Boudin rouge is a rare find in backwoods of Louisiana
When visiting the backwoods of Louisiana’s Cajun country, either hiking through a state park or just visiting a friend or family’s old homestead, you may find yourself in front of a grizzled oak tree with rusted hooks jutting from it.
This is a sign that the site was used for a boucherie: the tradition of a community gathering to slaughter and harvest locally farmed pigs. In the days before industrial meatpacking, a whole town or just members of a family were invited to attend and help break down the whole hog into edible cuts of meat.
The hog would be hoisted onto the hooks by its back legs, then its throat cut to drain the blood into a pot on the ground below.
This was true nose-to-tail cooking — every part of the hog was then butchered and used to make the pork-based delicacies we know and love from Cajun cuisine: boudin and andouille sausage, stuffed pork chops and trotters (feet), as well as crispyfried pig’s ears and cracklin’s.
More obscure dishes from this tradition still exist today. For instance, there is “ponce” or “chaudin” in which a pig stomach is stuffed with sausage filling and other spices and meats, smoked and cooked, and then sliced into pieces like a terrine.
However, one of the most rare and prized dishes from the Cajun past is boudin rouge, or blood boudin, a sausage made from various cuts of pork, rice, seasonings, and the fresh blood of a pig. The sausage is steamed or smoked to cook it. Boudin rouge is only available at a handful of Cajun meat markets throughout the whole of Louisiana nowadays.
The rarity of boudin rouge can be attributed to several factors. First, it is an acquired taste; the pork blood gives it an earthy, metallic flavor. And there is an innate stigma about eating food made with animal blood. Finally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates the meatpacking industry, clearly isn’t a big fan of using blood as an ingredient in cooking.
All that said, blood is still a widely used ingredient both here and abroad. Spanish morcilla sausage, British black pudding and the “blood curd” found in dishes like Vietnamese Bún bò Hue are widely available.
Still, boudin rouge is something of a holy grail for Cajun food connoisseurs searching for a taste of long-lost traditions.
One of the few places that still makes and serves boudin rouge is T-Jim’s Grocery &
Market in Cottonport, in the deepest heart of old Cajun country.
At first glance, not much has changed in Cottonport since it was established in the mid 1800s as a departure point for cotton being shipped down the local bayous to the Mississippi River and on to New Orleans. Though the cotton industry is mostly gone, agriculture still plays a big part in the local economy.
And that includes hog farming and harvesting. T-Jim’s is a throwback Cajun meat market providing a variety of fresh cuts of pork. But it is most famous for one of the few remaining outlets for house-made boudin rouge in Louisiana. It is served in both steamed and smoked varieties.
Smoked boudin rouge is one of the most unique flavors I’ve sampled in my travels around the country tasting smoked meats and barbecue dishes. The combination of post oak smoke with the metallic earthiness of the boudin is unforgettable.
Alas, on a recent visit, they only had the steamed version available. I ordered a link of boudin rouge at the counter and took it to a picnic table in the town square across the street, soaking in the traditions of Cajun country.