Some of us begin the day with a doughnut.
In Southwest Louisana, you might get started with a boudin ball.
According to boudin maker Kevin Downs, he sells as many morning balls of boudin as the local bakeries and fast food joints dispense doughnuts – 500-700 balls a day.
Boudin is a kind of sausage made with pork, rice, onions, and other assorted ingredients, then stuffed in a casing or formed into a ball and deep fried.
Recipes are as old as the Cajuns of Louisiana. Some folks throw innards into the mix – in the old days, no pig part went uneaten – but not Downs, who operates The Sausage Link at 2400 East Napoleon on the main highway through Sulphur, La.
“I don’t know who originated boudin, but I perfected it,” says Downs, who makes thousands of pounds of boudin and spicy riceless sausage each week to sell to locals and travelers throughout the Lake Charles region.
Boudin, in balls at left, is an acquired taste, but I sure did like Downs’ smoked sausage, seen left wrapped in bacon.
Hunting for crab, nipping at the boudin
Boudin balls and the blue crabs that hang out in the marshland toward the Gulf of Mexico have a kinship, or so they say in Southwestern Louisiana.
Local crabbers start early and munch their way into the day from a bag of boudin balls, as they sit beside channels of water, hoping to entice crabs with a homemade assortment of string, a net on a pole and bait of fresh chicken necks. It’s best to let your chicken necks thaw, as they don’t sink well when frozen.
Our little tour group in a van from Lake Charles arrived in crawfish and crab country this week without a clue about crabbing but with high hopes for dinner as we were accompanied by a guide, Sammie Faulk.
He showed us how to attach chicken necks to lengths of string, dip the chicken into the water and wait to snatch a crab, which we would capture with a net that looked like it was designed more for butterflies than crabs.
Ever hear the fish story about full moons?
Alas, the crabs did not cooperate. We tried several sites, and caught only a miniature crab, left.. Captain Sammie said that perhaps the crabs were not hungry because they had had their fill during the night, which had been illuminated by a full moon, making crabs’ search for food easier. I don’t know about all this, as I can’t imagine a crab turning down a perfectly good chicken neck.
Nobody in our group was unhappy, though, as we ditched the crabbing equipment and walked nature trails mapped out by the Lake Charles / Southwest Louisiana Convention & Visitors Bureau (800-456-7952). The bureau will arrange tours for travelers. You can find basic equipment at Brown's grocery in Hackberry, La., or hire a guide for about $100 a day.
Off the highway marked as the Creole Nature Trail, we trekked the Wetland Walkway and stopped at the Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge visitors center.
We spied more than a dozen dozing alligators parked in the sun and hundreds of birds.
Somewhere the crabs were vulnerable
What does a fisherman do when he doesn’t catch a fish?
Buy some, of course. So, we headed to Seafood Palace (337-433-9293), which is not a palace but a prized fish joint in Lake Charles, a shorts and t-shirt place where we consumed plates of crab, crawfish, and shrimp caught by somebody else. ($10-$17 per entre).
My favorite was the boiled crab, sold by the dozen at market price, which this week was $29.95. And we didn't need a net or a chicken neck to grab them.
For more information on boudin, check out the Cajun Boudin Trail.
Molyneaux is editor of TheTravelMavens.com
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