Boudin For Peace
Lafayette, LA

“Everyone on the bus has an extreme passion for boudin." – Jeff Landry

Growing up in Lafayette, Jeff Landry didn’t imagine that boudin—such a common food—would one day become the focal point of his favorite day of the year. In 2000, because he knew the right people and which strings to pull, Jeff became a rookie member of Boudin For Peace, an all-male, semi-secret organization that celebrates Acadiana’s boudin culture during an annual day-long boudin bus tour. While Jeff couldn’t divulge the club’s innermost secrets, he did reveal that the group has rules: no women, no cameras, no fighting. And also a five-point boudin grading system: meat-to-rice ratio, presentation, spice level, liver content, and girth. Once the votes are tallied, the group awards the winning boudin shop with a best-of plaque. Mostly, though, the day (always held the Saturday before Mardi Gras) is more about camaraderie and boudin appreciation than it is a contest. On the bus, Jeff says, the Boudin for Peacers gear up for the day by chanting boudin, boudin. Of course the coolers of beer also help.

NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Subjects: Jeff Landry
Date: June 15, 2008
Location: Lafayette, LA
Interviewer & Photographer: Sara Roahen

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Sara Roahen: This is Sara Roahen for the Southern Foodways Alliance. It’s Sunday, June 15, 2008. I’m in Lafayette, Louisiana. And could I get you to say your name and your birth date, where you grew up, and where you live now?

Jeff Landry: Jeff Landry from Lafayette. I live here now, and I was born on December 18, 1980.

Can you tell me what Boudin for Peace is and how you first learned about it?

Sure, Boudin for Peace is a gathering of just kind of friends who all love boudin. And once a year—usually the weekend before Mardi Gras, on the Saturday—everybody kind of gathers and you go to just the best boudin places in Acadiana. It starts at 7:00 in the morning and ends in the afternoon at 5:00 or 6:00. And the way I came across it was one of my best friends, Jacob Crouch, his uncle was one of the founders of Boudin for Peace, Paul Beaullieu, and I think it was probably around 17, 18, 19 years ago that six or seven guys kind of got in a Suburban, and it was a Saturday, and had nothing better to do, I think, and went and started at their favorite boudin places. And one guy knew of a couple maybe in Opelousas, and another guy knew of some in Eunice, and they just kind of hit all the good ones. And it really just was for fun and kind of a joke, and hence the name Boudin for Peace.

So to kind of fast-forward I guess, seven or eight years ago was my first year. By that time, it had gone from seven or eight people to about 100 people, and the kind of—the un—unwritten rule was that once you were invited once, you were always invited. And so to be invited, it was kind of—it was just kind of difficult because, you know there’s only so many spaces on the bus and if you knew of a couple guys not coming, there would be some spots opening up and—. So long story short, Jacob called me and another one of my friends, Blake, and we were invited. We were, I guess about 20 at the time, and by far the youngest on the bus. I think the—the next to youngest from us was in their late 30s. So we were definitely the green horns on the bus, but you know just as excited as all those guys. And really that was the last year that the—kind of the founders came. They kind of almost turned it over to a new and younger generation, a lot of their nephews and cousins and—.

But anyway, the day is a pretty simple day, very—it’s a lot of fun. It starts about 7 o'clock in the morning. Everyone gathers in a—usually a halfway secret parking lot just so the crowd won't get too big and people who weren't really invited show up kind of deal. When I started it was three Carvel buses that they would bring and then a little 15-passenger, little bus and you start—you go—we start—and of course this is only from my experience. We’d start at Don’s Specialty Meats in Carencro, which you know we’re showing up to Don’s at 8 o'clock in the morning. And on the buses, you can hearing them chanting boudin—boudin, and it slowly gets louder and louder until you get there and, again, it’s like one of the funniest things to see: [Laughs] these very professional people in Lafayette having so much fun over boudin. And you kind of can't help but get sucked into chanting boudin and get excited for the boudin. And you eat your first link at about 8:00 in the morning, and Don’s has been a—an excellent stop. We usually try and switch up the stops every year just to kind of add some variety. We actually gave Don’s Specialty Meats last year the first and last Lifetime Achievement Award for—for overall best boudin. And that’s, you know—to us that was a big honor to give him that. They had won Boudin for Peace two years in a row, and they just—they always have a really, really good and a consistent link of boudin.

Usually you get back on the bus; you’re not at each stop for more than 30 minutes, and it’s pretty simple: you rate the boudin; you critique the boudin. And to be a critiquer of the boudin is kind of—that’s also kind of a privilege. It’s usually held for the older guys with the most experience and there’s usually some pretty good Cajun jokes in the middle of the critiquing of the boudin, so that’s usually a really fun part of it. But in the past few years we’ve slimmed down to only about 50 people now because it was just getting too big, so it’s only one bus now, which is really nice because everybody is on the same bus and everybody hears the same jokes, you know, and everybody is in on the same critiquing of the boudin. And there’s five—there’s five, I don’t know what you’d call it—different categories, I guess. One is meat to rice ratio; mustard content; liver content; I’m sorry, not mustard, not liver; green onion content; girth; and presentation. And presentation can be key. Some—some people [Laughs] like Don’s Specialty Meats have gone so far to like make—they’ve made us Boudin for Peace shirts, and in fact I meant—I meant to wear it here today. But I still wear it all the time. It’s a great little t-shirt.

Another—another place will—they’ll take you in the back and they’ll show you where they make the boudin, which is a lot of fun. They kind of take you on a little tour of the facility.

Who did that? Do you remember?

Yes, Eunice Meat and Poultry, who has very good boudin. Pretty much we—we call probably the week ahead of time and let them know we’re going to need 20 or 30 pounds of boudin and that we’ll be coming, because it can be an overwhelming experience to some of these really small little tiny, you know convenience stores, who like I said earlier might see 20 customers in the day. But Eunice Meat and Poultry has been great. They have welcomed us in; they get excited that we’re doing this, you know, so whenever we come they—they’ll bring us in the back and they have—it’s a big slaughterhouse, and they’ll serve us the boudin back there and that’s part of the presentation. That, to us, was really cool. They had a bunch of heads of cattle hanging in the back and they were cleaning pigs and all kinds of stuff. And that was just a really interesting thing. If you ever go you can just ask them and they’d probably be more than happy to—to show you around.

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And then we move to Mamou, where we don’t eat any boudin in Mamou but we stop there. We usually get there around 11 o'clock and stay ‘til maybe 1:00 or 1:30. The Boudin for Peacers have reached like a celebrity status in Mamou and it’s really funny. There’s a bar called Fred’s Lounge, supposedly where all the famous—where they have a Zydeco taping like every Saturday night, I think, and you know it’s broadcast on the radio [Correction: it’s a Cajun music radio show, not Zydeco]. It’s all these really small communities that come to Mamou for the day. Not to shop or anything, just to come and hang out, and there’s kind of like these little bars and stuff. So when we pull up it’s 60 city slickers, you know, who have been eating boudin all day and it’s really fun. It—that’s a great day because we’ve ended up—we’ve met some of these locals over the years.

One really good story about Mamou: We’re standing on Main Street; it’s a very, very small city. And I was asking one of the locals where the nearest ATM was. I had run out of money and as I’m asking that, another kind of local guy comes up on horseback and he said—I don’t remember his name—he said, Man, he’s looking for the ATM. He said, Oh yeah, hop on. So he puts me on the back of his horse and I’m—the whole time I’m crying laughing. I’m like, Am I riding a horse down Main Street in some city? And we pull up to the little local bank about two blocks away. We’re in the little ATM lot and I’m pressing the ATM buttons and the horse is so high that I’m like reaching down, you know. I mean that’s Mamou. I mean little things like that happen every year and you can't like predict them or explain them really.

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We’ve started going back to the Best Stop, which for years was—they had the best boudin and we stopped going there for a couple of years, and then the past two years they weren't even really on the tour but we were all just still wanting some boudin at 4:00 in the afternoon and we decided just to kind of go to Best Stop and not really tell them we were coming, which is not always the best thing to do because they just usually don’t have that much boudin ready. But they have great boudin, and you know kind of sneaking up on someone like that is a good thing because they’re not expecting us, so you really get to taste their everyday boudin. And [Laughs] it’s kind of a joke but it’s kind of serious: there are some establishments that want to win it so they’ll try to, you know, stand out just by the taste of the boudin. And we call it spiking the boudin; they spike the boudin and they put a lot of red pepper in it so you—you know, you taste it and you remember that taste. And it’s what—we watch out for that, you know, because that’s kind of an unfair advantage. You know we want—want to taste the everyday boudin; you know that’s the important—we want the consistency because at the end of the day we’re giving the trophy to the best boudin, and we—we want people to go and taste the best boudin every day.

And the Best Stop is usually the last stop there in Carencro. And—and after that, you know we just come home and it’s usually late and we’ve had a lot of boudin. And then there’s a lot of like extracurricular foods that we eat like, you know, quail eggs; or you might even find some fried frog legs at each one of these little places. They all have something you know—pork rinds, or they have just some homemade stuff, and of course you’re buying this and that and trying—trying it all, you know.

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We were talking earlier about the rules of this day, or this organization.

The rule—well none of them are written down for sure, until now maybe. [Laughs] But there’s kind of some unspoken rules. Cameras really aren't encouraged, and I haven't been in any photos I don’t think, just because there’s just—just a lot of people there having a good time and you know, just one more thing to worry about…really getting photos and stuff. It’s just a group of—it’s all guys; there’s no—no women that come, and [Laughs] you know, so guys—.

There’s no beer or anything either, huh?

There’s a little bit of beer going on, drinking. You’ve got to wash the boudin down, you know, especially that dry boudin. Each person kind of brings their own little ice chest. Some people might drink mixed drinks. I’m a Coors Light drinker myself. I can't drink anything too heavy because it—it will kind of wear on you a little bit. A lot of people start their day off with a good Bloody Mary or a screwdriver, but those are usually the—the people who it’s their first couple of years. It’s a marathon of a day, not a sprint, and in fact the little short bus that I was telling you about—15 passenger—is for those people who can't make the whole day, and usually that bus leaves—leaves around noon from Mamou, and they get made fun of a little bit and take some flack for it, which they should. You know, if they can't handle the day of boudin and drinking—.

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Sounds a little bit like a secret society or like a Mardi Gras krewe.

It is kind of like a Mardi Gras krewe. In fact a lot of the people on the bus are part of the same Mardi Gras crew and there’s actually a float—or there’s a parade that runs that Saturday night every year and a few of us are in the krewe, and we ride in the float. So when we get back off the bus we go straight to the float and the float starts around like 6:00. We get off the bus about 5:00 and the floats go from like 6:00 to like 10:00 and they run here in Lafayette, and that’s a tough—that’s a trying day. But it’s a lot of fun.

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One other thing that I forgot to tell you about—I just remembered it—is every year in the morning before we leave we name a Mr. Boudin, and that is given to someone who—who [Laughs] how do I put this? —just did something extraordinary the year before. That could be along the lines of organizing the event and kind of going the extra mile to make sure that everyone was at the right place and all the boudin stops knew we were coming—to being the best critique(r) we’ve ever had, or you know just cracking up the bus the whole time they’re telling jokes, or—or you never know. Or—or getting a horse and riding it around the city. I mean, just things—you never what it’s going to be, but again it’s kind of like the good boudin. You just kind of know when that—whoever that person is stands out a little bit from the pack, you know they’re probably going to be Mr. Boudin next year and—.

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There is a traditional garb, if you will, that some of the older guys started wearing; some of the newer guys are starting to get them. That’s either one of two things—is the old-fashioned overalls, and they’ll get maybe Boudin for Peace embroidered on it, and if they were a past Mr. Boudin it will say Mr. Boudin 2003 or something; and—and then also like a mechanic’s jumpsuit you know, but a red one, and it’s got to be red. And again, some people might just have their name on it, it might be plain, or it might have, you know, embroidered Boudin for Peace. It’s really up to whatever they want to do.

Have you done that yet?

I haven't done that, although—and this is kind of bringing up some other stuff. In Boudin for Peace there’s a lot of sharing going on and a lot of times it’s pretty cold, and so at all these little convenience stores they sell like gloves to work in the fields or whatever it may be, and [Laughs] occasionally what you want to try to do if you forgot your gloves—and usually everybody forgets their gloves or a huggie for their beer—is you find someone who is left-handed or right-handed, the opposite of you, and one person will get the left-hand glove and you’ll get the other glove. So it’s kind of like your—your huggie. Your hands don’t get cold. And then some people have taken it so far as they don’t—they’re going to keep both gloves and what they do just so they can multi-task is they cut the fingers off of the gloves, so they can still eat the boudin with the glove on but they get to hold the beer and their hands don’t get cold. Those are the really smart ones. I think every year for the most part I’ve bought a set of gloves and I’ve never come home with a set of gloves. I don’t know where they go; no one does.

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Tell me a little bit about the group of guys. What kind of people are they?

Good question. They are all really, you know, successful guys in Lafayette, whether they be lawyers or doctors or just local businessmen. And—and that’s what really, for us, you know when we started out why we had so much fun is because we got to kind of hang out with these older guys who we’ve all seen Monday through Friday in a suit. And you know they’re working and we got to kind of see them have fun like we do. We were in college at the time when we started, so that was really neat, you know, just to kind of be on the same level with those guys and just having fun at the same time. But all really good guys; most of them are from Lafayette. I know over the years we’ve probably picked up a few guys form Houma or Thibodeaux who moved to Lafayette and heard about it and kind of got worked in on it. But only the past few years as a new crop of people kind of come in, you know—but yeah, all good guys, all of them mostly from Lafayette and again, just a little—little fun on a Saturday eating boudin.

What about you? What do you do for a living?

I’m in commercial real estate.

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When you were growing up, in what context would you eat boudin?

The only thing that I really remember being younger and eating a lot of boudin was when we’d go either duck or goose hunting. There was always a—a little grocery store called Stelly’s; it is…I don’t know the exact location. It’s a little east of Geuydan. But you’d always stop to get supplies for the weekend—you know, soft drinks and ice, or fill up the truck with gas or something like that, and they always had boudin. And I just—I remember always getting a link of boudin either there or somewhere around that atmosphere—you know, around the hunting camp kind of deal.

You told (me) a funny story about being at college.

It was one of those weekends. Probably I was coming back from the—you know duck hunting camp or something. And I had a next-door neighbor in Baton Rouge who was from—from New Orleans. Actually, Kenner (a suburb); he would want me to say Kenner [pronounced Kinner], and [Laughs] he was pretty much a city slicker kind of guy. And we would—we would tell him we were going hunting, and he had never even fired a gun in his life, which we all—we thought was funny. But long story short, we had some leftover boudin. Came home, and decided just to give him some. We had plenty, and you know we were kind of just probably sick of the boudin at that time. And a couple days later (we) walked next door and he is—he is barbequing and he is barbequing the boudin because he thought it was sausage and really had no idea what it was at that point. We kind of—we had to stop him, [Laughs] and we were like, Man, it’s boudin. He was like, What is boudin? Sausage. But you know it’s funny because they actually have places that have barbeque boudin, which is actually pretty good—just a little different—but we showed him how to heat up the boudin in the rice cooker. But that was a little too much for him, so he just did the microwave thing. But at the—at the end of the day, you know we introduced him to boudin, and he still laughs at us for bringing this foreign dish to him.

Did he like it?

He loved it; he loved it.

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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

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