Best recipe is taster’s choice 

According to folks from Germany, England and across America, New Iberia is the winner after a successful first Dave Robicheaux’s Hometown Literary Festival.

Kicking off last weekend’s literary festival was the “Last Tour to Elysian Fields,” a bus tour of Dave’s haunts. It was eye-opening even for Fran Thibodeaux, director of the Iberia Parish Convention and Visitor’s Bureau who setup the tour.

“We’re planning to make the tour available at other times of the year because it was so much fun,” Thibodeaux said.

The food served throughout the weekend was plentiful and fully enjoyed beginning with lunch at Victor’s Cafeteria, the starting place for the tour. Plates brimmed with great eats.

Tour attendees sat at cloth-covered tables distinguishing them from the regular diners while Howard Kingston, from Books Along the Teche, gave a thorough background and narrative on James Lee Burke and his books.

The fried shrimp were exceptional and if the coconut cream pie had been any bigger, some of the tour guests might have fallen into a sugar coma on the drive to Jeanerette. The pie was truly delicious and surely as good as Mother Deare’s recipe featured in the Feb. 3 issue of Teche Life Food section.

Follow the Food

The Bunk Johnson Brazz Band played from the balcony to kick off the festival weekend at a banquet Friday night held under the oaks at the Shadows-on-the-Teche.

Purple-shirt clad Acadiana Women Leaders from throughout the Teche Area were the perfect hostesses making sure everyone had all they wanted to eat and drink before picking up empty plates that were piled high.

Greeting guests as they entered the grounds were flavorful aromas including whiffs of barbecue — topped with Uncle’s BBQ Sauce — roasted all day by Walter Voorhies and Kernis Louviere.

Boudin and hogshead cheese from Legnon’s Boucherie accented the meal. Boiled shrimp and smoked salmon appetizers on crackers topped with locally produced Bowfin Caviar were quickly consumed by mostly out-of-state visitors.

It Takes A Village

The caterers were not an official group, rather volunteers from the community including Jeff and Sharon Jolet, Bryan and Joanie Leverne, Rudy and Danelle Migues and Greg Boudreaux. Crawfish fettuccine, crawfish etouffée, personally caught fried catfish bites and delicious carrot beignets completed the menu. The South Louisiana sampler left little to be desired.

Jolet made the crawfish etouffée. The recipe is featured today along with several others providing a small portion of the etouffée recipes used throughout Cajun country — all similar and yet unique. Seeing the etouffée on Friday night’s menu spawned the competition implied by today’s recipe column.

How many ways can you prepare etouffée and which is the best? Personal taste will decide.

Endless Eating

Saturday night at the Robicheaux festival featured much of the same style of sampling for area visitors with more boudin, meat pie appetizers followed by fried shrimp, jambalaya and bread pudding provided by Randy Montegut and his team from Bon Creole.

Gigi Patout LeBeouf spearheaded the food crew while guests talked about the day’s activities and danced to the Cajun trio that played in the cool night breeze.

Montegut’s Bon Creole was one of the featured drive-by points-of-interest on the bus tour. The typical, unassuming, South Louisiana, off-the-beaten-path restaurant was described as frequented by locals — tourists if they can find it.

Let the Cooking Begin

Louviere who has perfected many of his cook-off winning recipes through years of trial and error, believes the best etouffée is one that stays true to fresh ingredients. He starts with live crawfish and maintains the crawfish sauté is all you need on top of the rice.

Led by Momma Ann Patout, who tosses out any recipe featuring canned soup as a base, the Patout family of chefs agree with Louviere, but evidenced by the collected recipes, not everyone does.

Earlene’s Etouffée has been successfully served in the Branton family to friends and strangers for more than four decades. One fan from Slidell, the late Jimmy Roper, liked it so much he learned to cook it and traveled to etouffée cook-offs bringing home the winning ribbon on several occasions.

The Tabasco® 1868 Etouffée is submitted for taster’s approval but the quantities are designed for feeding 70 to 80 people. The recipe could have been reduced for readers, but at the restaurant quantities, it is ready for family reunions, graduation parties or other large events. It is one of the dishes sampled by visitors taking the Tabasco® Food tours weekly from the Avery Island location.

The tour also features stops throughout New Iberia and includes much of the history of the area. Locals would not find the stops unique as they are popular to residents, but when visitors come from out of town, it is a wonderful way to see and hear the stories of New Iberia.

Competition Coming

Each year when The Daily Iberian Cajun Creole Cookbook competition and collection of recipes comes around, etouffée, jambalaya and gumbo are among the most abundant recipe submissions. Everyone seems to have a favorite recipe and each is considered by its originator to be “the best” — perhaps it is. Only the consumer knows for sure.

There may not be an official, scientific comparison for an etouffée competition, but the kudos will come when your family samples the winner in your household.

If you dare, submit your favorite etouffée recipe for the cookbook. If we have too many, perhaps an etouffée competition will evolve.

Start sampling and creating new dishes today. Submissions for the cookbook will begin before summer.