Blogging On The Bayou
The following is a series of blogs from a recent trip to southern Louisiana.
Southern Louisiana. We’ve just finished a lunch that would knock Emeril off the air for a week. Eddies BBQ, at a Texaco. The best barbeque I have had in a long time. In the South, it’s not exactly news that gas stations are purveyors of fine cuisine, but here in Louisiana, that theory is a plain fact.
We are driving through a small town when Fred mentions it’s his wife’s birthday next week and he should get her something down here. At that exact moment, we pass the perfect store: Iron, Leather and Lace. Before we can even suggest it as the perfect BD gift store, we pass another place called Limbs and Braces. I point out these establishments to Fred, who waves them off like a bad pitch. He is waiting for Boudin.
Boudin and Cracklin Next Exit!
We’re in Southern Louisiana. We’d seen the signs up and down the roads for several days.
“BOUDIN AND CRACKLIN’S. NEXT EXIT!”
When you are in southern Louisiana, you see a lot of unfamiliar words. “Boudin” and “cracklin” warranted special attention, and we asked a few questions. I know gumbo and etouffee and jambalaya and crawfish, and we’ve eaten our share of that on this trip. Boudin, however, is a mystery.
Eventually, we end up at Prejean’s in North Lafayette. It is packed. A live alligator greets you at the door and a fried one will greet you on the menu if you so order. Above you as you are dining, a 14-footer is forever frozen in mid-growl through the talents of a reptilian taxidermist. A postcard shows a child straddling a gator under the headline, “We ride ‘em before we cook ‘em.”
On the menu, alligator has its own heading, like Poultry, Fish and Pork. Alligator Grand Chenier: Tender, white tail meat seasoned Cajun style. Of course, there’s Grilled or Fried Alligator: Prime white meat fillets – served with alligator sausage. I can honestly say I have never heard of alligator sausage. Growing up with more than a few gators myself, the gators had a better chance of eating people sausage.
We pass on those choices and go for the crawfish and gumbo, which is described as a “Three-Time World Champion.” Later, the waiter says, “You know they’re lying.” You have to respect such honesty. And then we see it: Boudin. Will can’t take it anymore; his curiosity compels him to step out and he has to have some. Robin says, “This is top-of-the-line boudin here. I’ll show you some real boudin down the road at a real hole in the wall. It won’t look like this.”
About this time we see a news camera in the restaurant. Needless to say, where I grew up, there is a distinct possibility that when a TV camera shows up in a restaurant, it is not good news. No bad news today, though. Later that evening, Fred is watching the news in the hotel and sees us on TV cramming boudin in our hot-sauced little mouths. He is pretty excited about it. We like this restaurant. World Championship Gumbo, truthful waiters and you get on TV, all in one meal. How do you beat that? With boudin.
Our honest waiter brings the anticipated boudin appetizer. We collect our inch-thick balls of deep-fried boudin. Looks like a cornbread muffin, brown and round. It’s spicy and good. We’re still not sure exactly what is in this ball of Cajun cuisine but we all like it. We eat our award-winning gumbo. We eat crawfish etouffee. We down a lot of sweet iced tea. It’s all good and we go down the road. “Real” boudin awaits us at the Texaco.
It’s hard to imagine that food by the same name can look so different. But there, next to a watery trough, a woman is tonging over logs of ashen gray sausage into a milky juice. No nice, crispy brown balls here. This thing looks like a nasty chitlinish, culinary mistake. “That is what boudin looks like to most folks down here,” says Robin. “Driving food. People eat that and cracklins for breakfast. Bite the end off that casing and suck down the boudin and drive on down the road.”
Nobody says a word except Will. “Wow.” That’s all he can say as he stares at the leathery shank of Cajun hose. We all stand numbed and try to comprehend this duality of boudin. Cracklin’s, on the other hand, looks familiar. Deep-fried pork fat. Now that sounds like something I know about. Deep-fried pork fat has put almost every relative of mine six feet under carved granite markers for 100 years. Pork fat is a subject I understand.
