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Babineaux’s Slaughter House & Meat Market C. Hebert's Slaughter House & Meat Market Coleman's Sausage & Specialty Meats Eunice Superette & Slaughterhouse |
Hebert’s Specialty Meats "We ate a lot of cousch-cousch and cornbread and, you know, beans and rice…you had to stretch. We didn’t have a whole lot of meals where we ate rib-eyes…it was a little bit of meat and a lot of fillers, you know--rice, bread, cornbread." – Sammy Hebert Hebert’s Specialty Meats in Maurice, Louisiana, makes a tasty boudin, but it’s their invention of the turducken that put this store on the culinary map. Owner Sammy Hebert co-founded the shop with his brother, who now is retired. Today, Sammy runs the business and he’s managing construction to expand the store’s retail space. Shopping space is a bit too small for their current volume, he explains. 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. Subject: Sammy Hebert ----- Mary Beth Lasseter: All right; today is Thursday, January 22, 2008 and this is Mary Beth Lasseter of the Southern Foodways Alliance. I am in here in Maurice, Louisiana to interview Mr. Sam Hebert of Hebert's Specialty Meats. Mr. Hebert, could you please introduce yourself, and tell me your birth date and what you do for a living? Sam Hebert: Yes; my name is Sammy Hebert from Maurice, Louisiana and I own Hebert's Specialty Meats. I’m 49 years old--was born October 1, 1959, opened my business August 28, 1984. Can you tell me a little bit about how you opened your business and who you worked with? I opened--we opened in August of ’84; me and my brother was the original owners. He’s no longer in business with me--retired three years ago. But we opened just off of--he and I both wanted to do something on our own and just decided to--we had a restaurant next door where we were deboning and stuffing chickens and selling them on the plate lunches. And it kind of started growing and people started ordering them, so we decided to start a meat market to do that and all kind of other meats just to make a go at it and it ended up you know being successful. I come from a family of twelve kids, nine brothers--nine sisters and two brothers. How did ya’ll have the restaurant or how did you come to have the restaurant originally? Actually my dad opened the restaurant in 1984--’74. My brother that was in business with me graduated in ’74 and we all liked to cook and my dad decided to open a restaurant to give him something to do after he graduated because that’s kind of how my dad was. He always tried to give something for us all to survive or you know make a--make a living on our own instead of working for somebody else. And I graduated in ’77; didn’t really like the--not that I didn’t like working for my dad or I just didn’t--everything I tried--I had a Water World business; I tried that. I didn’t like it. The restaurant I liked it but it was too--too many--too much family involved, pretty much knew it was never going to be mine. So we--we decided--me and my brother after 10 years in the restaurant he--he kind of wanted to do something on his own also and me and him kind of did a little joint venture of our own and it--it worked out good. Can you tell me how you decided to open a Specialty Meats store? Back then actually it just came you know what--what are we going to call this thing, and we you know got Hebert’s and--and just started throwing around different--. And I came up with the Hebert’s Specialty Meats just by changing you know the state of the stuff that we were going to sell you know--seasoning and deboning, stuffing it; to me it was something special so I went with Specialty Meats and it’s--. Now there’s--you can look around everywhere; people change the names of their stores now to--and end with Specialty Meats because they want to try to get a piece of the cake you know, so--. Piece of the meat? Yeah. [Laughs] Had you ever worked with meats or butchered meats before? Did you have any experience before you came to the business? Not really worked for anybody; in high school we had--called Ag Lab where we cut calves you know and hogs for people who would bring in to--it was a school deal where we would cut--cut and wrap meat and I did judging meat you know and--and FFA and stuff like that. That didn’t hurt--you know it did help me a lot by knowing you know all the different cuts of meat and stuff like that. Is that kind of program common here to the area? It used to be a real big deal when I was growing up. Now it’s getting to where you know with all the regulations and everything you can't--they--they can't--people used to you know slaughter their own cattle and bring it to the--we had a meat processing plant at school where we would--you know we actually had a cooler, saws. We would do the whole deal--cut and wrap but now it’s--it’s getting to where you can't even kill an animal and bring it to the slaughterhouse now. You’ve got to bring it to them live and they kill it, so it’s--it’s changed a whole lot since back then. ----- Can you tell me a little bit about the business and how many people you employ in your locations? This is the only location that I own and you know train them--all my employees. All the--the franchise locations are--they’re pretty much--they do their own. I train them here to get started and then train a couple of their employees and then as he grows he just keeps training and the same way it works here. I--I--we usually stay around between 15 and 25 employees depending on the time of the year and--the holidays it’s 25--28 people working. And what kind of work do you do here? What things do ya’ll make? Oh my God; we have about probably 100 different entrees as far as for sausage. We probably make you know 15 different kinds of sausages, boudin, 10 different stuffed chickens, the same--turkeys, turducken(s), stuffed quail, rabbit, all kind of pork roasts, beef, steaks to kabobs, round steaks, stuffed tongue, all kind of chicken and sausage gumbo, duck and andouille gumbo, seafood gumbo, crawfish and corn soup, shrimp soup, crawfish pies, meat pies. It pretty much don't stop. Now who are your customers? Actually I mean people will drive from all over to get you know--you’ve got good food you can--I mean if you stayed in the parking lot and look at the license plates, especially around the holidays, they come from Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, I mean they come from all over. And what percentage of your business is here in the store and what percentage is mail order ‘cause I think you do some mail order? No, actually I don't do any mail order; I mean people will buy it from here and send it out but as far as for me doing mail order, I--I don't do mail order. Pretty much all of my stuff goes out the front door. Okay; can you tell me a little bit about the tradition of smoked meats in this area? It seems popular in this section of Louisiana in ways that it is not in other parts of the country. Do you have any idea maybe why? Actually smoked meats in this area is not as big as--it’s like a line, the Interstate 10, north of the Interstate you go up to Ville Plat, Eunice, that’s like the smoked capital of the world. They, people [Laughs]--a lot of people say over there you smoke a rubber boot and they’ll eat it. It’s--it’s--that is pretty true because they--they smoke anything--tongue, chaudins, all meats and south of the Interstate--don't get me wrong; we--we do sell a little bit of smoked meats but it’s nothing compared to you know north of the Interstate. They’ll have probably 60-percent of the stuff they sell is smoked, whereas down here you know it might be like five-percent of the stuff that we sell smoked and the rest is probably even--not even five-percent. I would say my stuff maybe one-percent is smoked and 99-percent is--but I sell so much different varieties of meats and entrees. ----- Can you tell me a little bit about a typical day here at the Specialty Meat Shop? Depending on what day it is we usually--we make boudin Mondays and Fridays. It kind of gets in a routine--you do this on Monday; you know we do chickens pretty much every day. Like boudin is Monday and Friday; sausage is Wednesday and Saturday; you know we stuff pork chops like Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Saturday is--is our biggest sale day just as far as for customer-wise; it’s our biggest day of the week and then Sunday is a good barbeque day for--we’re open ‘til noon, so we sell a lot of you know spur of the moment barbeque items--this and that. And then start back on Monday doing the same thing, getting ready for the weekend and just every day we do something different. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we--we make burgers; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, same as pies--like Wednesday we do pies, hamburger steaks you know. One of the days we do the burgers, meatballs, boudin balls; I mean it’s just kind of just as supply in demand. As we sell it we make more. ----- Can you tell me a little bit about the turducken? Turducken was invented back in 1984, the first year we were in business; we were doing the turkeys--even at the restaurant before we started this. But an old guy came in with a--brought his--his own turkey, chicken and a duck that he killed in his backyard and asked us if we would debone the three birds and you know put a concoction together and put them inside the turkey with some stuffing and dressing and--and we did it. And I mean when we did it I--I came up with the name turducken, turkey, duck, chicken, tur-duck-en and it kind of stuck. And I don't even know the old guy’s name that we actually did the first one for ‘cause he’s the one that pretty much invented it and it’s not--there’s a lot of people that try to say you know they did the first one. But we have--you know a story that we’ve always--that’s our story and pretty much that’s how it happened and I wish I knew the old guy’s name that--that came in and asked for that so we knew who really invented the turducken ‘cause he’s the one that invented it. We just did it for him and kind of took off with it. How long after you made one for him did you start producing them for the general public? Well we did a few more that first year and then you know people started talking and that’s how--how it works around here. In--in the food industry is the best advertisement if you do something good and you know one person will talk about it. If you do something bad well 10 people will say something about it. So if you do something good, people start talking, you just--it just kind of snowball effect(s) and now it’s pretty much all over the country--the turducken. But Hebert’s Specialty Meats claims to be the first person to create it; correct? Right; and I know--I know deep down all the other stories I’ve heard were you know every time he--a person claims to being the first one it’s--it’s a different story every time you hear it and not you know--don't have no kind of date or who or when it was done, so--. And a lot of people give us credit for it and--and I think that’s how it should be. How much of your business, what percentage is turducken sales? I mean we sell about probably 3,500 a year but I mean we sell you know a whole lot more chickens than that or--you know just--but we do sell a lot. Probably out of our--our turkey sales, probably 25-percent are turducken(s) and the rest is you know all different. We got 10 other different stuffings where you know you don't have any turkey, duck, chicken. It’s just turkey stuffed with either the cornbread dressing; that’s really the--the biggest--turkey with the cornbread and all the other different stuffings. ----- I will agree. Can you talk to me a little bit about your family background? Do ya’ll consider yourselves Cajun? Yeah; I would. I mean I guess just the way we were brought up. Our accent--I don't know how you’d describe Cajun if it’s the way you was brought up or the way he--you know the culture. We were just raised poor. I don't know if it’s--that’s where the--you know how we always made a boucherie. We’d get--bunch of families together and you’d slaughter one pig and pretty much split it up between the families and you know eat it all in a couple days because back then there just wasn’t a lot to go around. And coming from a family of 12 I mean we ate--we ate a lot of cousch-cousch and I don't know if you know what that is…We ate a lot of cousch-cousch and cornbread and you know beans and rice and you know you--you had to stretch. We didn’t have a whole lot of meals where we eat--we ate rib-eyes and you know it was a little bit of meat and a lot of fillers, you know--rice, bread, cornbread. But I don't know how you would describe a Cajun; I think a Cajun is pretty much--it don't get no better than that. You know they’re--they’re polite, they’re nice. They might not be the most intelligent person in the world you know but he’s--he’s lived probably a--a rough and tough life. But I think that’s--you know it has good value and respects pretty much anybody. For those who might not know what cousch-cousch is could you describe it? Cousch-cousch is just cornmeal with water, make like a--say a biscuit looking texture and cook it on the stove in a black pot with a little butter. And you know it’s flakey; it’s kind of like cornbread but cornbread has flour in it; cush-cush is just cornmeal that kind of swells up once it’s cooked and you eat it with rice--oh with rice [Laughs]--you eat it with--you know in a bowl like cereal--milk. I always ate it with milk and coffee. Now your parents clearly were the ones who taught you--your food likes. Can you talk to me a little bit about when they cooked or how you learned to cook from them or their traditions? Yeah; I mean growing up we--my dad, I can remember he always did the--we had big barbeque fund-raisers for like the Fire Department, this and that and he would always cook the dressing. That’s what he did and--and I pretty much learned how to cook you know rice dressing from that. I would go with him to the big fund-raisers; we’d cook the dressing for the barbeque dinners and I mean we--we always had Sunday dinner at home, the whole you know big--and a couple of nights that--during the week we would have you know a--when the family started growing up and leaving, we were still having you know like we have our big stuff on Monday night. The whole--everybody would come over and cook either you know crawfish etouffee or crawfish stew or something that--. We had crawfish ponds so we’d always pretty much cook something that we raised or you know killed some chickens in the yard or you know had a big gumbo or stew or--. And that’s pretty much how I learned how to cook. So did you grow up on a farm? Not really a farm but yeah we--you know a lot of people always say when I grew up I mean I did it all. I had to pick cotton. I had to milk the cows you know; we--we had pigs. You know we had a crawfish pond. We pretty much raised or grew everything pretty much of the stuff we ate. My grandfather had a--a, you know he would plant 40--50 acres of corn and we’d have to pick you know pick corn on the cob to sell you know for--put up corn in your freezer for the year, you know okra. We pretty much did it all. I wouldn’t say it was actually a farm but we just raised stuff--not stuff to sell; we raised it to eat you know--the pigs, the cows. We milked the cows for our milk. You know chickens; we’d have the eggs to eat. We’d kill chickens. I wouldn’t say it was a farm but I’m glad I was raised the way I was because I was brought up to you know--you pretty much survive--you could survive on your own. Now days I don't think people could survive on their own if they had to. Is your family originally from the Maurice area? We actually moved to Maurice when I was a--a year old. We were--my dad was from Leonville, which is between Cecilia and Port Barry and met my mom and got married. Well they lived in Leonville for a little while and then moved here ‘cause that’s where her family was from and been here ever since--48 years. And your other 11 siblings; are they still in the area? Pretty much; I have a sister that passed away four years ago, a year younger than I, and my dad is deceased now three years but everybody is here except I have one sister that lives in New Orleans. Everybody else is here and you know in this Maurice, [Laughs]--right, right here close. And can you tell me a little bit about your family and your children? I have four children--three boys and a girl. I have a 23 year-old son that works here in the business. I have a 21 year-old son that’s in construction and I have a--a boy and a girl that’s twins that’s going to graduate this year--17. And he’s working here and she does a little work for me, so I think he wants to work in the business also so I’ll have two kids--two boys for sure that’s going to hopefully continue the tradition. ----- What do people do here in Maurice? What is this community like today? It’s still a small town. It’s bigger than it was when we opened but it’s still a small town. Everybody knows everybody’s business. People--you got to kind of watch what you do ‘cause people are going to talk and people are going--you know but that’s the good you know Cajun small town--. I really like it you know. People are going to talk and--but as long as you take care of your business and put out a good product, the more they talk the better it is. Do you think your children will stay here? Oh I’m pretty sure a couple of them are going--I mean it’s--I always tell them, I mean you can go out and do something on your own but if--I’m not going say you have to do this but if you want to do it it’s pretty much a goldmine you know waiting for them to take over and as long as they do it right you know I don't have a problem with them taking over and as long as they don't think that you know I’m going to hand it to them and just--they can sit down and it’s going to run itself. It doesn’t; you have to--you have to stay on top of it. How many more years do you think you’ll work here? Well I’m 49; I’m--I’m hoping I can retire before I get to 60--55, 58 I’d like to just sit back and enjoy the retired life hopefully. Before we wrap this up do you have any final thoughts or anything that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to tell us about? Not really I mean--I’m glad I opened this business. About the only negative thing that I could say about a meat market is the holidays where--where people you know--busy world; they--they expect everything you know like they should have ordered it. Well they--they come in and think that you know we should have an overabundance of stuff--of chickens or whatever for them to just come in and pick up. But it’s just so much work involved; it’s just so much at one time. If you could spread it out you know the whole year, but it’s not. You--you can't enjoy the holidays anymore; Thanksgiving and Christmas, I can remember it’s not as bad as it used to be when we first opened. We didn’t have that many employees. You--you know you worked 16--18 hours a day and I pretty much slept through Thanksgiving and Christmas and just didn’t get to enjoy none of the--. That’s the only negative thing I can say about this business as far as everything else I love. I love you know seeing people come in and you know saying how much they enjoyed my food and this and that. And--and it makes me feel good whenever--even just like this; somebody comes in and interviews you know pretty much my product because you know somebody told them how good it was or you know being--we were in the Wall Street Journal; that made me feel real good. We were on The History Channel; we were on The Travel Channel, you know just--it makes me feel good because there’s a lot of people I know that didn’t have the chances that I had and--. But I guess the best thing is you know when you--when you own your own business and you’re that successful you know it--it makes you feel good. Will you please describe to me how you like to eat your boudin? The way I eat my boudin I just take a link and cut it in half and eat it just out of the casing. I eat the casing and all; some people don't eat the casing but it’s--it’s all edible. You just you know just take a bite and--. Don't get me wrong; I like it on a slice of bread but I--with--with a little mustard; that’s just from the old days. That’s how we ate it--a slice of bread with a little mustard and boudin; that was--. But I don't eat it as much as I used to because of the--got high cholesterol now so you can't have that--all that fat and pork. Do you find that people buy it less because of health concerns these days or people just--they eat it and it’s so good they don't care? Yeah; I mean I know there’s one guy that comes in and he says he--he can only eat it once a month, so--because he has cholesterol, so he--every month he comes in and gets him a link just to--you know you have that craving for it and you--. Every once in a while it’s not bad, but I don't think many people care about the--the fat or the calories; they just--they got to have it. ----- To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
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