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Chops Specialty Meats "It’s actually a rice and gravy in a casing. It’s just the way I can best explain it." – Daven Hulen There’s a small sign out by the road next to a crawfish flag, indicating that boiled crawfish are available today. Large pick-up trucks fill the parking spaces across the storefront, so it’s hard to see inside. A sign with a fat pig holding a cleaver over a ham steak hangs on the building’s exterior. It’s a good humored cartoon that only becomes disturbing if you think too hard about it. Meet Chop’s Specialty Meats. Chop’s began as a modest-sized metal building, and as business grew they added on—and on, and on. Custumers walk into the storefront, where meat cases and coolers are packed with stuffed chickens, sausages, and boudin. A few grocery shelves sell white bread, pickled quail eggs, and Cajun pills—an invention that encapsulates Cajun spices in pill form so they’re easier to stuff into meats. A fresh meats case is across the back, where customers order specialty cuts or get a link of hot boudin to go. Through the doors behind the meat counter is a giant kitchen, where Chop’s prepares its daily catering orders, and out back is an elaborate sheltered set-up where they handle all of the outdoor cooking: boiled crawfish, fried cracklins, and boil pots for pork boudin. It’s a windy path from the front doors to the back. Daven Hulen, the store manager, meat-cutter, boudin maker, and head caterer, is a busy man. In his early thirties, he’s also one of the younger guys making boudin these days. He started in the specialty meats business when his brother-in-law helped land him a job, and he has stayed in it since. He now manages Chop’s for the owner, Jeff Delahoussaye. Daven says that he enjoys his work, which is a good because his days are long—a twelve hour shift is more common than not. When asked about boudin, he explains it simply: “rice and gravy in a casing.” And it’s simply good. 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. Subject: Daven Hulen Today is Wednesday, February 18, 2009 and this is Mary Beth Lasseter with the Southern Foodways Alliance. I’m here at Chop’s Specialty Meats doing an interview and we’re sitting on the picnic table out back of the building. And for those who aren’t here with us--overcast day, a little breezy, so we hope there’s not too much interference with the microphone. But let’s get started. Can you introduce yourself for me; give me your name and tell me where you were born and your birth date? Daven Hulen: Okay; my name is Daven Hulen. I was born right here in Lafayette, Louisiana, born in 1975, November; been here all my life. Tell me a little bit about this place where we are--this store. Chop’s actually started six years ago. It was another company before that; it was called Dab’s Specialty Meats and we moved locations and we opened up Chop’s Specialty Meats and do a little bit of everything. What is a little bit of everything? Can you tell me a little bit about what you’re selling? We do--we do a lot of boudin, a lot of sausages, crackling; we also do a lot of catering and plate lunches every day. We specialize in--in meat; we do a bunch of specialty meats stuffing and seasoned meats, pre-packed. Can you tell me a little bit for people who are unfamiliar with this area, what would be the difference between say your store and a grocery store? Our store you can get a lot of stuff that’s already pre-packed and ready to go straight on the grill or in your oven, like I said stuffed, seasoned--compared to a grocery store. You’re getting not seasoned meats [Laughs]. How did you get into this business? Probably about 13 years ago I was looking for a job and my brother-in-law and his family have always done this and he hired me on at the store that he was working at and showed me how to cut meat. So is it like an apprenticeship for lack of a better word? Pretty much; it’s--it’s pretty much hands-on to be able to learn how to do this stuff. Different places cut it different ways so it all varies from store to store, where you go, how they’re going to do it that way. Have you ever gone to school to learn about meats or cutting meats? No, never been to school to--to learn about the meats and stuff. Took safety courses and stuff, food preparation tests, and--but not a meat-cutting school. Tell me a little bit, since this interview is for the Boudin Trail, about boudin. Let’s start with the simplest question; what is it? It’s actually a rice and gravy in a casing. It’s just the way I can best explain it. And do you know why it’s so popular around here? It’s been a tradition for a while. Everybody I know--my grandmother and grandfather used to do it in the backyard, make their own boudin and everything and--so I guess that’s why people just enjoy it, just--it’s tradition. Tell me a little bit about your grandparents and when they used to make it. Do you have memories of those events? They used to get a--a few hogs and out in the back they’d slaughter them and they had a whole bunch of people that would come over and we would split the meat and make boudin right there and they’d cook for everybody that--that afternoon and whoever participated got to take something home. What were your grandparents’ names and what did they do for a living? That I don’t remember what they did for a living. My grandmother was--her name was Arinee Perry and my grandfather was Wolman Perry. So did your grandparents live out in the country; the idea of sort of slaughtering hogs in town seems a little foreign to people today? Yes; we all lived in the country. Actually they had moved to the City and we still--my dad had property out in the back, south of Lafayette which was--called it the country but we would--we would have a bunch of acres and we did it over there. I’m interested--done a couple of these interviews and a lot of people are talking about how the food traditions are dying among younger culture. You, yourself are pretty young, and you’re making these traditional foods. I know you started in the business because you were looking for a job but can you tell me a little bit about why you stuck with it and--and what the work is like? Well I mean the work is--is great. It’s--it’s real nice to--to do this stuff; it’s laid back most of the time except during the holidays. You have a bunch of orders that come through. What’s a typical day like? A typical day, we come in; we make boudin almost every day. We just make the regular traditional pork boudin. That’s the only one we really carry. We come in; we get our meat together. Start cooking that; we cook cracklings in the morning and then we started on our--our cases and filling up our--all our meat sections--we cut all that usually about 2 o'clock we’re finished, and we start running more--the boudin that we cooked that morning, we’ll start running it and we usually finish about 3:00--4 o'clock. And by that time it’s time to touch up the case again. And I have guys that come in and start cleaning up for the night. If you’re done with the first part of cutting at 2 o'clock, what time are you getting into work and actually starting? Well we actually come in--I come in at 6 o'clock in the morning; usually out of here for 5:30--6 o'clock that night. And can you describe to me I mean what--what are you doing during the course of the day? Are you managing people or are you doing the cutting? Actually I’m [Laughs]--I’m a manager, I’m the main meat cutter, I do all the catering jobs; like today, this morning I came in. I got my boudin together and got things situated for the day and I had to leave to go do a catering job and now I’m coming back and I’m going to start running boudin and making sure things are going right and finish up the night. ----- Let’s talk a little bit about the boudin here. Describe to me a day of making boudin or an afternoon of making boudin from start to finish. Actually what--what we do is we come in and we have some big pots. We’ll usually do two big pots and we get our meat together. It’s all--we use nothing but Boston butts; we don’t do it the old way where you throw all kinds of stuff in there. We just use strictly Boston butts. We cut it up in small pieces. We get our seasonings together; we have a few different seasonings that we put in it. We put it all in. We make our own Chop’s Blend and you know it’s--it’s kind of like how you know they have the Tony Chacherie’s? Well we have our own Chop’s that we make personally and we put that in there and a few other things. We put water in it; we boil it. It usually takes about two and a half hours to cook and we make a bunch of rice [Laughs]. And once--once that’s finished boiling we’ll mix it up; we have big mixers--mix it up and we have casing that goes on it. We have a hydraulic stuffer, so it’s--it’s really nice and it makes it a lot easier with the hydraulic stuffer. And takes probably about three hours to run the boudin, the boudin that we make and we put it in the cooler after it’s ran and let it sit for a day and we’ll pack it up. Going back to that description, the meats--y'all are not a slaughterhouse. Where are you getting your meat products? Actually I use a couple of suppliers. One is Doerl Food Services which is located right here in Broussard. And then another company is Christiana which is located out of New Orleans and they’re big meat packing companies. I’m sure they get their meat you know from all over but that’s who we use. They--they come and they call on us and we get a truck every day from them, so--. We give it to a spice company; they have everything--we have a patent on it and all we have to do is just order it from them and they mix it up and ship it to us. The company is Cargill out of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. And then when we talk about the different spices that you’re putting in the boudin, without giving away secret recipes, what is it--peppers or garlic or--? Actually we do--we put it’s a lot of dry seasonings. Like I said we--we call our seasoning Chop’s seasoning. We put Chop’s seasoning; we use garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper, black pepper. It’s basically you’re just to your seasoning--it’s already got in it, and that’s basically it. Who developed this recipe? Was it a family recipe from the owner or is it something that the staff collaborated to create? Actually the--the owner came up with this. They--he--him and another guy sat down and figured out exactly what they wanted to put into it and from there they doctored it up and--well we doctored it up from one point to another until we got it where we wanted it. I noticed you didn’t mention in that list of ingredients liver; but I know some people put liver in their boudin. Can you tell me sort of how it flavors it and why y'all choose not to use it? We choose not to use it just--they have so many people that doesn’t--doesn’t like the liver taste in it. So I know it’s not traditional--traditional would be with the liver but we choose to just use a straight Boston butt pork meat in it. And are y'all using fresh onions and peppers or are those of the powdered variety too? It’s all powder--all powder. ----- Talk to me a little bit about who your customers are; who is shopping here and how frequently are they coming by? I have a lot of oil field companies--companies that deal with us. Probably 70 to 80-percent of our business is oil field, cooking out for their customers, bringing boudin to their customers and we have a lot of walk-ins that come in. They--repeats; they come in all the time. Our boudin is very good and a lot of people around here really enjoy it so they come back and forth for the boudin. Sometimes it’s just the boudin but they’re back and forth for our boudin. Tell me a little bit about these oil field customers. Are you catering for them here in town or are these traditional foods of the area getting shipped out across the country? Actually we do a lot of--the catering side is done around here and we do whatever they ask us to do. We’ll do it and sometimes we cook it over here; they’ll just pick it up and bring it to their customers. The oil field customers, are they local people? I mean do they live in the area or are they coming in from California and Massachusetts and sort of learning about Louisiana food through what you give them? A little bit of both. I have some customers that have passed through; they work offshore or something and they’re coming through and they’re driving back to Mississippi or going to Arkansas and you know they heard of it or they’ve tried something that somebody brought to them and they stop in and buy a few things to take home. Is there a time of year that people in this area eat boudin more often than others? I know we’re a week out from Mardi Gras; are y'all making it in larger batches? During the holidays and during the winter; if it’s cold outside for some reason boudin sells more. Whenever it’s a little bit warmer it seems not to sell that much I guess because the rice and stuff, a lot of people work outside around here. How are people eating the boudin? Is it an entrée; is it a snack--breakfast, lunch, or dinner? I have people that--that eat it as a meal or just come in during the day and they--they’ll grab one link and make a day out of it, cut it in three pieces and eat a little piece at a time. You can pretty much eat it any kind of way you want. [Laughs] You were telling me about the cracklings. They were already cut and there’s a turner. Are you frying the cracklings? Yes; we fry it and we have grease in the--in the pots. Put it in; it’ll--it’ll keep on producing grease whenever you put it in so all we’re having to do is we take the grease out--a little bit of grease out, put your cracklings cooking. Like I said it takes about an hour; pre-cook and we put them back in our cooler and then we have another pot on the other side and we call it our popping pot. And what we do with that is in the morning or whenever we’re popping the cracklings we heat it up to 400-degrees and you put the--the cracklings that you’ve cooked in there and it makes them tender. We call it popping; it makes the little blisters all over on the skin and where people can chew it and enjoy it. How do people buy cracklings--by the pound or bag? It’s by the pound. It’s--we sell it for $9.49 a pound right now. It’s--the prices always fluctuate and you can--you can buy it by the pound. We have jugs; a lot of these oil field guys that I was saying earlier, come in and buy gallons of cracklings to take to their customers. We use gallon--gallon jugs all the time. We ship cracklings in the gallons. ----- To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
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