Cajun Towns Feud About Sausage With Links to the Past

Boudin Bragging Rights Are Up for Grabs Along the Interstate in Southern Louisiana



By TIMOTHY W. MARTIN
Wall Street Journal
June 27, 2012

Billeaud's Grocery in Broussard, Louisiana, shows WSJ how to make boudin, a local version of sausage made of pork, rice, and various seasonings.

SCOTT, La.—Few would dispute that southern Louisiana is boudin heaven. The local version is a sausage made of pork, rice and various seasonings. Trickier to answer is which of three competing Cajun communities is its official mecca.

In April, Louisiana's state legislature bestowed the coveted mantle of Boudin Capital of the World on Scott, a bustling town of 8,600 on Interstate 10—the busy east-west highway linking Houston and New Orleans. It churns out 1.3 million pounds of the sausage a year.

"No one comes close" to Scott's sausage output, boasts Mayor Purvis J. Morrison, who lobbied hard for the title, plying lawmakers with industry statistics to make his case.

UPS trucks collect boudin (pronounced: Boo-DAN, while swallowing the N) shipments here twice a day, he says. Sales help stuff city coffers.

"If you like hot, you'll get hot. If you want mild, you'll find mild. We have boudin balls as big as a softball. We have smoked boudin. I don't even know if anybody did it before we did it," he says.

But Scott's new title—which it uses for marketing purposes—has left a bad taste in the mouths of residents of Broussard, 12 miles to the southeast. They insist their town, population 7,600, is the Boudin Capital of the World—a title they say lawmakers gave them in the late 1970s. True, Broussard doesn't hold its annual boudin festival or crown a Boudin king anymore. But townspeople don't see that as a reason for the legislature to snub them.

"For some reason, Scott wants to be the Boudin capital, and they're trying to take our title. Doesn't hardly seem right," says Billy Billeaud, owner of a grocery store in Broussard.

Mr. Billeaud calls Scott a boudin arriviste whose meaty reputation is the product of aggressive marketing by numerous restaurants and meat specialty shops that have popped up in recent years on the edge of town to stuff boudin-loving travelers on busy Interstate 10.

"We don't have I-10 in Broussard," says Mr. Billeaud, 51 years old, the fourth generation Billeaud to own the store since it opened in 1889.

"Broussard can't claim nothing. They had the title and haven't done anything for 15 years," fires back Aubrey Cole, owner of Don's Specialty Meats just off I-10 in Scott.

Meanwhile, in Jennings, 35 miles or so west on I-10, Mayor Terry W. Duhon can't understand what the hot-dogging is all about. Jennings is Boudin Capital of the Universe, thanks to famed boudin chef and Jennings resident Ellis Cormier, who roamed the state decades ago promoting boudin and won the title for his hometown in the 1970s.

"We've got squatter's rights," says Mr. Duhon, who has the phone number of his favorite go-to joint—Mr. Cormier's Boudin King—on speed dial. No signs or billboards in the town mention Jennings's intergalactic ranking, because, "What do we need to promote it for? We know," he says.

Such lofty titles are of no small importance. Sales of boudin are on the rise, according to restaurateurs, online grocers and locals. The sausage has been featured on the menu at Cochon, a contemporary Cajun restaurant in New Orleans's trendy Warehouse District, which started serving a fried version of the sausage with pickled peppers last year.

"Until we got the title, we never heard anything from Broussard or Jennings. Now they are coming out of the woodwork," complains Donna Thibodeaux, who works at a tourism center in Scott next to one of the town's five boudin sellers.

Boudin's precise origins are not a matter of noir and blanc, though the sausages have been made in southern Louisiana since the mid-1800s. Back then, French Acadians—ancestors of the Cajuns—took leftover parts of a slaughtered pig and mixed them with rice, vegetables and seasonings and encased them in intestines. Some modern takes on boudin substitute pork with crawfish or shrimp. Mr. Cormier's version used more rice than meat, helping popularize the sausage to non-Cajuns because it masked the taste of bolder ingredients like pork butt and liver.

Boudin connoisseurs aren't taking sides. Mr. Billeaud's boudin in Broussard earned an "A+" on "The BoudinLink," a review website operated by Bob Carriker, a history professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the city that both Scott and Broussard border. But he also praises Scott for its juicy version and Jennings for letting rice take on "the starring role."

Lawmakers, for their part, are unapologetic about the grilling they are getting now from boudin makers about the multiple titles. "This is not about the past, it's about the future," state Rep. Stephen Ortego said on the floor of the legislature, explaining his reasons for sponsoring the bill favoring Scott. He says his staff couldn't find any legislation anointing Broussard as boudin capital, and the state representative who allegedly backed that bill is deceased.

As for Jennings, he says, the titles of "world" and "universe" can coexist because Jennings doesn't promote its status. "Anybody can claim a title. But are you using it?" he reasons.

On a recent morning, Mr. Ortego, who grew up near Scott, laid a paper napkin across his left leg and tucked into a link of Mr. Billeaud's boudin. "This one has too much pepper," he said, arguing that Scott's is superior.

Winning the title of Boudin Capital of the World was one of Mr. Morrison's first legislative goals when he became mayor in January 2011. Boudin makers employ 83 people in the town and account for $5 million in annual sales, helping anchor the local economy's growth over the past decade. "Without boudin, we'd just be a regular I-10 exit, with a McDonald's, a Burger King and a Chevron," says Mr. Morrison, sitting in his office next to a two-year-old fire and police station that tax revenue from boudin sales helped fund.

Rob Pelissier pulled off Scott's I-10 exit one recent morning and headed to Don's Specialty Meats. The store has billboards promoting its "best homemade boudin" some 40 miles to the west—just a few miles outside Jennings. "Maybe Jennings or Broussard had the title years back. I'd say yeah, they were good back then. But nowadays, this place here has got it," he said, staring at his empty plate. "If you spend a day here, you can see all of the traffic coming here from out of town."

Mr. Ortego's legislation doesn't ask Broussard to cede its title. For their part, Broussard town leaders have accepted their new role in the boudin world and have downgraded their expectations. The town's mayor has considered seeking the title "Boudin Capital of Louisiana" next year.

From the article, a link to the website that reviews boudin and has a recipe page and a boudin discussion board. Very exciting !!!!!

The BoudinLink

I was born and grew up in Jennings, and I remember when Cormier's was a small mom-and-pop grocery store and they sold the boudin out of the meat department. I ate a LOT of it growing up. As Mr. Cormier became more successful and well-known they converted the store into a restaurant and unfortunately over the years that followed I felt that the quality of the boudin deteriorated after that, especially after Mr. Cormier died. When I'm in the area I still will drop by and get some boudin there for old times' sake but honestly I think the boudin at Don's Specialty Meats mentioned in the article, and at another place down the road called the Best Stop, are better than what you get at Boudin King in Jennings these days. Thanks for the post, and the memories!

quote:

and the memories!

I have good memories too of cruising Cajun country with my dad and uncle, dad showing me the areas he hunted/fished/shrimped/crabbed/frogged, etc, etc. where he grew up. Stopped for boudin a lot. And oysters, shrimp, mudbugs, po-boys of all varieties, beignets, etc...........

Can't find boudin in CA very often, so I make my own. Which is easy enough and feral pigs make pretty good boudin.

I forgot to mention, I make my own once in a while too! Good Mississippi wild hog, makes great boudin and sausage!