As for the people, bring on the Battle for the Paddle

The Hanson Memorial High School fundraising event moved to the Bayou Teche for the first time this year joining forces with the Black Bear Festival and Wooden Boat Show.

“It seems this year we have more people since we moved to the bayou,” Randy Hanagriff said.

The fifth annual Battle for the Paddle featured three categories — seafood gumbo, chicken and sausage gumbo or jambalaya. Team Hanagriff was entered in all three categories cooking on the custom made grill designed and constructed at his machine shop. As in years past, they also made the trophies that for 2016 feature a miniature black iron stew pot.

Serious About Judging

Insuring the competition is judged fairly, the Hanson organizers enlisted the help of Walter Voorhies from New Iberia to head up the judges. He has been involved with The World Championship Gumbo Cookoff in New Iberia since its inception.

“Over the years we found that the teams have a certain amount of fear and question the validity of judging,” Voorhies said. “So we include one judge from each team entering. At The World Championship Gumbo Cookoff we probably have 100 judges. If anyone who said they’d be there didn’t show, you’d scramble to find judges. Teams are always cooking so with one from each team, we have at least half of the judges present. It’s a win-win for everybody.”

Regardless of the mix of judges, two of three categories for the Hanson battle tied and had to be determined with a run off for both the seafood gumbo and jambalaya categories.

“They came back to get more samples of the seafood gumbo, a tie for second place,” Randy Hanagriff said. “There were only four teams, and my gumbo was not requested a second time. So I’ve either won first or fourth place.”

Hanagriff guessed correctly. Later in the day, his seafood gumbo was awarded first place with presentation of one of his own award trophies by his brother, St. Mary Parish President David Hanagriff.

“I use crab and shrimp in my seafood gumbo, and oyster stock,” he said. “I don’t put oysters in the gumbo, but I use oyster stock as a base.”

Hanagriff featured a pork rib cooked with Voorhie’s own Uncle’s BBQ sauce on top of his jambalaya. It might appear as a judge’s bribe, but time proved the samples are the true test.

An Expert with Rice

Who better to judge the gumbos and jambalaya than a man who started cooking gumbo in 1994 with Kernis Louviere and the Halliburton Team at the World Championship Gumbo Cookoff.

“The first four years they wouldn’t let me do anything but cook rice,” Voorhies said. “Then I got my own pot of gumbo.”

The Hanson jambalaya competition required two rounds with tied entries going from 14 down to five and then another tie between first and second place.

Monique Lancon, the calculus teacher at Hanson, and two of her students, Bailey Stovall and Evan Thibodeaux, were in the final judging group for the last round.

Jamie Price, the other non-team judge, said to achieve the perfect jambalaya you have to get the right taste and texture.

“Jambalaya is more difficult to cook than gumbo because it is more challenging to get the rice cooked without being too crunchy or too mushy,” Voorhies said.

In a lot of cookoffs, the cooks will do the rice and meat separately mixing it at the end, he said.

“The true way, and every team here did it this way, they put the rice into the broth and cooked it down,” Voorhies said. “Some people like a roux base and some prefer a meat base, but you always have to get the right thickness. Salt is another issue.”

Voorhies likes color in his jambalaya often using red and yellow bell pepper trying not to cook them down too much, leaving substance to them to add texture.

The size of the meat in jambalaya is important and generally will vary whether it is served at home or in mass quantities like the Hanson cook off. At home, the meat can be bigger, but in a cook off or large gathering, to have smaller pieces, the portions served will have a good mix of meat to rice, Voorhies said.

While the numbers were being calculated, discussion ensued about whether dirty rice would be considered jambalaya. The judges agreed it was different, in part because of the organs used in dirty rice, generally the liver and gizzards, with the meat ground, either beef or chicken.

And the Winner Is …

After judging the third round to decide which jambalaya would win first and which one second place, Voorhies left the decision to the other judges saying they were both very different but equally good.

“They don’t get any better than this,” Voorhies said. “They’re radically different, but I can’t separate them.”

Antoine Luke Farms’ team won the tough jambalaya category. Roux Krewe finished second and Roux’s the Boss placed third.

First place winner for both gumbos was Team Hanagriff, who also won for People’s Choice. Seafood gumbo second place went to Roux Dat Cher and the Franklin Fire Department took third. They also placed second for chicken and sausage gumbo. Roux’s the Boss was third for chicken and sausage gumbo.

In addition to the food from the cook off teams, Bethany Kuhlman headed up a student group providing additional food items like fried boudin in LeJeune buns, Forest Restaurant’s fried chicken bites with praline sauce and Boudin Eggrolls.

“Students and teachers have been so wonderful,” Kuhlman said. “We work so well together. I love teaching a student something and watching them show another how to do it.”

“It’s a great event and a lot of fun, but at the end of the day, it’s what we can raise for the school,” Randy Hanagriff said.