French Food Fest Cajun fare tantalizes taste buds

Cajuns are generous people … except when it comes to family recipes. Those frequently stay in the family’s ranks, shared only with the next generation.

Not so with a few French Food Fest cooks. They’re proudly unveiling these tried and true favorites, which will be sold at the festival Oct. 23 at the Larose Regional Park & Civic Center on La. Highway 308.

Larose’s Bonne Pitre, whose festival dish is white beans, said she learned about cooking from watching her mother.

“A lot of people want me to make them white beans,” she said. “Companies ask me to prepare them for their dinners.”

The event, Pitre jokes, should be renamed the White Beans Fest since, last year, more than 100 pounds of her beans were sold.

“I think it’s the cooking oil and the salted meat that makes them so tasty,” she said. “Either way, people love them and I love making them – just don’t ask me if I love to bake!”

Like Pitre, Larose’s Donald Uzee learned how to make his family’s sought-after seafood gumbo as a child from his mother when she took ill.

“She would give me instructions from her bed as I stood at the stove in the next room,” he said. “From that moment, I have been making gumbo ever since. Everyone has a favorite style, it’s like a cook’s fingerprint.”

Uzee considers cooking gumbo a Cajun right of passage. It’s an obligatory dish at large events because it makes enough to feed a village and the ingredients are usually readily available.

“A few ingredients properly combined can transform a simple roux into something so tasty that you will be begging for more,” he said. “It’s like magic.”

Uzee said his “Seafood Gumbo a la Uzee” has been a part of the French Food Festival for more than 30 years.

“On a cool night,” he said, “it has been known to warm people up physically and mentally. It reminds you that if a community is working together, it can make something great out of humble ingredients.”

Ted Falgout’s Alligator Sauce Piquante is another French Food Fest favorite. The dish became a hit with fest-goers 25 years ago – when the event was called the Larose Civic Center Bouillabaisse Festival.

Falgout, who also resides in Larose, began making the dish while he was working for the LSU Cooperative Extension Service. It stems from his hunting, fishing and trapping as a young boy.

“I’ve always enjoyed eating the things I harvested,” he said, “probably because it helped give me a good reason to go hunting again. When I went off to college, the only way I would get the opportunity to eat what I had harvested from the wild was to cook it myself.”

When his brother started raising alligators as a business, it was easy to obtain the meat. The sauce quickly became one of his signature dishes.

“Many people from all parts of the country have tasted my Alligator Sauce Piquante and rave about how good it is,” he said, noting it’s usually the exotic flavors that tantalize taste buds.

“It’s not uncommon to have people come back several times during the festival for bowls of the stuff,” he said. “Of course, they say, ‘This is the best meal here and that’s why I come to this festival,’ and, of course, it feels good to hear that kind of testimony.

(Editor’s note: The recipes are designed to feed a fair crowd. Some math may be required if you’re feeding fewer than 100 people.)

Seafood Gumbo a La Uzee

Ingredients:

2 pounds of flour

1 quart of peanut oil

5 pounds of onions, chopped

6 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 bunches of celery, chopped

6 bell peppers, chopped

2 pounds of ham, cubed

4 ounces of liquid crab boil

6 bay leaves

5 bunches of parsley, chopped

5 pounds of shallots, chopped

1 gallon of sea clam juice

5 pounds of Savoie’s hot smoked sausage

35 pounds of raw shrimp, peeled

5 pounds of white and claw crab meat

1 gallon of oysters and liquor

5 pounds of crab claws

7 to 10 gallons of water

Filé to taste

Salt, pepper to taste

Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce to taste

Directions:

Make a roux by adding flour to hot grease and stirring constantly until mixture reaches the color of a new penny.

To the roux, add onions and garlic, cooking until the onions are clear. Add celery and bell peppers and smother for at least 10 minutes. Add ham and sausage and continue cooking over a low fire. (A small amount of hot water may have to be added to prevent sticking.)

After the vegetables and meat are cooked, add shrimp and 6 gallons of water. Turn fire on high and bring to a boil, making sure that none of the roux sticks to the bottom or sides of the pot. After it is boiling, add the crab meat, oysters and liquid and liquors. When this mixture returns to a boil, add crab boil, salt, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper and bay leaves.

Reduce heat to a slow boil and begin removing foam and excess oil, until the vegetables are cooked. (They are cooked when no more foam occurs.) Lower fire and adjust seasonings to taste.

Add parsley, shallots, and crab claws.

Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Turn off heat, add filé and let stand for 10 minutes.

Serve over rice.

Bonne’s White Beans

Ingredients:

10 pound of white beans (Navy beans)

2 pounds of salt meat

1 quart of onions, chopped

1 quart of cooking oil

1 bunch of fresh parsley

2 bunches of green onions, slice finely

Salt to taste

White pepper to taste

Directions:

Soak beans overnight in a 30-quart pot. Drain beans; add enough fresh water to cover by 4 inches. Bring to boil and cook 15 minutes.

Drain and cover beans with fresh water to original depth.

Chop salt meat and soak in hot water; drain. Add onions, oil and salt meat to beans and boil.

Cook beans until tender and breaking apart. Add green onions, parsley, salt and pepper.

Ted’s Alligator Sauce Piquante

Ingredients:

3 pounds of alligator meat, cubed and completely defatted

1 pound of onions, chopped

1 large bell pepper, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 bunch of shallots, chopped

1/2 head of garlic, chopped

1/4 cup of parsley, chopped

2 cans golden mushroom sauce

1 small can Rotel tomatoes

1 can of beef broth

1- 6-ounce can mushroom steak sauce

1 quart of tomato sauce

1- 16-ounce can of tomato paste

1 cup of roux

1- 8-ounce can of mushrooms

1 cup of salad olives

4 ounces of LA. Hot Sauce

1 ounce of Toney’s Creole Seasoning

1 ounces of Dale’s Seasoning (optional)

2 ounces of Tiger Sauce (optional)

2 ounces of Worcestershire Sauce

3 ounces of Season-All seasoning

2 tablespoons of sugar

1/2 lemon, blended

6 bay leaves

Cayenne pepper

Directions:

Cook all chopped vegetables for a short while until onions are “clear.”

Add roux, sauces, and can items and cook for ? hour. Add meat and cook for 30 minutes.

Add olives, mushrooms, lemon, and seasonings. Cook for 1 hour or until meat is tender.

Add cayenne pepper to taste. Serve over rice.