inside. Fatty, salty and delicious, I had two spicy and two plain, the spicy offering a welcome and significant flavor jolt.

On we went to an array of main courses. Ron makes ordering easy by offering sample platters of three, four or five items, which is the ideal way to eat Cajun food; why choose among jambalaya, etouffee, red beans and rice, and blackened alligator when you can have all four? And we did — with a side of gumbo.

The etouffee was buttery and savory, highlighted by fresh, supple crawfish. The red beans and rice were dark, rich and lively. The jambalaya, which the waitress said she could eat by the plate, was maybe the best thing on the table: a deft melding of salty, smoky and meaty with a surprising touch of sweet. The not-too-rich gumbo was a fine counterpoint to all the grand spice and flavor. But the blackened alligator was the revelation, not just for its perfect combination of salt and char but because of its remarkable tenderness (frying it just interferes with the meat in my opinion, though many Southerners disagree).

Just think about it: fresh, tender alligator in the middle of Illinois. It happens only because McFarlain travels to Louisiana each fall to check out the quality of that year’s gator haul. The hunks, in the unmistakable shape of alligator tails, come through the rest of the year. On McFarlain’s weathered wood tables, the gator arrives so fresh, it’s easy to wonder if the alligators have just crawled from the swamps. He also drives home every few months to pick up crawfish, shrimp and soft-shell crabs.

"Everything is Louisiana here," he said.

And that’s the key to Cajun Connection. Anyone can serve Cajun food up north and score novelty points. Ron serves Cajun food that is fresh and deliberately prepared after a lifetime of expertise, and that adds up to more than novelty points. It’s an unlikely sliver of the South.

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IF YOU GO:

Cajun Connection (897 E. U.S. Highway 6; 815-667-9855; ronscajunconnection.com) is about 90 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. In summer, it is open 4-9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, noon-9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and noon-6 p.m. Sunday.

Try: For an authentic taste of the South, start with boudin and the massive "Bubba shrimp." If adventurous, consider the deep-fried corn. Combination platters, which come with your choice of three, four or five items, make sampling easy. The jambalaya and alligator are musts (I prefer the alligator blackened). Also, check out the "Cajun favorites," particularly the catfish jambalaya (which explains itself) and the "Jamba Mess" — fried shrimp, alligator and/or crawfish mixed in jambalaya with choice of shrimp or alligator. Try Abita beer, straight out of Louisiana, and the homemade pecan pie.