For David and Lorraine Bertrand, La Boucherie Lives On

By Cynthia LeJeune Nobles 

​PawPaw LeJeune’s house used to be the setting for our extended family’s wintertime boucheries, hog butcherings. I remember freshly-killed pigs hanging from oak trees, big black kettles of spattering grease, and pawpaw’s wooden, tin-roofed smokehouse smelling like heaven.

​For us, the event was strictly work. Each adult was assigned a job. After every part of the pig was cooked, exhausted uncles, aunts, and cousins rounded up children and drove home with their share of pork. 
            
Modern refrigeration makes home hog-butchering unnecessary. But fortunately, many Louisianians keep the unique custom alive. One such couple is David and Lorraine Bertrand of Elton.

These high school sweethearts have been married some 45 years, and they spend most of their time managing their family rice farm. David also owns and runs a rice marketing business. In spite of their busy lives, each year in late November, they set aside a day to host a boucherie, a ritual they both grew up with. 

This day started before sunrise, and arriving guests were handed aprons. (Yes, we were expected to work!) Under the supervision of the Bertrands, their 3 grown children, and a few brothers and sisters, the first task was to hack up a 180-pound porker.

This pig was bought scraped and cleaned, but David recollects the old days of scalding and scraping off hair. His family used the “3-finger” test to determine if the water was hot enough for scalding. “If your finger can only stay in for 1 dip the water’s too hot,” he says. “For 3 dips, it’s too cold.” 

The butchering was done by folks who obviously knew how to wield a meat cleaver. But there was also a cadre of inexperienced young folks who wanted to lend a hand. The scene was a true sense of community, with the young wanting to learn butchering techniques, and the old pros more than willing to teach them. 

Early in the morning a daughter made lengths of sausage, which spent most of the day hanging over smoldering wood in a smoker. The tall, narrow tin smoker was made from a reclaimed outhouse.

David recalls that a few years ago a friend raised his hands and pressed them up against the smoker’s side. “He wasn’t making a novena to the old outhouse,” David said with a laugh. “He was checking the temperature.” David then gave me another handy boucherie tip: “Hands on the tin for 8 seconds and it’s too cold. For only 3 seconds, and it’s too hot.”

As the Bertrands’ spacious barn filled with several hundred invited guests, Lorraine told me that “almost everyone around Basile and Elton used to hold boucheries,” Accordion music was filtering in. “When David and I started having boucheries, they were small, just family,” she said, “with enough boudin and sausage for everyone to take home.” Things changed in 2006, when they expanded their guest list and turned the event into a working party. These days, there’s plenty to eat during the boucherie, but the Bertrands usually have few leftovers. 

By mid-morning one of the Bertrand children had already fried a vat of cracklins’. Another was stirring a pot of sauce picante, and one of Lorraine’s sisters had made jambalaya. On a side porch someone had cooked a batch of white beans and tasso, and one of David’s brothers and his helpers were manning a massive pit smoker full of ribs. (To feed the large crowd, the Bertrands bought extra ribs.)

Right off the porch, a huge pot of water was set over a propane fire to boil the pig’s head. Typically, meat picked off the head would be the basis for hog’s head cheese, but this particular meat was destined for boudin.

Beer kegs flowed, and well before noon, the atmosphere was sparkling. By noon, two long rows of tables were groaning with smothered greens, salads, beans, and casseroles, and every sweet imaginable, all provided by guests.  

By 2 o’clock, another of Lorraine’s sisters had rounded up a group of volunteers that stuffed boudin casings. At 3 o’clock Leroy Thomas cranked up zydeco from the bed of an old rice truck, and the barn’s dance floor quickly filled. Steaming, spicy boudin was passed around. Some of it landed inside the pit smoker alongside a football-sized ponce, also known as chaudin, which is a sausage-stuffed pig stomach.

Cooking each of the pig’s parts correctly is an important part of the boucherie process, and that knowledge is obviously being passed down verbally. No one had written directions for preparing these complicated and incredible pork dishes. “What recipe,” was the response I kept getting. “I just throw things in until it tastes right.” 

The boucherie itself was pretty much done by 4:00. But the partying was expected to go on until the wee hours of the morning. 

Although the Bertrands’ annual event is festive, it is also a serious learning experience. David and Lorraine, like me, remember when the boucherie was crucial to farm life. David in particular remembers helping his father clean the hogs, cut up the meat, and grind, stuff, and smoke the day away. “To us, preserving meat was central,” he said. “And socializing happened when everything was finished, if at all.” 

They hope their children understand the boucherie’s true origins, that it was a way of survival, and that it brought communities together. Another big wish is that the following generations carry on the tradition. 
            
 
 
 

 
Do you have a Louisiana agriculture story or a recipe you’d like to share? Contact me at [email protected]
 
Cynthia Nobles is the cookbook editor for LSU Press and the author/co-author of several historical cookbooks, including A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook, The Delta Queen Cookbook, and The Fonville Winans Cookbook.
 
 
 
Smoky Barbecued Pork Ribs
Makes 6 servings 
 
2 racks St. Louis-style spareribs (6-8 pounds total)
½ cup Creole Seasoning Mix, plus 1 teaspoon 
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup tomato sauce
½ cup white vinegar
¼ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup Creole mustard, or any coarse-grained mustard
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 cups hickory or mesquite wood chips
 
1. Work a long, slim screwdriver under the papery skin on the back of ribs, and move it along to loosen the skin. With your fingers, pull skin off. Pat ribs dry. Season each side of rib racks with 2 tablespoons dry rub. Wrap ribs in plastic wrap and refrigerate 4-24 hours.
2. While ribs are marinating, make basting sauce. In a medium saucepan, combine butter, tomato sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, salt and ground black pepper. Bring to a boil, lower heat to medium and cook, uncovered, 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. If not using immediately, refrigerate up to 1 week.
3. One hour before ready to cook, remove ribs from refrigerator and soak wood chips in water. Prepare a barbecue for indirect cooking by placing lit coals against the two sides of a barbecue pit and leaving center clear, (or lighting the two outside burners of a gas grill). Toss drained wood chips onto coals (or put into a gas grill’s smoker box), and put a drip pan in between the coals. Pour a cup water in drip pan. Arrange ribs, bone side down, on the grill over the cool middle. Cover the grill and cook 1 hour.
4. Brush ribs on both sides with basting sauce. Cover grill and cook until meat shrinks back from the bone, 30-45 minutes longer, basting every 15 minutes. At the beginning of the last 15 minutes, sprinkle 1 teaspoon seasoning mix on top of rib racks, baste and leave cover open. When done, remove to a platter and allow to sit 15 minutes before serving.
 
 
 
 
Stuffed Ponce (Chaudin)
Makes 6-8 servings      
 
Ponce, or chaudin, is nothing more than a cleaned pig stomach stuffed with sausage and smoked. You can find them ready to cook at many traditional Cajun meat markets. I based this recipe on the method used by Mrs. Nita LeJeune of LeJeune’s Sausage Kitchen in Eunice. 
 
1 (1-pound) smoked, sausage-stuffed ponce
1 tablespoon cornstarch for thickening gravy
 
1. Use a fork to pierce the stuffed ponce’s skin in several places on the inside curve. Place the ponce in a Dutch oven and add enough water to come up in the pot ½ inch. Boil over high heat, allowing the water to evaporate. Let the ponce turn brown, pierce it with a fork on the inside curve again, and turn it over. 
2. Add another ½ inch water. Let the water evaporate again, and let the ponce turn brown. 
3. Add another ½ inch water and cover tightly. Lower heat to a simmer and cook until the inside registers 160°F on a meat thermometer. Turn ponce over every 20 minutes and add water as necessary to keep it at ½ inch. Should take about 3 hours.
4. Remove the cooked ponce from the pot and make a gravy with the drippings with a cornstarch and water slurry. Serve the gravy alongside slices of warm ponce.
 
 
 
Cracklin’ Cornbread
Makes 6 servings
 
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¾ cup yellow cornmeal
¾ cup all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup pork cracklins’, finely chopped in a food processor
 
1. Heat your oven to 400°F. Swirl the vegetable oil around the inside of an 8-inch cast iron skillet and heat in the oven until hot but not smoking.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl stir together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Add buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter and mix well with a large spoon. Stir in cracklins’ and pour batter into hot skillet.
3. Bake until brown and center is set, about 20-25 minutes. Cool at least 10 minutes. Serve warm.