If you want to know the best restaurants, bars or places to shop, ask a local. That’s why we’re so proud locals have voted Rouses the best grocery store, year after year.
65 Years & We’re Just Getting Started
In 1960, my grandfather opened a little grocery store in Houma. He stocked produce that was grown just down the road. Sold seafood caught by his neighbors. And cut meat to order — just like we still do today.
From that one store, we’ve grown to 66 locations with more than 7,000 team members serving over a million customers every week across the Gulf Coast. And we’re still family owned. Still loyal to local, and still bringing you the best quality at the best price.
I’m so proud to carry on what my grandfather started. I’m grateful to have worked alongside him, my dad and other members of our family — and to be part of something built on generations of hard work and dedication. I’m also grateful to our incredible team, our loyal customers, our neighbors and communities, and the vendor partners who’ve helped us grow along the way.
Thank you for 65 years.
CEO, 3rd Generation
Creative Director & Editor
Marcy Nathan
Art Director & Design
Eliza Schulze
Illustrator
Kacie Galtier
Marketing Coordinator
Harley Breaux
Copy Editor
Patti Stallard
Advertising & Marketing
Tim Acosta
Amanda Kennedy
Stephanie Hopkins
Nancy Besson
Taryn Clement
Emily lajaunie
CONTRIBUTORS
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT David W. Brown is a freelance writer whose work appears in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Scientific American and The New Yorker. His most recent book, The Mission: A True Story, a rollicking adventure about a motley band of explorers on a quest to find oceans on Europa, is in bookstores now. Brown lives in New Orleans.
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Marcelle Bienvenu is a cookbook author and food writer. A native of St. Martinville, in the heart of Cajun country, Bienvenu wrote Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic and Can You Make a Roux? and Eula Mae's Cajun Kitchen with Eula Mae Dora, and other books and cookbooks. She also co- authored five cookbooks with Emeril Lagasse.
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Ann Maloney is the former recipes editor and a food reporter at The Washington Post, specializing in quick and easy home cooking. From 2016 to 2019, she was a food and dining writer at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune in her hometown of New Orleans, where she also served as arts and entertainment editor from 2004 to 2015. Prior to that, she worked for The New York Times in various roles, spending most of her time as features editor for the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group.
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Dominic Massa is executive vice president & chief operating officer at WYES-TV, New Orleans’ PBS affiliate. He has more than 25 years of experience in documentary and cultural programming and has earned two regional Emmy awards. He previously worked at WWL-TV (CBS) as executive producer. Massa has written books on New Orleans television and radio history.
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Poppy Tooker is a native New Orleanian who has spent her life immersed in the vibrant colors and flavors of her state. Poppy spreads her message statewide and beyond via her NPR-affiliated radio show and podcast, Louisiana Eats!
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Nick Underhill began his career covering the Saints for The Times-Picayune, The Advocate, and other local publications before briefly moving to Boston, where he chronicled the final chapter of the Belichick-Brady era for The Athletic. Upon returning to New Orleans, Underhill founded NewOrleans.Football, a subscription-based platform featuring in-depth articles and podcasts, sponsored by Rouses Markets. Underhill gained national recognition when he earned first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors’ (APSE) Explanatory Writing category in 2018 for his analysis of Drew Brees’ passing game since 2006. (That same year, he was named Louisiana Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association.) Previously, he earned a Top 10 Award from APSE for Breaking News as part of a team covering the 2016 shooting death of former Saints player Will Smith.
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Ken Wells covered car wrecks and gator sightings for The Houma Courier before going on to a career that included 24 years at The Wall Street Journal. He’s the author of six novels of the Cajun bayous and three works of narrative nonfiction.
Ciro’s
Anthony J. Rouse and his cousin, Ciro DiMarco, opened our first store in 1960.
“They named it Ciro’s,” says Donald Rouse, “because when you hung the letters on the outside of the store, Ciro’s had fewer letters than Rouse’s. That’s a true story. See page 18 for more.
Cover photo by Romney Caruso
TASTES LIKE
Discover the roots of some of the multi-generational, family-owned businesses that shaped our region’s flavors and culture throughout this issue.
“There’s something about working alongside parents, siblings and cousins — it’s what sets multi-generational, family-owned businesses like ours apart. There’s a real sense of tradition and a deep feeling of responsibility for carrying the family legacy forward.” —Donny Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation
Letter from the Editor
by Marcy Nathan, Rouses Markets Creative Director
In this issue, we’re revisiting some of our favorite taglines and campaigns, like Donny Rouse’s “You’re either local or you’re not.” I think they’ve stood the test of time, just like Rouses has for 65 years.
Bayou Boys was one of the first campaigns I worked on for Rouses. When a big-box store announced that they were going to start boiling crawfish in Houma — Houma, as you’ll read in this issue, is where we opened our very first store in 1960 — Tim Acosta, Rouses’ Director of Marketing and Advertising (and Cajun to his core, like everyone in the Rouses family), was personally offended. “I bet they don’t even know how much water to put in the pot,” he said, shaking his head.
You can’t fake Cajun.
We filmed our Bayou Boys TV spots at Attakapas Landing on Lake Verret, with Donald Rouse, Tim and Big Mike talking about boiling and barbecuing like they were sacred rituals. Which, of course, they are. There was a line in the commercial that always gets a laugh: “We know what you like to eat — and how much you eat.”
No shame — we’ve all got healthy appetites around here.
For other commercials, we’ve gone out in the fields and down on the water, filming the folks who grow and catch the food we sell. Food doesn’t have to travel far to get to Rouses. As Donald Rouse said in one spot, “This okra was picked this morning, and it’s in our stores this afternoon.”
When I’m in the stores today, I often see a farmer walk in with that day’s picks, still warm from the field.
Fresh, local ingredients are one reason our stores have always attracted foodies.
When we opened our first locations in New Orleans two years after Katrina, we launched Where the Chefs Shop. It wasn’t just a campaign — it was the truth. We saw chefs in their white coats shopping in our stores every day — and they still do. Before long, we had Leah Chase, John Besh, Susan Spicer, Tory McPhail — and the great Paul Prudhomme — doing our commercials. Paul had actually made a few appearances in our stores years earlier, so it felt like a full-circle moment.
The commercials were unscripted — we let the chefs say whatever they wanted. In Paul’s, he looked straight into the camera and said, “If you live on the Gulf Coast and you’re hungry, there’s no other place to shop than Rouses.” It was gold.
This did not sit well with his PR person — Paul sold his spice mix in just about every grocery store in America. I’m pretty sure she still has my picture on a dartboard somewhere.
Where the Chefs Shop became Best Chefs and Cooks in 2014 — the “cooks” part inspired, in part, by NFL wide receiver Brandin Cooks. He’s back with the Saints now, as you’ll read in Nick Underhill’s story in this issue.
Chefs, cooks, music, football, food, festivals — we’ve always celebrated local in our commercials and in this magazine, because local isn’t just where we’re from. It’s who we are.
You can put olive salad on a ham sandwich, but that doesn’t make it a muffaletta.
You’re either local, or you’re not.
bayou boys
where the chefs shop
cookin' on hwy. 1
with Tim Acosta, Rouses Markets Advertising & Marketing Director; interview by Ann Maloney
Tim Acosta thinks of arroz con pollo as the well-traveled cousin of jambalaya. The recipe — which some sources trace back to Africa — is a classic comfort food in Spain; in many Latin countries, including Cuba, Puerto Rico and Panama; and throughout the Caribbean.
“Just like down here in South Louisiana, rice is popular everywhere,” said Tim Acosta, Advertising & Marketing Director. And just as jambalaya styles vary — think red vs. brown — so do the ways of making arroz con pollo. The dish changes from country to country and house to house, with home cooks putting their own spin on it.
And that’s exactly what Tim has done — taken a classic and made it his own.
He and his wife, Cindy, have traveled to Spain several times — his ancestors hail from Spain, by way of the Canary Islands, and eventually South Louisiana. But it was during their first trip there as a family that they all tasted paella for the first time — a dish Tim later mastered and now makes for big family gatherings and celebrations.
At home, though, he wanted something simpler and quicker to cook for just him and Cindy. So he explored different arroz con pollo recipes and adapted them to suit their tastes.
“Arroz con pollo has a lot of the flavors of paella,” Tim said, noting that he uses
Goya Adobo All-Purpose Seasoning and a Latin American spice blend called sazón. Sazón is the principal seasoning — and source of color — for dishes like arroz con pollo and arroz amarillo (yellow rice). There is a saffron version that brings a more delicate, floral note, for paella-style rice or seafood dishes. Tim uses both.
To make the dish, he seasons boneless chicken thighs — rather than the traditional bone-in pieces — with salt, pepper, adobo and oregano, and puts them aside. Then he pulls out his 12-inch cast-iron skillet and browns the sausage in a little bit of olive oil (traditional arroz con pollo does not use sausage, but Tim does). He removes the sausage. Then he adds the chicken thighs. While those are browning, he chops a sofrito of cilantro, onions, red bell pepper, garlic and a green jalapeño “to kick it up a little bit.” (Think of a sofrito as the Latin cousin of our trinity.) He removes the chicken from the pot, and cooks the sofrito until it is tender. He adds Rouses Diced Tomatoes with Chiles and lets that simmer together. Then he returns the sausage and chicken to the pan and adds the sazón and jasmine rice, which he stirs and cooks for a few minutes. Then he adds the chicken stock & peas and lets it come to a simmer; he then covers the skillet and lets it cook until the rice is tender and much of the liquid is absorbed (usually 20-25 minutes).
“My mom and dad are both great cooks. Mom makes a lot of Italian dishes, like her dad did — lately she’s been making pesto with basil from the garden. Dad’s always cooking outside, grilling or boiling something. Granny and Pa-Pa Acosta are both great cooks, too. Pa — Mr. Rouse — made the best spaghetti. Growing up, no matter whose house you were in, there was always something on the stove. That’s how it is for my family, and I think it’s that way for a lot of families.”
— Nick Acosta, Director of Business Analytics for Rouses Markets, 3rd Generation
Some folks like to add olives but, when it is done cooking, Tim prefers to add a squeeze of fresh lime and a sprinkle of cilantro leaves.
The leftovers are ideal for quick weeknight meals. Refrigerate them in a heatproof container with a lid and you can easily reheat the dish in a 350°F oven (let glass and ceramic containers come down to room temperature before placing in a hot oven).
Bonus: Want to make your own sazón? You can get close using spices
CHRIS, TIM & NICK ACOSTA
“My dad makes his jambalaya with the rice he boiled to go with gumbos, stews and gravy — it’s a great way to use leftover rice. I use parboiled rice that cooks right in the pot with everything else. It’s a trick to keep the rice from getting mushy if you’re keeping the jambalaya on the stove for a while. And now Nick is using pasta. We all cook a little differently; it’s the same tradition, but we each added our own touches.”
— Tim Acosta, Rouses Markets Advertising & Marketing Director
you likely have on hand. In a small bowl, combine ½ tablespoon each of garlic powder, onion powder, ground cumin and ground turmeric; 1 tablespoon each of fine salt and sweet paprika (or ground achiote powder, if you have it); and ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper. Mix well and store in an airtight container where you keep your other spices.
NICK ACOSTA’S PASTALAYA
When some folks make pastalaya (a popular take on jambalaya where pasta is substituted for the rice), they typically follow the traditional recipe for the classic Cajun dish — but not Nick, Director of Business Analytics for Rouses Markets.
“I’ve eaten other versions of it over the years, and I like the flavor. The pasta soaks up a lot of the flavor,” Nick said, but
it wasn’t until he began experimenting with various ingredients and seasonings that he made his own very different version.
In a large cast-iron dutch oven, he browns chicken seasoned with Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning. He removes the chicken and browns chopped Boston butt pork in the same pot.
“I find pork gets tough, so after I brown it, I put some water in there and boil the pork for about 20 minutes until there is just a little water left,” he said.
Finally, he adds sliced smoked sausage to the pot to brown.
Then in go the onions, bell peppers, celery and garlic, which are cooked until soft. So far, sounds like classic jambalaya, right?
But it is here that Nick starts to take his own path. He adds a can of diced
Photo by Romney Caruso
tomatoes and chopped green chiles, bay leaf, basil and dried parsley flakes. Then the chicken goes back in along with beef stock, cream of mushroom soup, Worcestershire sauce and A.1. Steak Sauce. He brings the whole mixture to a boil, then lowers the heat and drops in penne pasta.
“It’s going to look like a big gumbo, almost,” Nick said. “You cook your pasta in all of that liquid, and it takes on the flavor.”
He cooks it until the pasta is soft and most of the liquid is absorbed. Then, he likes to let it rest for 10 minutes or so before serving it.
“My family loves it,” he said. “It’s probably their favorite thing I cook.”
CHRIS ACOSTA’S
HONEY-GARLIC CHICKEN
This garlicky chicken served over rice is in the regular rotation at Chris Acosta’s house.
“It’s HGC for short in my household,” said Chris, Director of Grocery for Rouses Markets. “My wife calls it that. She’ll text me: ‘What’s for dinner tonight? HGC!’ It’s her favorite dish.”
Chris starts with boneless chicken thighs spread on a sheet pan. He seasons them on both sides with Rouses Granulated Garlic, salt and pepper, and lets them sit for about 20 minutes to take the chill off.
Then he adds a generous amount of oil to his enameled cast-iron braiser and
adds the chicken in a single layer. He allows the pieces to brown, flipping and turning them until they reach a deep, rich color.
“I cook them through and through,” he said.
He removes the chicken, drains most of the accumulated fat and puts the pan back over a low heat. He adds four cloves of chopped garlic and cooks it, stirring until it is fragrant.
While Chris cooks the protein and garlic, his wife Gloria whisks together a mixture of soy sauce, chicken stock, honey and white vinegar.
Chris returns the chicken to the pan with the sauce and cooks it, turning the pieces to coat them well. He then adds a touch more soy sauce and honey, and turns the chicken a few more times. He serves the chicken over rice with the pan sauce, often with roasted carrots on the side.
If he makes the dish on a Sunday, he sometimes makes multiple batches to create leftovers to eat throughout the week.
“It’s our own family’s version of comfort food,” Chris said, noting that they enjoy it at least once a month. “It doesn’t matter the weather or the time of year. And, when chicken thighs are on sale, it comes out cheap.
“Our two-year-old daughter, I’m happy to report, eats the chicken as well. Anytime we get something that she eats, we’re blessed.”
TIM ACOSTA'S ARROZ CON POLLO Serves 4
WHAT YOU WILL NEED :
For the chicken:
2 tablespoons Rouses authentic Italian Olive Oil, divided
1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-size pieces
1 (14-ounce) package smoked sausage, cut into bite-size pieces
1 tablespoon adobo seasoning
1 teaspoon dried oregano
Pinch salt
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
For the sofrito and rice:
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño, diced
¼ cup finely diced red bell pepper
¼ cup finely diced white onion
¼ cup finely chopped cilantro, plus more for serving
1 (14.5-ounce) can of Rouses Diced Tomatoes and Green Chiles
1 packet Goya Sazón with Azafran
1 packet Goya Sazón with Coriander and Annatto
1 cup Rouses Jasmine Rice, uncooked
1¼ cups Kitchen Basics Chicken Stock
²⁄₃ cup frozen peas
Lime wedges, for serving
HOW TO PREP :
Place chicken in a large bowl. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil, the adobo seasoning and the dried oregano. Use clean hands to toss the chicken in the mixture. Cover and allow chicken to marinate for 30 minutes.
Next, add remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil to a large cast-iron skillet and place over medium-high heat. Once oil is hot, add the sausage and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove from skillet and transfer to a plate. Add in chicken and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook until browned, around 4-5 minutes, then flip and cook an additional 4-5 minutes. Remove from pan and transfer to a plate.
In the same skillet (it should be greased enough already for sautéing) make the sofrito by combining garlic, jalapeño, red bell pepper, onion and cilantro. Sauté for 2-3 minutes, then add in the diced tomatoes with chiles, the sausage and chicken, and the Goya Sazón seasoning packets. Next, fold in the rice. Sauté for 2-3 minutes, then add the chicken stock and stir well to combine. Bring to a simmer, taste and add extra seasoning if preferred, then layer the peas on top, making sure they’re evenly distributed. Cover the skillet and cook for 20-25 minutes on low.
After 20-25 minutes, most of the liquid should be absorbed and rice should be fully cooked. Turn off the heat and let sit for 5 to 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with cilantro and serve with a squeeze of fresh lime juice.
NICK ACOSTA’S PASTALAYA
Serves 12-15
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons Rouses Creole Seasoning, or more to taste
1½ pounds boneless Boston butt, cut into ½-inch cubes
1½ pounds smoked sausage, cut into ½-inch rounds
1½ pounds medium onions, finely chopped
4 stalks celery, finely diced
2 small green bell peppers, finely diced
3 tablespoons Rouses Minced Garlic
1 tablespoon fresh basil, finely chopped
½ cup Rouses Dried Parsley Flakes
3 bay leaves
Dash of Rouses Hot Sauce, or more to taste
1 10-ounce can Rotel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies
4 cups of beef stock, plus ½ cup of water
1 Family Size 22.6-ounce can Campbells Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
Dash of Rouses Ground Black Pepper
Dash of Rouses Cayenne Pepper
2 tablespoons Rouses Garlic Powder
2 tablespoons Rouses Worcestershire Sauce
2 tablespoons Rouses Steak Sauce
1½ pounds uncooked Rouses Penne or Farfalle Bow Tie pasta
1 bunch chopped green onions
HOW TO PREP:
Season the boneless chicken thighs with Creole seasoning.
Heat the oil till shimmering in a large, heavy-bottomed pot; add seasoned chicken and brown it, then remove from pot and set aside.
Brown the pork butt next, then add enough water to the pot to cover the pork by 1 inch. Bring the mixture to a boil and let boil (about 30 minutes), until most of the water is reduced.
Once the water is reduced, add the sliced sausage to the pot and brown for about 10 minutes over medium heat; stir constantly to prevent the sausage from sticking.
Next add onions, celery, bell pepper, garlic, basil, parsley flakes, bay leaves and hot sauce to the pot, and stir to combine. Add can of tomatoes & chilies, and stir.
Let mixture cook over medium heat; stir frequently to prevent sticking. (The vegetables will help create extra liquid.)
When vegetables are wilted and cooked thoroughly, add the 4 cups of beef stock, the ½ cup of water and cream of mushroom soup to the pot. Return chicken to the pot.
Next, season mixture with black and cayenne peppers, garlic powder, Worcestershire, steak sauce and additional Creole seasoning, if desired for spicier flavor. Stir to combine.
Raise the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Add the pasta to the mixture and stir well.
When all the pasta has softened and most of the water has been absorbed, lower heat to medium-low and add the green onions. Stir carefully; place lid on pot for 3 minutes. Lift the lid; stir well, then replace the lid. Lower heat to low and cook, covered, for 15 minutes.
Turn the heat off but do not remove the lid; let sit, covered, for 30 minutes. After this, the pastalaya is ready to enjoy.
CHRIS ACOSTA’S HONEY-GARLIC CHICKEN
Serves 8
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
8 boneless chicken thighs, skin-on or skinless
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil, or as needed ½ medium onion, finely chopped 1 head garlic (10-12 cloves), chopped
1 cup honey
½ cup soy sauce
1 pinch onion powder, or to taste
1 pinch garlic powder, or to taste
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley
HOW TO PREP:
Season chicken thighs on both sides with salt and pepper.
In a large cast-iron skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until browned on one side, about 3-5 minutes.
Flip chicken and add chopped onion and garlic. Continue cooking until chicken is mostly cooked through and the vegetables are softened, about 5-7 minutes more.
Transfer chicken to a plate. Add honey, soy sauce, onion powder, and garlic powder to the skillet. Stir to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
Return chicken to the skillet. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook until chicken is fully cooked through, and the sauce is slightly thickened, about 10 minutes, turning chicken once halfway through. An instantread thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the chicken should read 165°F.
Arrange chicken on a serving platter and drizzle with sauce from the pan. Garnish with chopped cilantro or parsley and serve.
by Ali Rouse Royster
I don’t remember exactly when my dad started bringing me to his office, but I know I was younger than the law would have technically allowed. (Don’t come at him! I’m fine. We still talk 10 times a day.) I’m fairly certain I was at least in double digits. I would tag along during my school breaks and a few days a week during the summer — maybe just to get me out of my mom’s hair.
When I was 15, I begged to work in the store with people my own age. My dad warned me that this meant more responsibility — and wearing a uniform (back then, black jeans and a teal shirt with pink writing — so stylish), committing to being on time, working my shifts and learning the ropes like everyone else. So many people’s first jobs are at Rouses, and I was proud to finally be one of them.
I worked at Store #5 on Audubon as a cashier; my manager, Mr. Bert Knight, was tough. I was once given a warning for trading a nickel for five pennies to make change — I was flabbergasted until he explained that my back was to my open till, with all the money just right there. Over 25 years later, that moment is still etched in my brain. Bert rejoined our team a few years ago, and I doubt he remembers any of this — but I know his cashiers down the bayou in Golden Meadow are some of the best around.
I worked the front end for many summers and school breaks during
GROWING UP IN THE GROCERY BUSINESS
high school, and eventually trained as a customer service specialist and an office cashier.
When I went off to LSU, I thought I’d finally get a break from work. But when my dad saw I’d scheduled all my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he pointed out that with all that free time, I could come home to work (before there was a Rouses in Baton Rouge). Eventually, we compromised: I stayed in Baton Rouge, had my fun, and found a job at a Hibernia Bank branch. For the rest of college, I had to keep taking classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I could work Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But working at the bank gave me experience I didn’t even realize I’d use later. It all worked out; I’m still on the financial side of the business.
Like me, my siblings and cousins worked in the stores and at the office when we were younger. My cousins Nick and Chris Acosta and Blake Richard used to tag along with my grandfather,
who’d make them bring in the buggies while he made his rounds. When they were old enough, they started working in the stores — Nick in the butcher shop (where Donny also did a stint), Chris in the service and cashier area, and Blake in seafood. At one point, so many cousins were working in seafood at Store #16 in Thibodaux, the whole department was practically third generation — it felt like a family reunion behind the counter. Sometimes, when we are all in the office, it can still feel like a family reunion!
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We’re As Passionate About Food
As You Are
by David W. Brown
When Donald Rouse was a boy, every weekend and every day after school, he worked at the grocery store owned by his father. “I basically grew up there,” he told me, in his soft Houma accent. His father, Anthony, and uncle, Ciro DiMarco, opened the very first Rouses location in Houma in 1960 — 65 years ago this year. “It was our first store, a little small one, 7,000 square feet, and I just remember being with my dad, listening to him, serving customers.” (For comparison, today, a newly built Rouses might be 50,000 or even 60,000 square feet.)
Photo by Frank Aymami
It made for an interesting and in some ways exciting childhood. He bagged groceries. He carried bags to customers’ cars. He mopped floors at the end of the day, and bagged chicken that came in on ice and potatoes that came by the sack. “I was kind of like the neighborhood kid, but in a grocery store,” Donald recalled. “Just being able to be on the floor at the store all the time, and mingling with the customers, really getting to know them and our team members. They all knew me, and I knew all of them. I enjoyed that very much.”
His father used to take him to other grocery stores near and far, to see how Rouses could somehow improve. “Any time we traveled along the Gulf Coast, we would visit Bruno’s, Schwegmann’s, Winn-Dixie — all of them,”
said Donald. He and his father would walk up and down the aisles and talk about what they were seeing. “Look, some places like Bruno’s in Alabama were really good at what they did,” he said. “I was young, walking around the store, looking around with my dad, thinking to myself, ‘This is the kind of store I want to operate one day.’”
Those experiences shaped Donald, and gave him a vision for what he wanted Rouses to be if he ever had a chance to run it — which he did, beginning in the 1980s. “I wanted Rouses to be known as one of the best grocery stores in the country, and to be mentioned with the likes of H-E-B and Publix and Wegmans,” he said. “To me, if you’re known like that — known for being a great operator — that means you’re
“My grandfather loved everything he did. When we had construction going on, he wanted to be on that bulldozer. When he had family over to the house, he wanted to do the cooking. Walking in the stores, if the stocker was putting groceries on the shelf, he wanted to put groceries on the shelf. He loved being around people and he loved having his hands on everything.”
—Donny
Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation
really delivering a great experience to your customers, and that’s really what it’s all about.” He devoted his career to that goal and, today, feels proud of where Rouses stands in the grocery industry and in local communities.
Donald was the second-generation CEO of the company. He retired from that role in 2016, but remains chairman. Today, his son, Donny, is the head of Rouses Markets. “I’m so fortunate that I have an opportunity to see Ali and the entire third generation working so hard, and to see them accomplish more than me — to actually do better than what my brother Tommy and I did.” Things in the grocery business have changed dramatically over the years, and Rouses now has 66 stores in three states along the Gulf Coast. “To see them operating at a higher level and accomplishing more than what I did — it’s just so overwhelming, and something I’m very proud of.”
Donald speaks with his son at least once a day. He remains interested in operations and
is happy to offer advice when it’s needed. “My dad did that for me and my brother, but just like my father was with us, I try to stay out of day-to-day operations. That’s for Donny to handle, and he’s very capable. He’s been running things for quite a few years now.” Donald feels the same way about Ali Rouse Royster, another third-generation owner of the company, as well as the other members of the Rouse family keeping the stores going and their teammates. “I’m fully interested in results, and in the big projects that they want to pursue. They’ll get my opinion,” he said with a laugh.
As chairman, however, Donald is concerned chiefly with customer service. “I enjoy doing this and have since I started as a boy. I love the business and I love serving people. I get very disappointed when I disappoint someone, and my team knows that, my family knows that,” he said. Similarly, it bothers him whenever he learns that a store has let down a customer. “Customers don’t realize, I think, how much their business means to me and how much it disappoints me if, or when, we disappoint them.” When you have a million customers a week coming through your store, you’re bound to disappoint somebody, he admitted, but he’ll still obsess over that one. “When someone is disappointed in Rouses, it becomes my top priority. I want to know what happened, why, and what we did to rectify it. I guess that’s part of enjoying the business: having that deep interest in each and every customer and each and every team member.”
While he’s not in the stores every day like he used to be, he still reads every email sent by store guests. “I expect the good things; that’s what we’re supposed to do. I don’t ever want an unhappy customer,” he says. So if a customer ever has a question or concern, he’s quick to let the team know.
Though we all visit grocery stores a couple of times a week, they still remain somewhat mysterious. Every Rouses location is a complex logistical operation with many moving parts. Stores face constant new challenges that come about as technologies and communities evolve. The changes
since Donald worked at that lone Rouses location in Houma have been astounding. In the old days, you did everything by hand, from labeling prices on products to tracking store inventory. The only way to know the prices of competitors — to make sure Rouses was more competitive than anyone else in the market — was to physically go to all the other stores in the area and compare pricing. Today, however, Rouses Markets is able to process complex analytics to keep tabs on what customers want, and when, or where on shelves they want them. All the data now available means better prices and better service for Rouses customers.
“The way that we go to market is not by making what I used to call a gut decision,” Donald told me. “We don’t make gut decisions anymore. We make our decisions based on facts, and it’s made all the difference for our customers.” From the beginning, the Rouses mission was and still is “…to operate clean stores at competitive prices, taking care of our communities we’re serving, taking care of our team members that help us get where we are, and never forgetting where we came from.”
Being local, he explained, is everything, and “community” is the company’s North Star. “Back in my time running a store, I remember that local farmers would come to me with produce,” he said. “I remember getting to know them so well. They would come in and make their deal, okra or green beans or corn, maybe local meats or seafood — and we’d buy and sell for them. And I just
remember that for some of them, that was probably their income. Knowing that we’re contributing to better the community is big to me. Very big.”
Contributing to the community hasn’t changed, but the way it looks has, in some ways. It’s not just buying local seafood and other products. Donald has watched Donny pioneer new ways to help local startups get on their feet and build their brands to get them ready for Rouses store shelves. It’s a lot harder than you might think. “You can have a great product — and a lot of people do — and they deserve to be on the shelf. But having a great product is just the beginning. There are so many steps along the way, from design to production and branding, that you have to go through. Rouses works really hard to help walk young, local companies through each step. Seeing these local startups thrive is pretty amazing. I mean, it’s really cool.”
Being part of the local community means big things and small, and Rouses is always looking for new ways to give back. “I’m always interested in being part of the communities that we serve,” he said. “We always have been. It’s just such an important part of what we stand for as a company.” He was recently at a ballgame with his grandson and, while watching from the stands, he realized that all the players were wearing shirts with “Rouses Markets” printed on them. “Rouses supplied their shirts!” he said. “Those little things, they’re everywhere. I was looking at the TV the other day, and I saw on the news a story about local food
banks. And I see Rouses products on the shelves at the food bank. I was so proud.” In the bad times, he said, Rouses contributes to the community in other ways. “We are last to close before hurricanes hit, and first to open when they leave. We are always there for the community with trucks of ice and trucks of water, and giving it all away — that’s a good feeling.”
More than a few big national chains have noticed the success of Rouses Markets and what it means to the communities it serves. “There have been numerous times in the past that companies have come along and wanted to buy Rouses,” said Donald. “Of course, I always reject their offers. We’re not interested in selling — we’re interested in growing.” One time, someone from a particularly large national chain approached him and asked him point-blank if he wanted to
sell Rouses. “I said, ‘No — but how about you? Do you want to sell?’ I guess I was feeling cocky, but they weren’t happy about that!”
Being a local company is the competitive edge that Rouses has over such big companies. “We can be quick to respond to our national competition. We can turn on a dime, where it takes them months to get a decision from some corporate office. We can make a decision today to change whatever we want to change in our business. We don’t have to ask anyone. We don’t have to ask the bank. We just make a decision ourselves. And that is a big, big opportunity that [larger] chains don’t have. And we never want to lose that,” he said. He’s watched as chains have come along and grown, what they did and how they responded to changes. Giant companies have tried
their hardest to take over local markets, but Rouses is stronger than it’s ever been, even after 65 years. “And look,” he said, “I’ve seen them come and go. We competed with A&P, with National, with Delchamps, with Piggly Wiggly, with numerous ones that are no longer here today.”
Donald sees a future where his grandsons and granddaughters will be running the business, along with other family members. He envisions Rouses having a hundred stores in the not-too-distant future, and he hopes that his descendants running the business are never satisfied. “I mean, never,” he said. “Not everyone understands that. Every day, we should operate like we’ve just opened our very first store for the very first time, and we have no customers,” he said. “You have to work every day — hard — to gain customers. You can’t depend that they’ll come tomorrow, so you have to work hard to earn their trust and loyalty. And you do the same thing the next day, and the next day: work hard to gain those customers, gain their business, and most importantly, you must appreciate their business.”
Rouses Markets will always be successful, Donald said, as long as it does what’s best for the customers. “When you do what’s best for the customers, that means you’re doing what’s best for the business as well.” The same goes for Rouses team members: Do what’s best for them, because you can’t do it alone. He’s also very proud that Rouses hasn’t forgotten about the older stores it runs, nor the customers who’ve been there from the beginning. “We’re building stores across the Gulf Coast now, but we’re also replacing and remodeling our older stores. We can’t forget our mission, and we can’t forget our roots: where we started, and who we are.”
Back when Rouses was a single store, maybe two, his father, Anthony, would marvel at their success. “Boy, if my dad could see what we’ve got going on now, the operation that we have!” he declared.
Donald’s grandfather, J.P. Rouse, was an Italian immigrant who scraped together enough money to start a little business in Thibodaux called City Produce Company. They bought things like shallots and cabbages and potatoes from local farmers, and packed them in his old truck. He sold some products at the French Market, and eventually got large enough to get into the shipping business, packing produce on railcars and shipping goods to other parts of the country. It’s where Anthony and Ciro learned the trade before founding Rouses.
“If only my dad could see the work Donny and his cousin’s are doing, and how far we’ve come as a company,” said Donald. “He would be so proud to see the business doing so well, and continuing our mission. It’s my greatest joy to be able to be here, and see the third generation be more successful than Tommy and I were in our time in the day-to-day operations. To watch them find these amazing opportunities to get better, and to watch them perform: It just makes me very proud.”
Sazarac Company
William "Bill" Goldring is the Chairman of his family's beverage alcohol business, the Sazerac Company – one of New Orleans' oldest and most successful family businesses. He says, "Donald Rouse and I share common passions for family and for our work. Our fathers, though in different industries, taught us the same thing: to be successful takes hard work, a clear path, and remembering to have fun.”
GENERATIONS OF QUALITY
“Working alongside parents, siblings, and cousins sets multi-generation, family-owned businesses like ours apart. There’s a sense of tradition and responsibility for carrying the family legacy forward.”
— Donny Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation
you’re either local or you’re not
by David W. Brown
Donny Rouse was around 10 years old when he started his career at Rouses Markets. “I would bring grocery carts in from the parking lot and return them to the store for customers to use,” he told me. It was a big deal in his family, a rite of passage. “It meant we were old enough to help.” That first summer, he and his cousin worked a couple days a week, three hours a day. “We knew we weren’t old enough to really do much, but it was pretty exciting to get our feet wet and try a few different things. We were so excited just to be included.”
Not that it was his first glimpse behind the scenes of the grocery business. He grew up in a house across the street from the Thibodaux location, where his dad, Donald, ran the company — which means, really, that he grew up in the stores. Every day after school, he’d drag his backpack to Rouses and plop down on the sofa in his dad’s office. Maybe he’d do his homework, but maybe he would just listen to his father, uncle and grandfather talk about business (which was its own kind of education).
“I learned something every day,” said Donny. The main thing he learned, which
still guides his work as the third-generation CEO of Rouses Markets, is to take care of the customers. “You’ve got to provide good customer service. You want to keep the customer happy.”
Not long after learning to corral the parking lot carts, Donny’s dad let him work in the meat department, bagging chickens. It was messy work, but that was okay with Donny, because it was work , which — especially to a kid his age — was exciting in its own way. Later, it was a pretty big deal when he was finally allowed to help bag groceries. “You had to learn how to do it, and do it properly,” Donny said. At the time, a Rouses employee had been named Best Bagger in the Country in a contest held by the National Grocers Association, which added a competitive, almost glamorous aspect to the job, especially for a boy just beginning to learn the ropes. “We only had paper bags back in those days and it was pretty exciting. Man, you just wanted to get it right. It was an art.”
Anyone who’s ever grown up in a family business knows that the lessons of life and the lessons of work become intertwined. It’s not that work is life; it’s just that the two in some way become inseparable in childhood memories. Donny’s grandfather shaped his work ethic. “He showed up to work every day in his overalls and hat — I can still see it in my head — and he did everything from working operations to doing electrical and plumbing and contracting. Nothing was beneath him, nothing.” You were as likely to see him on a bulldozer as you were to see him stocking a shelf. “His mindset was: if I can do it, let me just go ahead and do it. You know, that stayed with me. To this day, if something needs to be done, I do my best to take care of it, and I think of him.”
Meanwhile, he watched his dad work, and man, you didn’t do that and not learn to be passionate. “That man has so much pride in the business. You’ve never seen a man enjoy his job more than my dad. You know, when he was still working, he could tell you
WE ’R E LOYAL TO LOC AL
Since 1960, we’ve worked with local farmers, fishers, brands, and makers across the Gulf Coast. That’s loyal to local and it’s how we’ve always done business.
the retail price and cost for every single item in a grocery store. And, even more important, he always wanted our team members and customers to be happy.” Donny also learned from his dad to move quickly, and make hard decisions. “It’s not always the right decision, but you need to make it and move forward. If you get it wrong, you can change your mind and adjust course. But you need to keep moving forward.”
That, he said, is one of the big advantages that family-owned stores like Rouses Markets have over the big national chains — and that directly benefits the customers. “We have to be nimble. A lot of these giant grocery chains that come into our communities, they have so many people that have to approve a process or approve a change, that it takes them months to make decisions and do the right thing.” Rouses, being family owned, doesn’t have that bureaucracy. “We can make the calls that help the customer, and we can do it quickly. We always do what we think is the right thing — but if we’re wrong, we’re fast to admit it, and we’ll fix it.” A lifetime in the business has allowed Donny to develop a certain intuition, which definitely helps guide his decisions.
Another thing that people who’ve grown up in a family business know is it takes a lot of hours; even when you’re not in the office, your mind might still be working on some problem affecting some aspect of the family business — in Donny’s case, any one of the 66 Rouses stores across the Gulf South. I asked him if his wife, Kara, had any idea what she was getting herself into when they started dating.
“Yeah,” Donny laughed, “the job takes a
lot of hours. But she was running her own business at the time we met, so she understood what it means to run a family business, and the hours it takes to be successful. But we talked a lot about it, and still do. We have to continue working hard, long hours, you name it, to continue to be successful in our business, of course, but also successful in providing our customers with the best products and services we can find.”
He feels a particular urgency to get things right, because any multi-generational business can falter the further you get from the day it was founded. “You know, everyone says the third generation is the one that’s going to mess up the family business,” Donny said. “And certainly, many people have told me that over the years! But that’s not an option for me. We’re not going to fail. We’re going to be successful and continue thriving as a company. I feel that way, and so do my cousins in the business, my dad, the whole family: We feel that way because we’re doing the work, building the careers, raising up team members, adapting to conditions whenever they arise but most of all, keeping the customer and the community front and center. We’re going to be a successful company for a long time.”
Those team members are the lifeblood of Rouses. “Without our team, we couldn’t be successful,” he told me. “We have 7,000 team members who count on me to make the right decisions to grow the company and keep moving it forward. So I need to make sure that we’re taking care of them. Our team members are constantly voting us Best Place to Work in the United States, and that is a very proud achievement for the company, one that we value highly.”
Rouses Markets spends a lot of time helping team members cultivate careers rather than just holding the same jobs indefinitely. “We want to make sure we give our team members the right training that they need to be happy
and to thrive in their careers — not just jobs, but careers .” After being hired, each new team member is paired with a current team member for several days to learn the ins and outs of Rouses, go through team orientations, and learn the day-to-day job requirements.
“We also created a program called Rouses University for our team members,” he explained. “For instance, if you’re working in the bakery department, we have online courses to help you understand that job better, and there are different levels of courses. As your career at Rouses advances, you have the opportunity to learn more things about the bakery (or whatever department you’re in or want to be in), and study up so that you’re more knowledgeable. That way, when the time comes for you to get that promotion — to become assistant department manager, say, or even department manager, or move into different departments or any level of management you aspire to — we help make sure you’re ready and equipped for success.”
It’s not just the employees casting Best Of
“Local companies provide things that national companies can never offer. The families who run companies like Community Coffee or Camellia Beans or what have you — these are fourth- and fifthgeneration companies. They know their businesses because they live them, and know their communities because they live here. Rouses is the same way. We all operate true to how and where we started. If you lose that, you can lose it all.”
—Donny Rouse, CEO, 3rd Generation
votes for Rouses every year. The company has been voted Best Supermarket in every community that it serves, and gets that vote almost every year. “It’s a huge deal for us as a company, and for our team members, to know that our customers appreciate what we’re doing,” said Donny. “They’re enjoying shopping with us, they recognize we’re on the right path, that we’re doing what’s right. Let’s keep moving forward. We’re always asking ourselves, what can we do different so that we can continue achieving those expectations our customers have for us.”
And word of mouth spreads. Customers, he said, are always asking him to build a location in their neighborhoods. “We’re always looking, always studying markets and visiting them. But we don’t want to expand just for the sake of expanding. We want it to be a good fit for the community. When we find the right location, it’s the right location!”
That speaks to one of the secrets to the success of Rouses, he said: staying true to the company’s local roots, and true to the communities it serves. “I always say, you’re either local or you’re not. And we are local. There’s a lot of people who pretend to be local, but we are the local Gulf Coast grocery store. We are the one that the local farmers and fishermen come to sell their products to, because they know we’re passionate about it. We’re not just going to throw it in an ad and hope for the best. We’re actually going to sell it.” For Donny, the company’s relationships with its suppliers, with its team members, with its customers, with its communities — they’re all personal.
“We have many handshake deals with suppliers rather than written contracts. We really get to know the farmers and the fishermen and the manufacturers we work with, and we do it on a personal basis. It can’t just be a paper relationship.” Rouses trusts its partners, he explained, and they have to be able to trust Rouses, so that everyone can continue growing together. “You know, if a farmer has a bad year and the crop is not that good, they need to trust that Rouses will still be there to support them, and take everything in that we can, because we want to be able to work with them again the following year and the one after it.”
Because when you get right down to it, Donny said, it’s all about community.
“Community is who we are. That’s our culture. When we expand into areas, we’re supporting the local schools, sponsoring the local sports teams, engaging the local community — because community is our culture. We hire local when we open stores. They learn the Rouses culture, and we learn the local culture of those markets.” The nice part about Rouses being based all along the Gulf Coast is that our communities have a lot in common. “You know, what we eat is very similar, the sports teams we cheer for are very similar, our love of family and cooking and celebration, all very similar. I know that we are privileged to be from here, and I can’t wait to keep growing to serve even more people in our Gulf Coast communities in the future.”
DONNY ROUSE ’ S BOUDIN BISCUIT
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT This is how I do breakfast: Our Rouses boudin, removed from the casing and cooked in a hot pan with a little butter until it’s crisp and caramelized. Serve it on a warm buttermilk biscuit. We sell them in the Rouses bakery, or you can make your own if you’re feeling ambitious. Top it with an over-medium egg and a drizzle of Hot Lava Sauce. You can also add grilled onions or shredded pepper jack, if that’s how you like it.
It’s messy. It’s spicy. And it’s absolutely worth waking up for.
Or, try it wrapped in a warm tortilla.
Noni’s Kitchen’s
Noni’s Kitchen’s Hot Lava Finishing Sauce is made in Lafayette, Louisiana. It’s a pepper jelly sauce with the consistency of honey that is sweet, spicy and just right on a boudin biscuit. It comes in Strawberry, Blackberry and Original; the recipe was inspired by the co-founder’s mom. Noni’s Kitchen also makes classic Pepper Jelly and Mayhaw Jelly.
Photo by Romney Caruso
The Grocery Isle
by David W. Brown
Every year for more than a decade, the best anglers in the world have converged on Orange Beach, Alabama, for the “greatest show in sportfishing” — the Blue Marlin Grand Championship. It is part of the highly competitive Gulf tournament circuit. The fishing enthusiasts’ goal is to catch the biggest blue marlin, among the largest and fastest fish in the world. Last year, the winning team hauled in a 650.4-pound fish. The year before that, the winner was just shy of 600 pounds. This year, the winning champion team—appropriately named Grocery Isle, owned by Donald Rouse and led by Donny Rouse—caught a marlin measuring 124 inches and weighing an astonishing 746.2 pounds.
Donny has been an avid fisherman since high school. About 10 years ago, his friends introduced him to the thrill of marlin fishing. “It’s a different kind of adrenaline with a marlin,” said Donny.
The tournament began on Thursday, July 10, at 11 a.m., and ran until Saturday evening; 66 boats competed. For bait, Grocery Isle used live blackfin tuna. When they’d hooked the marlin, Donny knew right away that they’d caught something big. It started jumping within a minute. The crew quickly got the gaffs ready, so they were fully prepared on deck by the time the fish was guided back to them. He fought it for about an hour and a half. “I was prepared to go four or five hours for a fish that size,” he said.
It's a whole-team effort to bring in a fish as big as a grand piano. Once they got the marlin alongside of the boat, the team was able to stick two gaffs in it and tie it off. After that, they brought it onboard. Everyone had a job, including first mate Tanner Kesse, Donny’s nephew Britton Martinolich, and Donny’s friends David Breaud, Jimmy Greene and Zack Fillinich. Once they measured the catch, they knew they had a good shot at taking the Grand Championship prize — but there was still a day of fishing ahead of them, and they were 270 miles from Orange Beach. That’s a long way home, and the boat’s captain, Wilks Hammock, had to make sure they got back safely with their prize.
Donny’s wife, kids, dad, and most of his family joined him at The Wharf in Orange Beach on Saturday for the weigh-in celebration. “It was exciting to be able to share that experience with them,” he said.
The Blue Marlin Grand Championship benefits St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Rouses is a longtime supporter of its lifesaving mission. Donny Rouse and Rouses Markets are also actively involved in protecting our coast and its resources through organizations like the Coastal Conservation Associ ation, which works to preserve fish populations for
future generations, and Ducks Unlimited, which focuses on conserving America’s wetlands and the ecosystems that depend on them.
“I can honestly say you won’t find anyone with more enthusiasm than we at Rouses have for the people, waterways and fisheries of our Gulf Coast,” said Donny.
Rouses supports several Gulf fishing rodeos and is a proud sponsor of The Outdoors Show with Don Dubuc, which airs on radio stations across the region, helping keep the Gulf Coast’s fishing culture front and center. And Rouses sells more local seafood than any other retailer on the Gulf Coast. That means direct support for the fishers, shrimpers, crabbers and families who depend on these waters for their livelihood — and fresher seafood for Rouses customers.
The Good Luck Charm
Britton Martinolich has been fishing his whole life—onshore, offshore, and everywhere in between— often alongside his grandfather, Donald. (Britton is one of Donald’s six grandchildren, all of whom hunt and fish with him.) At this year’s Blue Marlin Grand Championship, he caught the biggest dolphin (mahimahi) of his life. It was only the second one he had ever caught — the first was just the day before. “It was so colorful, I could see it coming through the water,” he says. “It hit the bait hard and took off.” Eight minutes later, he reeled it in with the whole boat watching. His 25.4-pound catch earned him first place in the Heaviest Dolphin category.
Britton was on the boat Grocery Isle with his uncle, Donny Rouse, when they caught the tournament’s winning blue marlin. “I filmed it jumping so they’d know it was a marlin,” he says. “You can hear me in the video. I’m yelling, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a big marlin!’”
He’s officially the boat’s good luck charm.
NEW
FOR LIMITED TIME
Bayou Boys
by Ken Wells
I grew up in and around Houma — and though I’m dating myself, I’m old enough to remember when the town didn’t have a proper supermarket. Until I was nine years old, my family lived in a tidy, slate-side house on Palm Avenue near the banks of the Intracoastal Waterway. My parents — and my grandparents who lived near us — shopped at a little neighborhood market called Songe’s.
It was a friendly place run by a middle-aged couple of that name. The store mostly carried the basics, and the prices weren’t particularly cheap. But my grandparents liked it because they could buy groceries on credit, then pay their bill at the end of the month when their Social Security checks arrived.
In September of 1957, we moved to the Bayou Black area west of Houma when my father went to work as the payroll clerk for Southdown Sugars. The job came with a tidy rent-free farmhouse on about five acres near the wayside of Mandalay, these days best known for the area containing the Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge. It was a good place, my parents felt, to raise their six rambunctious sons. About five miles of sugarcane fields stood between us and town. Even better, to the north and south lay plentiful woods and marshes that were owned by Southdown and that we were free to roam and explore.
Though my parents would eventually move us back to town, ask any of the Wells brothers and they will tell you this is where we grew up — living the bayou life, fishing, hunting, swamp stomping to catch our own crawfish; raising chickens and rabbits and even a pig or two; helping my parents with the ambitious vegetable
“YEAH,
gardens we grew each year in what had previously been a cow pasture.
My mother, Bonnie Toups, a Thibodaux native who spoke Cajun French, was a terrific cook. She would routinely turn the fruits of our agrarian labors into tasty dishes at her kitchen stove: chicken and sausage gumbo; okra stew; smothered potatoes and green beans; corn soup; hot peppers and tomatoes for her rabbit and turtle sauce picante; spicy yellow squash casserole; stuffed bell peppers. You get the picture.
In our first two years there, 1957 through 1959, there was no supermarket nearby and, honestly, there were days we wished there were. More than once, Bonnie’s chicken gumbo began with a hen chased down in the farmyard. Yes, okay, that may sound appealing to certain back-to-the-land types, but anyone who’s plucked and dressed a chicken or slaughtered a pig or killed and skinned a rabbit knows this is unpleasant business for everyone involved (especially for the chicken, pig and rabbit).
By 1960, Ciro’s, the collaboration of Anthony Rouse, Sr. and his cousin Ciro, had opened in Houma, and that was certainly an improvement in our foodshopping fortunes. The first Rouses Market then opened in Thibodaux in 1975; since then, Rouses has grown into one of the largest and most successful independent
supermarket chains in America.
The Rouse family has leveraged their deep knowledge and love of our regional foodways into stores whose offerings, through variety and innovation, have transformed food prep while still keeping a firm grasp on tradition. For me, this is epitomized by that state-of-the-art Rouses Market I frequent on St. Charles Street during my visits to Houma. Had that particular Rouses existed back in our early Bayou Black years, my mom’s labors at the gumbo pot would’ve been so much simpler and easier.
I should explain that I have not always been a supermarket groupie. I moved from Houma in 1975 to attend graduate school at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and have never returned as a full-time resident. My calling as a writer and editor compelled me to live in cities that supported large-market newspapers and magazines. I’ve had an adventurous career that landed me in beautiful and interesting places: Miami, San Francisco, London, Manhattan and, these days, Chicago.
Yet, truth be told, you can take the boy out of the bayou but not the bayou out of the boy. As I began to venture out from journalism to write novels and narrative nonfiction books, what poured forth were works that, no matter where I was living at the time, were 100% steeped in my South
CUZ!” MIKE DUPRE WAS A ROUSES TEAM MEMBER FOR MORE THAN TWO DECADES. A TRAINED BUTCHER, HE SERVED AS BOTH A MEAT MARKET MANAGER AND MEAT BUYER.
Louisiana upbringing.
Indeed, the further I got from the bayous and the people and places that had clearly imprinted themselves on me, the more interesting my upbringing became to me. It took a while for me to understand what a singular place our family-centered, food-centric culture occupied in the all-too-homogenized American landscape. As a writer, I felt I should be able to make something of that.
Partly because of that and because I still had family in the Houma-Thibodaux area, I visited frequently. But honestly, I’d not paid much attention to the supermarket scene until a few years back when I began to do a deep dive for my book, Gumbo Life: A Journey Down the Roux Bayou, a cultural and social history of our iconic dish. I wandered into that particular Rouses on St. Charles Street in Houma; I was looking for andouille for gumbo I was cooking for out-of-state friends who’d come for a fishing trip.
What I discovered was an epiphany: Someone with deep forethought had assembled an amazing collage of Louisiana-made and Louisiana-grown products that had revolutionized the ease by which home cooks could gather and acquire the ingredients not just for gumbo, but for almost every conceivable dish in any authentic Cajun or Creole cookbook.
There was the pre-cut trinity in a plastic container — which I know my mom, who was not particularly good with a knife, would’ve loved as a time-saver. I counted about two dozen varieties of andouille and other sausages suitable for gumbo. I found boneless pre-cut chicken breasts and thighs (and yes, whole chickens if you wanted them and even pre-cooked rotisserie chickens that I know some people plop into their gumbos).
There were jarred and powdered roux mixes, not to mention an entire long shelf given over to just about every spice and hot sauce a person might desire. And, yes, fresh okra in the produce department and fresh, wild-caught local shrimp sitting on a bed of ice for a price that was about a third of what I pay for frozen shrimp in Chicago.
To be clear, I learned my gumbo craft
from my mother, and I still love making my own roux because it honors my mother’s memory. But I know plenty of gumbo chefs these days who swear by these time-saving products — Rouses even has its own jarred and frozen roux, making it easier than ever to start a gumbo or stew from scratch. It’s clear that Rouses in its offerings demonstrates a deep knowledge and commitment to South Louisiana cooking traditions, yet understands that time-saving innovations will be appreciated and embraced by a certain subset of their customers.
Earlier this year, I spent two months in South Louisiana researching a book on boudin for LSU Press as part of its Louisiana True series. These are compact books, about 25,000 to 30,000 words, covering aspects of uniquely Louisiana culture, notably festivals, music and food.
My boudin book, which will come out next spring, isn’t a tasting guide per se, but an examination of the history and passion that elevates this once humble sausage, birthed and perfected in rustic country kitchens, into another iconic dish on par with gumbo and andouille. Boudin, once pretty much a South Louisiana secret, is beginning — thanks to Cajun and Creole ingenuity — to show up on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus all over the country.
One of the first things I did was to head (again!) to my favorite Rouses to check the boudin selection as a way of gauging what discerning locals were eating — trusting that the Rouses folks, who seem to have an unerring eye for what their target market loves and wants, would be stocking brands I needed to pay attention to. And, in fact, the selection was so large and the variety so interesting that it told me boudin makers were not just thriving but innovating in interesting and unexpected ways.
As I traveled what I call the Boudin Belt — the 22 contiguous South Louisiana parishes that form the area known as Acadiana — I came to realize that Rouses’ success is part of a pattern: the proclivity of certain South Louisiana families to begin enterprises based upon a passion and a belief that service and quality are the elixirs for success.
Consider, for example, the Cormier family of the Best Stop boudin enterprise in Scott. From a tiny one-shop operation opened in 1986 and the size of the average 7-Eleven, the Cormiers in 2020 completed a $6 million, 15,000-squarefoot, state-of-the-art USDA-certified distribution facility that produces tons of boudin a day and ships retail to scores of wholesalers all over America, including Rouses Markets.. They have plans to build a 10,000-square-foot addition, dedicated to sausage making, in 2026.
And the Cormiers are hardly alone. A subtext of the Louisiana boudin origin story is how so many Cajun and Creole families — the Bourgeoises, Bergerons, Comeauxs, Richards and Savoies, among others — have leveraged a single and simple thing, a family boudin recipe, into literal fortunes. And yet I am totally convinced that for them, while the money is no doubt terrific, it’s not just about the money. It’s a sincere effort to spread the joy and share this South Louisiana comfort-food icon with the wider world.
Or in the case of Rouses, to make sure its food-loving customers can hew to their time-honored cooking traditions and yet gather the best possible, Louisianasourced ingredients for that quick gumbo, if that’s what their busy schedules call for.
Now if they would only open a market in Chicago…
BAYOU BOYS
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT We grew up boiling on the bayou!
The Bayou Boys was our campaign for all things outdoor cooking and boiling. We filmed those commercials at Attakapas Landing on Lake Verret — just west of Napoleonville and south of Pierre Part.
Louisiana’s Best Week of Food + Drink
Lake Charles, LA
First, you don’t make a roux
by Ann Maloney
First, you open a bag of Rouses Roux 2 Geaux. That doesn’t roll off the tongue the way “First, you make a roux” does, right? Still, I’m willing to give up a bit of the romanticism of Cajun and Creole cooking if it means I can skip standing at a hot stove for some time, stirring to get that coveted dark roux for gumbos or stews.
If I’m totally honest here, when I first saw the Roux 2 Geaux, I rolled my eyes. I mean, it’s easy to make a roux, right? Combine equal parts oil and flour, and stir until they reach the desired color and toastiness.
The issue here, however, is time and mess. It takes about 20 minutes of continuous stirring over a low heat to cook the raw-flour taste out of the mixture. If you want a truly dark roux, it can take 45 minutes to an hour to make, and just a few seconds of inattention to burn.
Roux 2 Geaux is a great shortcut for harried cooks who love traditional recipes, and for home cooks with physical limitations, too.
So, I opened my mind and a package, and I was sold. It delivers the sought-after nutty, smoky flavor and deep color of a classic roux without the fuss and mess.
Rouses frozen, dark brown roux has a simple ingredient list of flour and oil with a bit of the “trinity” of onions, bell peppers and celery, along with a touch of dried garlic and parsley. It contains no salt or cayenne, so you can adjust to make it as spicy or salty as you desire. (Don’t feel like chopping the vegetables? Pick up Rouses Fresh Cut Seasoning Mix or a bag of PictSweet Farms Trinity Seasoning Blend, too.)
Crumble the block of roux into your Dutch oven, dissolve it with hot stock or water, stir in protein and/or vegetables, adjust for saltiness and/or heat, and simmer. Now you’re ready to eat.
I used it to make a summer stew and an étouffée as well as Cajun roux peas. The color, flavor, smoky scent and texture were on the mark. (See the recipes below, and check out recipes on the Rouses Markets’ website, including a Roux 2 Geaux Chicken
& Andouille Gumbo; Roux 2 Geaux Seafood Gumbo; and Donny Rouse’s Red Fish Court Bouillon with Roux 2 Geaux.)
So, what am I giving up by using this readymade roux?
• The battle scars of roux making. Who here has stopped to rub ice on a roux burn or three? Don’t feel bad. My hand is raised, too.
• Tradition! My Cajun husband loves to stand at the stove and get his roux just the right shade of mahogany for his big pots of gumbo, but let’s be honest: He does that when he feels like it. And, if it is a weeknight, it’s about the marriage of taste, thrift and time!
• A couple of dollars? Sure, I have flour and oil on hand, so I could make my own roux for pennies, but when I consider the time and mess saved, I feel like I come out ahead. Also, the one-pound package, which is about two cups of roux, is ideal for big-batch recipes, like gumbo, but can be stretched to make smaller recipes.
If you need smaller amounts of roux, thaw Roux 2 Geaux in your refrigerator and then portion it out and refreeze it. You can divide it into four, ¼-pound portions, or crumble it into resealable containers so you can grab a tablespoon of roux at a time for quick, dark gravies and sauces.
Frozen ingredients (like this roux), doughs, and the many fruits and vegetables available in the grocery freezer are shortcuts that make it easy to cook at home and avoid stopping for fast food or ordering that pizza.
Here are three recipes to try so you can see for yourself that Roux 2 Geaux is an easy way to go.
Photo by Romney Caruso
ROUX 2 GEAUX SHRIMP STEW
Étouffées traditionally have a light tan roux, but when we used Roux 2 Geaux, we loved the shrimp smothered in the rich, deep brown sauce. The amount of stock needed and the cooking time will vary with the size of the shrimp and how thick you like your sauce. Simmer the shrimp until they are pink and curled. Then, pluck out one to do a taste test. If the sauce is too thick, add a bit more liquid until satisfied with the viscosity. Don’t forget to heat your stock before adding it to the roux.
Our recipe uses a dark roux, which gives the stew its deep flavor and rich color — but you can use a lighter roux if you prefer something closer to an étouffée. The ingredients and method are nearly the same.
SERVINGS: 4
STORAGE: Refrigerate for up to 3 days; freeze for up to 3 months
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
3 heaping tablespoons Rouses Roux 2
Geaux
½ cup seafood stock, chicken stock or water, very warm, plus more as needed
1 large (8 ounces) onion, white or yellow, chopped
1 rib celery, chopped
¼ large bell pepper, any color, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced (about 1 tablespoon)
1 teaspoon Cajun/Creole seasoning, or more as needed
½ teaspoon fine salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper, or more as needed
“I grew up on my daddy’s chicken stew. His shrimp stew was another staple. Around here, we like to add eggs to our shrimp stew—it’s a Houma/ Thibodaux thing. Some cook the egg directly in the pot; others slice a boiled egg and place it on top.”
1½ pounds peeled, deveined medium (4150 count) shrimp, thawed if frozen
2 green onions, white and green parts, finely diced, plus more for garnish
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish (optional)
Cooked rice, for serving
HOW TO PREP:
In a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed, deepsided pot over medium-high heat, crumble the Roux 2 Geaux. Add the warmed stock and stir until well-combined. Add the onion, celery, bell pepper, garlic, Cajun/Creole seasoning, salt and cayenne, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes.
Add the shrimp, green onionss and parsley, and stir to combine. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for about 3 minutes, or until the shrimp release their liquid, curl and turn pink. Uncover and pluck out a shrimp to taste. Add more stock if the sauce is too thick, as well as more salt, cayenne or Creole seasoning, if desired. Serve over cooked rice and sprinkle with additional chopped green onionss or parsley, if desired.
Recipe developed by Ann Maloney
Photo by Romney Caruso
ROUX 2 GEAUX SUMMER SHRIMP, SAUSAGE, CORN AND OKRA STEW
This simple, big-batch stew made with Rouses Roux 2 Geaux is ideal for summer, because it brings together summer’s bounty of shrimp, corn and okra. If you have fresh shrimp, corn or okra, use it. If not, pick up frozen. We like this stew with andouille, but you can use whatever you like: smoked pork sausage, spicy Italian or even chicken sausage. Cooking time will vary with the size of the shrimp, so simmer the shrimp until they are pink and curled, then pluck out one to do a taste test. With 8 cups of water, this stew will fit in a Dutch oven. If you want to thin the sauce more, you’ll need more stock and a larger pot.
SERVINGS: 10-12
STORAGE: Refrigerate for up to 3 days; freeze for up to 3 months
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound andouille, cut into bite-size pieces
¾-pound package Rouses Roux 2 Geaux
8 cups no-salt-added seafood stock, chicken stock or water, very warm, plus more as needed
2 small (about 14 ounces) white or yellow onions, chopped
2 ribs of celery, chopped
½ large (about 4½ ounces) bell pepper, any color, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 teaspoons Cajun/Creole seasoning
1 teaspoon fine salt, plus more to taste
½ teaspoon cayenne (optional)
1 pound okra, fresh or frozen, cut into bitesize pieces
3 cups (14 ounces) whole corn kernels
1½ pounds peeled shrimp, preferably medium, 36/40 or 41/50
3 green onionss, white and green parts, sliced, plus more for garnish (optional)
Cooked rice (optional)
French bread (optional)
HOW TO PREP:
In a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, add oil and sausage and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Crumble the Roux 2 Geaux into the pot and add the warmed stock. Increase the heat to mediumhigh, and stir until the roux is well-combined and simmering. Add the onion, celery, bell pepper, garlic, Cajun/Creole seasoning,
“I brought home leftover Summer Stew from this photoshoot, and my kids couldn’t get enough. My two-year-old even asked for it first thing the next morning and ate it for breakfast — 10/10 recommend for busy parents!”
— Eliza Schulze, Art Director, Rouses Markets
salt and cayenne, and stir to combine. Bring the mixture to a lively simmer and cook until the onions are translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the okra and corn and cook until the okra is tender, about 3 minutes (or longer if using fresh okra). Add the shrimp and green onionss and cook until the shrimp are pink and starting to curl, about 3 minutes. Taste and add more Cajun/Creole seasoning, salt or cayenne as desired. Serve in a bowl with French bread or spoon over rice.
Recipe developed by Ann Maloney
Photo by Romney Caruso
ROUX 2 GEAUX PEAS
(CAJUN ROUX PEAS)
We’ve had guests who raised an eyebrow at these peas smothered in a brown sauce. When they take a bite, however, they get it. This economical, one-pot recipe is made even easier using Rouses Roux 2 Geaux. Often, folks make their roux for this dish using bacon fat, so we added a few slices of bacon for that hit of salty, smoky flavor. We like beef stock for this dish, but you can use the stock you prefer, or even water. Want to start a debate? Bring up which kind of peas work best in this dish. If you look in the recipe below, you’ll see where we land. We prefer canned, small-sweet or petit pois peas. If you prefer frozen peas or shelled fresh peas, you’ll have to add more liquid so you can cook them longer to get the desired tenderness. This is traditionally a side dish, but we’ve eaten it as a main, too, with hot French bread.
SERVINGS: 4 servings for an entrée; 8 as a side
STORAGE: Refrigerate for up to 4 days
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into bitesize pieces
3 tablespoons Rouses Roux 2 Geaux
¾ cup no-salt-added beef stock, very warm, plus more as needed
1 medium (5 ounces) white or yellow onion, chopped
¼ teaspoon fine salt, plus more to taste ¼ teaspoon cayenne, plus more to taste
2 (8.5 ounces) cans sweet, young peas, such as Le Sueur (See headnote above) Hot French bread, for serving (optional)
HOW TO PREP:
In a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, add the olive oil and the bacon and cook until the bacon renders its fat, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Crumble in the Roux 2 Geaux, then add the warmed stock, onion, salt and cayenne, and stir until well-combined. Simmer until the onions are translucent, about 15 minutes, adding more stock if it gets too thick. Drag the spoon across the bottom of the pot to scrape up any fond and incorporate it into the sauce. If you can see the bottom of the pot for a moment or two, it is the right
“I grew up eating roux peas at my Maw Maw’s almost every Sunday. She used petit pois and canned mushrooms in hers. She also made lima beans with a dark roux. If she had shrimp, usually the little ones, she’d use that. If not, it was andouille or smoked sausage. That’s how they did it in Luling. River Parish people know.”
consistency. Add the peas, and simmer until the peas are warmed through, about 5 minutes.
Recipe developed by Ann Maloney
Photo by Romney Caruso
we grew up boiling on the bayou
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Our Down the Bayou Seafood Boil has been perfected over three generations so your seafood comes out just right — perfectly seasoned with spices, garlic, onion and lemon.
we know what you like to ea
“The fish fry has got heavy cornmeal and it’s really crunchy the way we like it here. The chicken fry is more like a seasoned flour mix. The shrimp has a yellow corn flour — a great texture and seasoning.”
— Jason Martinolich, VP of Center
Store
The family we buy our espresso from has been perfecting the art of Italian coffee for five generations and over a century.
if our name is on the label you can trust it ’s good
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT We launched our private brand in 2008, but it wasn’t until 2017 — under the direction of Jason Martinolich, our Vice President of Center Store and a member of the Rouse family — that the line truly began to grow. Today, it includes thousands of SKUs — industry shorthand for “stock keeping units” — covering everything from pantry staples to regional specialties.
Every item is carefully sourced or developed in-house. Each food product goes through a formal cutting, where Donny Rouse, Jason Martinolich, other members of the family and members of the Rouses team taste, compare, and choose the very best before it ever hits the shelf.
Like everything we put our name on, these products deliver the best quality at the best price. It’s no wonder these are some of the most loved products we sell.
a taste of italy, no passport
required
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Donny Rouse traveled to Sicily with his wife, sister, and brother-in-law, Jason, to hand-select Rouses Sicilian, Organic Sicilian, and Italian olive oils. Rouses’ line of authentic Italian-made products and ingredients is a nod to the family’s heritage. In Italy, where many of these foods have been crafted for hundreds—even thousands—of years, strict standards govern every step of the process, from sourcing to production. That commitment to tradition and quality is what makes these products so special.
by Ann Maloney
Here are some tips to make cooking and eating together at home faster, easier and tastier. We also asked Mike Westbrook, Deli, Cold Cuts & Sushi Director for Rouses, to share a few of his best chef’s tips.
the equipment
Gather must-have equipment. This will vary depending on what you like to prepare, but for most home cooks, the basics include a set of quality knives, large cutting board, cast-iron skillet, Dutch oven, sturdy wooden spoon, silicone spatula, thermometers, spoon rest, silicone potholders and kitchen scissors. Cooking essential: at least one nonstick pan — who likes scrubbing eggs off of a pan? Hand-wash this pan so it does not get scratched in the dishwasher.
attention to how easily your knives slice and chop — and listen for that satisfying, clean “shhkt” sound.
Keep your knives sharp. A dull knife is dangerous and makes cooking tedious. You should always cut on wood or plastic boards — glass, marble or granite surfaces dull blades quickly. Don’t put your knives in the dishwasher; the heat and movement can damage the blades and handles. Wash them by hand and dry them immediately. Store them safely in a block, on a magnetic strip, or with blade guards. Tossing knives in a drawer dulls their edges and creates a safety hazard.
How do you know when your knife needs sharpening? It should glide effortlessly through an onion. Pay
Organize your spice rack. Arrange by most used, with the remainder by alphabet. Check expiration dates. Spices don’t “go bad” but do lose flavor. Strong scent = strong flavor. Store in airtight containers in a cool, dark spot. Consider using a rack to make it easier to quickly find the spice you need.
Chef’s tip: Want to know why restaurant food tastes better? Usually, it’s because of added salt and butter. And most chefs prefer using unsalted butter.
Chef’s tip: The classic technique to get the most out of your spices is to toast them. Spices have natural oils that release deeper flavor when heated. I like to toss whole spices in a dry skillet over medium heat for a few minutes until they’re fragrant. Then I let them cool before grinding. Even ground spices like turmeric and cinnamon benefit from a quick toast to boost flavor. Just be careful not to burn them.
Choose salts wisely. The type of salt — table, kosher or sea — and, in some cases, brand, will affect saltiness. For example, one tablespoon of fine table salt is equal to one-and-a-half tablespoons of Morton’s Coarse Kosher Salt or two tablespoons of Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt. Decide ahead of time which salt you want so you’ll know how much to use. Note: Adding salt before and/or during cooking allows it to penetrate and enhance flavors. Start with a small amount and add more; unless you have health restrictions, don’t skip it.
Inventory your pantry, fridge and freezer: Once a week, before your Rouses run, do a quick check to see what you have on hand, so you don’t buy duplicates or run out of essentials. Toss anything expired and remember: A well-stocked freezer definitely includes your favorite pizzas or dumplings!
Chef’s tip: I eat frozen pizza all the time. Always preheat your oven — if it’s not hot, the crust can turn soggy. Before baking, quickly spread out the toppings so they cook evenly. Most heating instructions give you a range of times, but don’t rely on the clock alone. Your pizza is ready when the crust is crisp and the cheese is browned and bubbling. Consider buying a pizza stone; it helps make frozen pizza crust great.
Read the recipe before you start cooking. Make sure you’ve got all the ingredients and equipment, and take note of anything that needs extra time — like marinating, chilling or rising — so you’re not caught off guard halfway through.
Chef’s tip: Use regular olive oil for high-heat cooking like sautéing or frying. Extra virgin has a lower smoke point, so save it for dressings, dips and finishing dishes. Rouses has our own authentic Italian and Mediterranean extra virgin olive oils. And every late fall or early winter, we release a limited Novello — a fresh-pressed, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil made with the season’s first olives. It’s rich and vibrant.
the ingredients
Use Alfredo sauce, thinned with a little water or stock, in a casserole of cooked pasta and leftover chicken or shrimp. Add fresh spinach, basil and/or parsley as desired. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top. Heat the casserole in the oven, then turn on the broiler for a few minutes to brown the top. Or try tossing cooked ravioli or tortellini with warmed Rouses alla Genovese Pesto and topping with grilled chicken or shrimp.
sauce that’s thicker and more tomato-forward. Let it simmer for 10 to 20 minutes, or roast it at 300°F, stirring occasionally. Make a Rosé sauce — a rich tomato cream sauce — by combining leftover marinara and Alfredo sauces.
Chef’s tip: I love our authentic Italian Alfredo. And I always have a jar of our red sauce in the fridge. But if you’re using another brand or just want to add more flavor, you can reduce it on the stove or in the oven to concentrate it, leaving you with a
Try Rouses authentic Italian Marinara with our fresh Pork Sausage (green onion or Italian). Remove the sausage from its casing, brown it in a skillet, and toss with pasta for an easy weeknight meal — or layer it in a baked ziti. Salsa verde, commonly used in Mexican cuisine, is zesty and herbaceous, with a bit of a kick
Photo by Romney Caruso
depending on the peppers used. In a snug baking dish, season chicken strips or boneless thighs with salt and pepper. Cover with jarred salsa verde and bake. Sprinkle cheese on top and run it under the broiler for a few minutes. Serve with rice, if you like.
Patak’s Butter Chicken Simmer Sauce is just one of the jarred curries you can use to make complex Indian dishes in a flash. Cut up and cook the chicken, add the sauce, then toss in cherry tomatoes and fresh cilantro, or whatever veggies you’d like. Some curry varieties are sold as pastes and need to be thinned with water or heavy cream.
in a saucepan, then stir in a little enchilada sauce, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder and a squeeze of fresh lime. Wrap it all up with shredded cheese, sour cream and salsa. In addition to tuna, try canned or packaged salmon, sardines and anchovies, either in water or oil. Try the tuna in a cold salad with white beans, sweet onions and a vinaigrette. Add spices and vegetables to the salmon and form patties to bake or pan-fry. Whip up pasta with lemon and anchovies. If the fish is packed in oil, drain it and use the oil to make a vinaigrette for a salad topped with the fish.
the dry mix for a mocha-flavored treat. Add vanilla, almond or coconut extract to sugar cookie, muffin or cake mixes, or zest an orange or lemon into the mix for a fresh flavor boost. Bonus tips: If a mix calls for water, sub in coconut water or almond or soy milk for more flavor. Choose high-quality extracts; many are just flavored alcohol and will not give you a deep flavor.
Boost the flavor of your salmon filet by painting it with enough Kikkoman Teriyaki Marinade & Sauce to cover it well. Bake the fish at 400°F until cooked through. Check the temperature with a kitchen thermometer: You want it to be no more than 145°F; medium-rare is about 125°F. Serve it with rice and a cucumber & Vidalia onion salad. The sauce is also great as a marinade for steak or chicken.
Evaporated milk and coconut milk are essential pantry items. Evaporated milk was created to be diluted (as a stand-in when fresh milk was unavailable), but it is also a rich substitute for milk or heavy cream in recipes. Unsweetened coconut milk can substitute for milk in savory dishes and when baking. Use it to make flavorful white rice, too.
Dry soup mixes aren’t just for dips. These dried vegetable & seasoning packets add quick, rich flavor to gravies and stews — especially onion or vegetable blends. Try using onion soup mix and water as a base for beef stew with carrots and potatoes.
Cooked beans give you a head start on casseroles, salads, bowls, wraps or dips. Blue Runner Creole Cream Style Beans are great as is over rice, or add sausage and a sprinkling of green onions to spice things up. You can even stir a can into your from-scratch pot of beans for added creaminess.
Chef’s tip: Red beans aren’t just for Mondays. I make quick burritos using canned beans or leftover red beans and rice. Heat them
Dress up a boxed cake mix: Add an extra egg and a box of instant pudding mix (in a complementary flavor) to make the cake moist and rich. Then whip up a homemade frosting. Press chopped pecans onto the sides or top with fresh berries.
Chef’s tip: Stash your Parmesan or pecorino rinds in the freezer. They last almost forever and add rich, savory flavor to whatever’s simmering on the stove. Drop one into tomato sauce, minestrone, risotto or stock while it cooks. The rind won’t melt, but it softens as it simmers, releasing deep umami flavor into the dish. You can fish it out before serving, or chop it up and stir it back in for an extra boost. It’s a simple way to turn something you’d normally discard into a secret ingredient.
Add-ins like chocolate, nuts, butterscotch chips, crushed peppermint and dried fruit can elevate a plain brownie mix too.
Chef’s Tip: Or, whisk a couple of teaspoons of espresso powder into
Liquid Shrimp & Crab Boil is not just for outdoor boils. Add a bit to the water for just about any vegetable you poach or boil, such as carrots, corn, green beans or potatoes. Try a splash in your rice water, too. (Yes, put on the vent and open a window if you’re sensitive to the peppery scent.)
Heat peanut butter (in a glass bowl) in the microwave for 45 seconds or so to turn it into a dipping sauce for everything from sweet fruit to savory chicken skewers. Thin it with water and stir it into noodles, or use it to glaze vegetables. Add soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar and/or lime juice to goose the flavor.
dipping sauce. It’s also great mixed into stir-fries, rice or noodles, or tossed with sautéed shrimp or roasted vegetables.
soups or eggs, on wings or as a dip for broiled or grilled meats. Mix it with mayo for a spicy sandwich spread. I think The Original Huy Fong Sriracha, with the red rooster logo and green cap, is the best; it’s been a chef’s secret ingredient for years.
Sprinkle savory granola over salads in place of croutons or on casseroles in places of bread crumbs. The sweet stuff? Stir it into pancakes or use it as a streusel for berry crumbles or muffins. Crush 2 cups and mix with 5 tablespoons of melted butter, and turn it into a pie crust.
Gochujang is a Korean chili paste made with fermented soybean and chili pepper. Blend it with honey, soy sauce, garlic and ginger for an amazing dipping sauce for chicken strips or for coating wings before cooking. Spread the mixture on chicken breast, flank steak or pork chops and roast them.
Rouses Olive Salad elevates just about any sandwich, from a simple ham & cheese to a tuna salad. Try it on pizza, in pasta salad or make bruschetta with it.
Chili crisp (oil-infused peppers and crunchy bits) have been a staple in Chinese kitchens for generations; they might also be labeled “chili crunch.” Flavors, textures and heat vary by brand. Use it to finish dishes, drizzling it on fried chicken or omelets, or as a base for a dumpling
You’ll find this one in the refrigerated section: Kimchi, a Korean fermented spicy and crunchy cabbage, makes a terrific addition to sandwiches. It is also great in dips (see Creamy Kimchi Dip on the Rouses website) as well as stirred into soups, noodles and stirfries. Sriracha, the Thai sauce made from chilis, sugar, salt and garlic, can be used as you would any hot sauce. It’s thicker than many, with a hint of sweetness. Use it to add heat to
Tahini is a ground sesame seed paste used to make hummus (find a recipe on the Rouses website), but it can do so much more. Use it as you would any nut butter. Add it to smoothies or whisk it into vinaigrettes. Try thinning it and drizzling over roasted vegetables, grilled meats or seafood. Add it to your chicken/tuna salads for a Mediterranean flavor.
Eat Bibigo Frozen Mini Wontons
Dumplings as is or use this idea from food writer Hetty Lui McKinnon: Add still-frozen mini dumplings to your favorite stir-fry ingredients, such as bok choy, carrots and onions.
Manda Fine Meats, 3rd Generation
In 1947, brothers Vincent, John and Bennie Manda opened Manda Fine Meats in Baton Rouge, building a reputation for quality cuts and smoked sausage with true Louisiana flavor. Vincent’s grandsons now lead the company, with the 4th generation already involved in continuing the family tradition.
Photo by Romney Caruso
Photo
DONNY ROUSES’S
COURT BOUILLON
Serves 8
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 medium-size onion, chopped
½ medium-size green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (6 ounces) Rouses Fancy Tomato Paste
1 can (15 ounces) Rouse Crushed Tomatoes, undrained
1 can (14.5 ounces) Rouses Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles
1 quart warm unsalted seafood stock or water
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2-3 bay leaves
1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
2½ pounds of skin-off redfish, catfish or sheepshead fillets
½ tablespoon of Creole seasoning (to season fish fillets)
1 bunch green onions (green part only), chopped
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Steamed rice, for serving Hot sauce, for serving
HOW TO PREP:
cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour or until the mixture is slightly thickened. If it becomes too thick, add more stock or water as needed to reach your desired consistency.
Cut the fish into 3- 4-inch even-size pieces and season with Creole seasoning.
Add the fish, cover, and cook without stirring until the fish flakes easily with a fork, about 10 to 15 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt, black pepper and cayenne, if needed. Remove and discard the bay leaves. Add the green onions and parsley, reserving some for garnish if desired. Serve immediately in soup or gumbo bowls with steamed rice and hot sauce on the side.
In a large heavy pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly (about 15 minutes), to make a roux the color of peanut butter. Add the onion, bell pepper, and celery, and cook, stirring, until the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes, being careful not to let it burn. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for another 1-2 minutes until well incorporated.
Add the crushed and diced tomatoes, stirring well to combine. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes, until the oil begins to separate and forms a thin layer on the surface. Stir in the stock or water, salt, black pepper, and cayenne; add the bay leaves and Worcestershire Sauce. Continue to
“I grew up in Bayou Boeuf. We didn’t eat court bouillon. We ate sauce piquant, especially when someone brought home alligator or turtle. So the photo shoot for this magazine was actually my first time trying court bouillon. The two dishes are very similar, but court bouillon is a little thinner and not quite as piquant — that’s French for tangy or spicy — and is more tomatoey. This court bouillon was delicious.”
Located in Crowley, Louisiana, Falcon Rice Mill — makers of Cajun Country Rice — is one of the oldest familyrun rice mills in the country, now in its 3rd generation. Their rice is 100% Louisiana grown, milled and packaged.
Camellia Beans, 4th Generation
Sawyer Hayward came to New Orleans from the West Indies in 1850 and started in the cotton trade before moving into produce and dry goods. In 1923, the family formally founded Camellia, named after L.H. Hayward Jr.’s wife’s favorite flower. The Haywards supplied beans and other staples to local groceries and restaurants. Around the 1940s, William Gordon Hayward had the revolutionary idea to package beans in individual bags for grocery stores. Today, the company is in its fourth generation.
More than 150 years after Edmund McIlhenny first experimented with a fiery blend of peppers, salt and vinegar, Tabasco Sauce is still made much the same way. The process is just slower now: The pepper mash ages up to three years in white oak barrels, and the vinegar is a highquality distilled variety. While the Original Red Pepper Sauce stays true to its roots, McIlhenny now makes nine varieties of pepper sauces, each with its own kick.
Milo’s Tea Company, 3rd Generation
In 1946, Milo Carlton started brewing tea at his North Birmingham burger shop, serving it with burgers and fries. It quickly took on a life of its own. Today, nearly 80 years later, Milo’s Tea is still family-owned, with Milo’s granddaughter, Tricia Wallwork, leading the 3rd generation. It is now the number-one refrigerated tea brand in the country, and the fastestgrowing lemonade.
by
Photo
Romney Caruso
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
It All Started at the Grocery Store
ɲ Community Coffee
Henry Norman “Cap” Saurage started making coffee in 1919 in his grocery store in Baton Rouge. He soon began blending coffee full-time — laying the foundation for what would become Community Coffee.
Jack Miller’s
Before he ever dreamed up his now-famous tangy barbecue sauce, Jack Miller was working in his family’s small grocery store in Sunset, Louisiana. Three generations later, the Millers are still at it — making barbecue sauce the same way Jack did, and still rooted in that small-store spirit where it all began.
ɲ Savoie’s
Eula and her husband Tom Savoie bought a small country grocery store off in Opelousas, Louisiana, and opened it as Savoie’s Grocery. They didn’t know it then, but they were laying the groundwork for a Cajun food go-to — known for traditional andouille, tasso and dressing mixes. Ms. Eula was even the first to market roux in a jar in the 1960s. Savoie’s is still family-owned and -operated.
ɲ Golden Flake
Golden Flake chips were once cooked in kettles in the basement of a grocery store in Birmingham, Alabama; that’s a humble start for what would become an iconic Southern snack brands. It was 1923 — the same year J.P. Rouse founded City Produce — when Golden Flake founders Frank Mosher and Mose Lischkoff began slicing and frying potatoes by hand, packaging them in paper bags they stapled shut. They called the company Magic City Foods. Under Sloan Bashinsky, Sr., (who took over in 1956) the name officially changed to Golden Flake in 1957.
Golden Flake grew into a multimillion-dollar operation and, in 2016, was acquired by Utz Brands, Inc., a fourth-generation, family-led company founded in 1921 by William and Salie Utz in their Hanover, Pennsylvania, home. Today, Utz is the largest privately held, independent snack brand in the U.S., with a portfolio that celebrates regional flavor and tradition.
That includes Zapp’s, the bold Louisiana-born brand launched by Ron Zappe in 1985 after the oil bust left him looking for a new venture. His initial creation was the nation’s first spicy Cajun potato chip. Like Golden Flake, Zapp’s are kettle-cooked in small batches for maximum crunch.
Zat’s Where It Started
by David W. Brown
My grandmother, who everyone called Bootsie, lived in a little house in Convent, Louisiana. From her front porch, you could see the levee and a couple of ancient oak trees whose gnarled branches reached wide in every direction; she was convinced they would one day come crashing down and destroy her home. Some 40-something years after I first learned of this impending doom, and almost 20 years after her death, the branches remain outstretched, and her little house remains standing. I believe the sheer force of her anxiety continues to protect the house.
In my earliest years, we lived in a little trailer a little further down River Road. Even after we moved a few miles away, I still recall spending most of my childhood at her house and, as a young man, even moved in with her for a few months after 9/11, before shipping off to boot camp.
Twigs that fell from those trees provided countless childhood guns and swords. In those pre-video game days, I made a thousand paper airplanes of various configurations and colored them with crayons my mom bought from TG&Y. My grandmother didn’t have a car. In those days, she didn’t have cable TV either. There was a brown, plastic box next to her window with a dial on it the size of a mayonnaise jar lid, and you could turn it this way or that, and somehow — it was magic then, and a mystery now — it would adjust the direction of an antenna on her roof. It’s how you could watch Morgus the Magnificent or Scooby-Doo on WGNO (channel 26 on UHF, the top knob) or the Saints on WWL (channel 4, the bottom knob). When we got cuts or scrapes, she would coat the injuries with Mercurochrome. It felt like a treat, that red dye you applied with a little plastic stick — you could just tell it was working and, in retrospect, so often was it applied that I probably should have died of mercury poisoning.
Bootsie always had pickles in the refrigerator. She made lemon pies from scratch. And in a large pitcher in her refrigerator, there was always root beer that she made from a little brown bottle with a bright yellow label emblazoned with a large letter Z. Today when I think of Zatarain’s, I think of breading mixes, spices and seasonings, but in those days, there was only the tiny bottle of root beer concentrate. When I stayed at her house during the summer and long school holidays, there was always the chance that we would finish the pitcher, and I could help make more. Refill the pitcher with water, add a half-tablespoon of the inky liquid and some sugar, and stir with a big wooden spoon. It might be the first recipe I ever knew. I still recall what it smelled like, and after the interminable wait while it cooled in the fridge, what it tasted like.
That root beer, inseparable from my childhood memories, was created in New Orleans nearly a century before I was born. At the time, Emile A. Zatarain, Sr. owned a grocery store in the city. Emile Zatarain was
a forward thinker. Zatarain’s store was the first in the state to use a mechanical register made by National Cash Register — similar to how Rouses Markets was the first store in Louisiana to use barcode scanners. Before then, stores used pen and paper to tally customer purchases. Zatarain even invented a 19th-century version of Instacart — just like Rouses uses today — to get groceries to their customers. (Theirs was a horsedrawn buggy, however.) A few years after opening for business, Zatarain got to work developing a root beer, hoping to premiere it at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, an international exposition to be held in St. Louis, Missouri. In the fair’s first two weeks, Zatarain served 16,000 glasses of his root beer — almost one per minute, if the fair were open 24 hours a day, which of course it wasn’t.
Back in New Orleans, he also sold root beer in his store, but soon switched to selling root beer extract — it was more efficient than selling by the glass — and he also started selling spices, olives, pickles and mustard. In those days, he sold them under the label “Papoose,” but everyone knew it was Zatarain’s and, eventually, they changed the name. He built a factory in a little brick building on Valmont Street, right off Magazine, near the place where Guy’s Po-Boys is today. Zatarain had five sons, and each of them worked there. One son eventually took over when his father retired — a true family business. In 1922, they reincorporated as E.A. Zatarain & Sons. The company was active in the community, sponsoring Little League teams and local events, and was one of the forces that helped found the Sugar Bowl at Tulane University.
No longer a grocery store, in 1963 Zatarain’s moved to Gretna, where it built a large facility to create its many products, which expanded now to include other Creole foods and rice mixes. That year, the family sold the company to James Viavant, who cofounded Avondale Shipyards.
(Viavant acquired other food businesses, including Pelican State Lab, bringing Fish-Fri into the Zatarain’s family.) In the 1980s, everyone wanted a piece of the action, and the company changed hands a half-dozen times. It was about as distinct as a New Orleans company can get, and by 2000, it was a nationally recognized brand, available on store shelves from coast to coast.
Though Maryland-based McCormick & Company paid $180 million in cash for Zatarain’s in 2003, its massive plant, 500 feet from the Mississippi River, remained on the West Bank. In fact, its presence in Gretna is larger than ever. In 2015, Zatarain’s tripled its footprint, expanding its facility with a gleaming, 80,000-squarefoot shop floor, able to produce hundreds of products and ship tens of millions of pounds of food annually across the planet. Today, Zatarain’s is one of the largest spice companies in the world — which, given the tumultuous history of spice as a driver of world affairs, is an epic achievement.
Zatarain’s is more than simply a company that makes food products in New Orleans. It is a worldwide ambassador for the city. It is, as its label promises, a New Orleans tradition since 1889. For me, though, it’ll always be Sunday afternoons and summer vacations at Bootsie Letulle’s house, a little brown bottle with a yellow label, and a cool pitcher waiting to be poured.
Zatarain’s Images Courtesy McCormick & Co.
Bottled in Biloxi
by Dominic Massa
“Drink Barq’s. It’s good.” You really don’t need more than those four words to sum up the appeal of our New Orleans hometown root beer, but we’re about to pour you a few more. It’s easy to see why those simple sentences have been emblazoned on the brand’s longneck glass bottles and shiny silver cans almost since 1898, when Edouard Barq — sometimes spelled Edward — began bottling his beloved brew.
It is good, and many of us wouldn’t want to be without it. Those competitors with just two letters or a mug in their name may have meaningful market share — but around here, we know Barq’s is better. It’s the only thing to drink with a fried shrimp po-boy at Domilise’s, alongside a roast beef po-boy at Parkway Bakery, in a frozen mug at Liuzza’s, and in a root beer float with vanilla ice cream from K&B or Brown’s Velvet. Those last two ain’t dere no more, but Barq’s still very much is.
The root beer brand whose ad campaigns now tout its “bite” may have gone national when Coca-Cola bought it 30 years ago, but its roots are definitely local, with a history that includes both Biloxi and New Orleans. That’s where the soft drink’s founder was born in 1871. When he was two, New Orleanian Edouard Barq’s family (which included three siblings) returned to his mother’s native France following her husband’s death. In Bordeaux — better known for wine than root beer — Barq learned the fine art of flavor, later studying sugar chemistry at the famed French university, the Sorbonne.
By 1890, a family business was born, and the Barqs moved back to the Crescent City. According to family historian Veni Harlan, the family began selling cordials, mineral waters and flavored drinks on Royal Street under the name Barq’s Brothers Bottling Company. An early creation was an orangecolored soda called Sparkling Orangine. It gained fame at the 1893 World’s Fair in
Chicago and 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.
According to Harlan, following the deaths of Edouard’s brothers, the New Orleans company went bankrupt and Barq moved to Biloxi. In 1897, he married Elodie Graugnard, and in 1898 the couple purchased Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works; he was eager to rebuild his business based on the skills he had acquired. “Over a period of years, Mr. Barq worked on a formula for root beer, calling upon his full store of knowledge that he had gained upon the flavoring extract industry,” explained a 1935 New Orleans States newspaper article. “He adhered to the thought that the sense of smell is just as important as the sense of taste in a beverage and eventually announced that he had developed a root beer formula.” Newspaper reporters explained that the “exceptional quality” of Barq’s root beer, first bottled in a one-room building, earned it a
quick following across Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas.
Barq, who died in 1943, would share his business acumen with a young apprentice, Jesse Robinson. In 1909, Robinson moved to New Orleans and opened his own bottling business. By 1934, having shared the secrets of his successful formula, Barq agreed to let Robinson exclusively bottle Barq’s Root Beer in Louisiana, while the founder would retain the business in Mississippi and elsewhere. Longtime drinkers will remember the way you could tell the difference: Barq’s bottles from New Orleans featured red labeling, while Biloxi bottles were blue.
Robinson and his wife operated their New Orleans plant, Cascade Bottling Works, on North Lopez Street in the Mid-City neighborhood. “You are assured of a sanitary and healthful drink when it bears the Cascade label,” claimed one newspaper ad. “Many call for Barq’s by name when they ask for a root beer. It is suggested that you do this.”
The Barq’s product line would grow to include creme sodas — a golden French vanilla one and a red one, called “red drink” by many. In addition to its unique flavor, early television ads for Barq’s touted the root beer’s health benefits — even if, these days, the FDA and your doctor might disagree. In one 1950s commercial, a booming narrator boasts that “Barq’s sparkles and bubbles, it quenches thirst and refreshes. It’s the root beer for today’s taste!” Follow that with a shot of two genteel ladies on a settee,
drinking Barq’s. One says, “Because it cools the blood and tones the system, we call Barq’s ‘bottled health’ and drink it morning, noon and night.” Many still do.
Two men who saw the brand’s popularity and potential were New Orleanian John Koerner III and his business partner, Texan John Oudt. In 1976, they bought the rights to Barq’s formula from his family, launching an ambitious growth plan that franchised the manufacturing and distribution rights to hundreds of bottlers nationwide. They marketed Barq’s to younger customers and introduced a Diet Barq’s in 1991. In 1995, they sold the business to Coca-Cola for a reported $91 million.
At the time, the great-grandsons of the founder were still involved in the company, overseeing the mixing of the secret root beer formula at the company’s syrup plant in Biloxi. “It’s really something to think that the root beer that my great-granddaddy produced in this little building would go on to become America’s best-selling, and even be sold in other countries,” great-grandson Edward “Sonny” Barq IV told the Associated Press in 1998. To borrow from the slogan: Barq’s — it’s very good indeed.
Angelo Brocato, 3rd Generation
After apprenticing at a sweets shop in Palermo, Angelo Brocato immigrated to New Orleans in the early 1900s and opened his own ice cream parlor in the French Quarter. He introduced the city to Italian-style desserts.
When Angelo passed away in 1946, his wife and children carried the business forward, expanding into local groceries and restaurants with their Italian ices and signature cuccidati — fig-filled Sicilian cookies. In 1981, they moved the bakery to Carrollon Avenue in Mid-City. Now in its 3rd generation, the Brocato family continues to share their sweet traditions.
Blue Plate Special
by David W. Brown
No one agrees on where mayonnaise first originated. No one even knows where the word mayonnaise came from. (It may have come from France, but no one is really sure of its etymology.) Still, there are some surprisingly strong opinions on what real mayonnaise contains: eggs, oil, vinegar and water — and the proportions matter; they’re what separates mayonnaise from mere “dressing.” There are actual laws that govern this. But while the recipe’s beginning is lost to time, we know exactly where the sort of shelfstable mayonnaise you might find on a shelf at Rouses was born: at a church fair in Pennsylvania in 1907, sold by a lady named Amelia Schlorer. Once people got a taste of it, Mrs. Schlorer’s mayonnaise became the cat’s pajamas in the U.S. But, I mean, c’mon, it was made in Pennsylvania, so there was an upper limit on how good it could taste. Then, in the 1920s, a businessman in New Orleans decided it was time to do it right, and Blue Plate was born.
But the story of Blue Plate and the Great Condiment Wars of the 1900s goes back a lot further than that, and has more in common with Game of Thrones than Ratatouille. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends, alliances are forged, and sandwiches get delicious.
It all began with a byproduct of cotton processing called cottonseed oil. Until the late 1800s, cottonseed oil was considered worthless. It was too hard to extract in any meaningful quantity; even if you could, the stuff tasted terrible. You could light it on fire, though, and it would be great for fueling lamps. But by the time someone invented a machine to hull cottonseed, freeing the material within for pressing, the petroleum industry had emerged and conquered the lamp oil market. As a result, the market for the stuff initially exploded (“Cottonseed oil is possible!”), then quickly collapsed (“…but we don’t know what to do with it!”). You couldn’t give cottonseed oil away — which, it turned out, was the perfect price.
In 1899, a food chemist named David Wesson found a way to make cottonseed oil palatable, and with it created a cooking oil called Snowdrift. More widely, however, people just called it Wesson Oil, and it
took the world by storm. Then in 1911, an upstart named Procter & Gamble looked at the newfound river of cottonseed oil and devised a product of their own: a vegetable oil they processed into a shortening called Crisco.
During cottonseed oil’s decline, and then its rapid ascent, companies involved in its production joined and split like drunken square dancers. The Virginia-Carolina Chemical Company owned Southern Cotton Oil Company, which had a division called Gulf and Valley Cotton Oil Company, which had been occasional partners with Portsmouth Cotton Oil Refining Company and American Cotton Oil Company. Well, American Cotton Oil eventually merged with the company that would become Best Foods, which you probably know from a little product called Hellmann’s Mayonnaise. Procter & Gamble acquired Portsmouth Cotton Oil Refining Company and struck out with a couple mayonnaises of their own — Dreem and Presto — though both failed in the market. (Mayonnaise just wasn’t their bread and butter.) In the end, it was cottonseed and mayonnaise all the way down.
Few cities benefited from all this more than the city of New Orleans, where all those companies had footprints or facilities. Such was the situation in 1924, when a group of New Orleans investors looked at the Virginia-Carolina Chemical Co. and realized that they were sitting on a gold mine. Virginia-Carolina was in the fertilizer business, and didn’t fully appreciate the potential of its foodstuff subsidiary, the Southern Cotton Oil Company, which owned Wesson’s oil through one of its divisions. So the New Orleans investors raised money and acquired the Southern Cotton Oil Company, merging it with a local cottonseed company called Southport Mill. They renamed their new business the Wesson Oil & Snowdrift Company.
Right away, the owners of the new company had a problem — and an opportunity. Wesson cooking oil was flying off shelves, but what did you do next? Create another oil that would compete with
their best-selling product? No, said Charles A. Nehlig, an executive at the company, in what was surely a scene ripped straight from Mad Men. You don’t create another oil. You create new products using the oil you already own. And what was the biggest product in stores at the time? Mrs. Schlorer’s mayonnaise.
Nehlig approached J.B. Geiger, a chemist at his company, to lead the effort. Geiger was the Oppenheimer of condiments. Making mayonnaise was easy, he knew; all it took was a few simple items and a whisk. But making veritable oceans of mayonnaise that could sit in a jar for weeks or months was a much taller order.
The company kicked in $5,000 for Nehlig and Geiger to set up shop in a warehouse in Gretna. While Geiger and his research team got to work creating the perfect product, Nehlig labored over what to call it, and how to market it. His wife, Lillie, was fond of the Blue Willow china pattern on a set of plates she had. Blue Plate it was! By 1929, jars of Blue Plate Mayonnaise were being trucked from Gretna as fast as they could make the stuff. Coincidentally, a thousand streetcar workers that year went on strike. Two former streetcar operators, Bennie and Clovis Martin, had opened a coffee stand and restaurant in the French Market, and wanted to support the workers.
“Our meal is free to any members of Division 194,” the brothers wrote in a letter to the union. “We are with you till hell freezes, and when it does, we will furnish blankets to keep you warm.” To feed these poor, hungry boys, they came up with large sandwiches on French bread. And what mayonnaise was on those sandwiches, eventually known as po-boys? You guessed it.
By the late 1930s, Blue Plate Mayonnaise had become so popular that they
needed government permission to truck in cottonseed oil to their plant 100 railroad cars at a time. At the start of the Second World War, the Navy bought seven million pounds of Blue Plate product for a halfmillion dollars — about $11 million today, adjusted for inflation. Soon, the whole world knew about Blue Plate.
It had, by then, become its own full division of Wesson-Snowdrift. (Blue Plate also tried things like coffee and peanut butter.) Nehlig, Geiger and others laid the cornerstone of the Blue Plate Mayonnaise Factory Building in the Gert Town neighborhood of New Orleans in 1941, opening for business in 1943. It was designed by celebrated local architect August Perez, Jr. in the “Streamline Moderne” style of Art Deco, with its white façade, curved corners and long windows. The building remains a stunner. In 2008, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its historical importance and architectural significance. In 2012, it was renovated into an apartment complex, Blue Plate Artist Lofts.
The manic desire for companies to control the world’s greatest mayonnaise continued well into the 1960s, when Hunt Foods and Industries acquired Blue Plate, resulting in a $300 million California-based food giant. No one around here liked that, but in 1974, New Orleans-based Wm. B. Reily & Company brought the mayo back to town, when it acquired Blue Plate for our city, as well as the historic factory. And Reily’s is an interesting story unto itself. Founded in 1902 by William B. Reily, its product line has grown to include Swans Down Cake Flour, Luzianne Coffee and Tea and, of course, Blue Plate. Since the day they opened their doors, the Reily family has run the company as a family business. Its current president and CEO is William B. Reily IV.
Changing hands? That’s just how it is in the rough-and-tumble world of mayonnaise. But in the end, it’s only right that a New Orleans family should own such an iconic New Orleans-born brand.
DEVILED EGGS
Makes 24 halves
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
12 large eggs
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons softened butter
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish (optional but highly recommended)
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste Hot sauce, to taste
Paprika, for garnish
Freshly chopped chives, for garnish
HOW TO PREP:
Steen’s Cane Syrup, 4th Generation
Steen’s Syrup Mill was founded in 1910 by C.S. Steen in Abbeville, Louisiana, using an open-kettle method that gave his cane syrup its deep, rich flavor. Today, siblings Jimmie and Carole Steen represent the 4th generation to run the mill.
Place eggs in a large saucepan and cover with cold water. Set over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Turn off heat, cover and let sit for 10-12 minutes.
Drain and rinse eggs under cold water or transfer to an ice bath. Peel and refrigerate, loosely covered, for 15 minutes.
Slice eggs in half lengthwise and gently remove yolks. Set egg whites aside. Mash yolks in a medium bowl until smooth, then stir in mayonnaise, mustard, butter, relish (if using), salt, pepper and hot sauce until creamy.
Fill each egg white with about 1½ teaspoons of the yolk mixture using a spoon, a piping bag fitted with a star tip, or a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off.
After filling with yolk mixture, sprinkle with paprika and garnish with chives. Serve chilled.
Reily Foods, 4th Generation
William B. Reily began roasting coffee in Monroe, Louisiana, in the early 1900s. By 1902, he had moved operations to New Orleans, taking advantage of ships bringing in fresh beans from around the world. Teaming up with Jacob Aron, he built a brand that understood how Southerners liked their coffee — and their tea. In the 1930s, Luzianne became one of the first teas specially blended for iced tea —a recipe that hasn’t changed since. Reily Foods is now led by 4th generation.
Crystal Hot Sauce, 3rd Generation
In 1923, Alvin Baumer, Sr. discovered a hot sauce recipe after purchasing a sno-ball syrup company in New Orleans. That recipe became Crystal Hot Sauce. The Baumer family still runs the company, with Alvin, Jr. and his son, Alvin “Pepper” Baumer III, continuing the tradition, three generations strong.
Elmer Chocolate, 3rd Generation
In 1855 pastry chef
Christopher Henry Miller opened a sweet shop in New Orleans. The company grew over generations and it's now the secondlargest maker of heart-shaped box chocolates in the country. The Nelson family took the reins in the 20th century and continues to lead the company into its 3rd generation.
Conecuh Sausage, 3rd Generation
After serving in World War II, Henry Sessions returned home to Evergreen, Alabama, with a simple goal — to make great sausage. Using pork shoulder, bacon trimmings and a touch of sugar, he built a smokehouse and a loyal following. Today, Conecuh is still family-run, with Henry’s son and grandson continuing the tradition.
Cajun Chef & Evangeline Hot Sauces, 3rd Generation
The Bulliard family has been in the hot sauce business for over a century. It started in 1910, when Edmond Bulliard developed the Evangeline brand in St. Martinville, Louisiana. In 1958, his grandson George Bulliard launched Cajun Chef Hot Sauce.
Chisesi’s Pride, 5th Generation
Philip Chisesi built a reputation at the French Market, selling chickens and rabbits. Over time, the family shifted from poultry to crafting hams, developing a signature teardrop shape and rich, smoky flavor that’s become a local favorite.
Kick off tailgate season with a spread worth celebrating. From classic po-boys to crowdpleasing deviled eggs and juicy burgers, Blue Plate turns every bite into a gamechanger. Revel in the rich, creamy flavor that keeps the party going – that’s the good stuff. THAT’s THE
OVER/UNDER
also was in Houston before the team landed C.J. Stroud, then spent the last two years in Dallas.
But this offseason, he got the opportunity to come back to a place he still holds close to his heart, and he couldn’t say no when the team offered him a two-year deal.
“It’s fun to be back,” Cooks said. “Fullcircle moment.”
The amount of time that has passed since his last season here, back in 2016, isn’t lost on him. The reminders are hard to miss.
“I wasn’t married and didn’t have kids back then,” Cooks said. “Now, I’ve got a wife and three kids. So, I think that alone is something special, to be back where it all started.”
by Nick Underhill
The last time Brandin Cooks was here, the Saints were at the end of one of their roughest chapters in recent history and were just starting to figure things out; the team is hoping they can figure things out again. Wide receiver Cooks is returning home after a decade to find the team in a similar spot to where it was when he left. New Orleans traded him right before the transformational 2017 draft that saw the team end up with players like Marshon Lattimore and Alvin Kamara, and the team actually used the pick it acquired for Cooks to draft another one of those franchise-changing players, offensive tackle Ryan Ramczyk.
So, instead of being part of that turnaround and enjoying what felt like a weekly celebration in the Superdome doing Choppa Style and dancing in the locker room with his teammates after every game, he spent the next decade playing for other teams. Some of those years were good. He played for New England and Los Angeles. But he
Cooks looks young in the commercials he and Donny Rouse shot for Rouses Markets back in 2014 and 2015; he has a twinkle in his eye and the youthful face of someone who is just stepping out into the world. He became an adult between then and now. Now, he has some age and wisdom on his face. He looks like someone you can go to for advice and guidance. You see the wins and the weight of the losses and all the years between when you look into his eyes. And that’s a good thing. The Saints are hoping to harvest those lessons and make him the leader of the offense now that he’s back.
And make no mistake: People are excited to have him here, and the team feels like it got a steal this offseason by signing Cooks.
But before we get into the off-field chatter, let’s start with the obvious: The Saints badly needed help at wide receiver. Chris Olave is a star, no doubt. And Rashid Shaheed has speed to burn and endless potential. Those two could theoretically be a dynamic one-two punch, but the team didn’t have much beyond them. So, they went out and got Cooks this offseason.
He's a little older now — almost 32, to be specific. And his last 1,000-yard season was in 2021. But when you see him at practice, his speed still stands out in a group of fast people. If he’s lost a step, you don’t really notice, because his feet still move too fast to really see when they hit the ground.
There’s been some talk that what the Saints are missing is a big receiver, and that having three guys who are each about six feet tall and 180 pounds won’t work; Cooks isn’t buying that noise. He’s heard it, but he thinks this group of players — himself, Olave and Shaheed — are going to prove the naysayers wrong.
WITH NICK UNDERHILL
“Brandin Cooks was the Saints’ first-round pick in 2014. But before he ever took the field, we filmed our first commercials with him and our CEO, Donny Rouse. As the campaign grew to feature local chefs — including legends like John Folse — it seemed like every chef wanted a Cooks jersey. That season, most of the city was wearing Brees — but in the kitchen, it was all about Cooks.”
— Marcy Nathan, Creative Director, Rouses Markets
“There’s a lot of narrative, you know; there’s not a tall guy, there’s not a big guy, but we all have the ability to separate,” Cooks said. “So it doesn’t matter, the similarities that we’ve got. We can all play in any space.”
Think about it — with Olave drawing all the attention and Shaheed a known threat to take the top off the defense, Cooks might have a ton of room to work in and could make people pay. Maybe he’s right. Maybe the Saints will always have someone running away from the defense and creating open throwing windows.
OK, so back to the behind the scenes: Cooks might not have to be the guy on the field. If he’s just a guy who makes some plays and makes things a little bit easier for potential Saints quarterbacks Tyler Shough or Spencer Rattler, then that part of reacquiring Cooks will be a huge win. But the team will also be leaning on him to provide leadership for a young offense — which might be the biggest benefit of this signing.
Cooks has been around a while and he’s learned a lot since 2016, back when he grew frustrated with the offense and got traded away. The wide receiver has a lot of maturity and professionalism to share, and this team needs that because, all of a sudden, it is very young on offense. Kamara is still a very strong leader, and so is Erik McCoy. But look around the rest of the room, and you’ll
see a lot of young guys, guys with those fresh faces — including some of the coaches.
And these young quarterbacks could certainly look to Cooks for knowledge. He played with Tom Brady and Jared Goff. Cooks has been to Super Bowls, played in big moments and knows what it takes to win — as well as the things that can make you lose. When you’re trying to reset and develop younger quarterbacks without having a veteran quarterback on the roster to help those guys along, having a few of those pillars around can help the process. Cooks can be one of those guys.
“He’s a phenomenal leader, phenomenal player. I think that combination is very valuable. He can still run. He can still play,” head coach Kellen Moore said. “He kind of had an unfortunate season last year with the injuries and the setbacks just in relation to that. His targets and catches and stuff were down. If he plays a whole season, they probably look a heck of a lot different. So, we feel like he’s still got the player in him, and the leader he’s going to be will be hugely valuable for our entire team.”
It's entirely possible Cooks has those types of numbers for the Saints. He had 26 catches for 259 yards last year, but the year before, he finished with 54 catches, 657 yards and eight touchdowns. If he can reproduce a season like that playing behind Olave and Shaheed — while adding some of those aforementioned leadership qualities — it would be a big win for this offense.
It’s funny, though. The young guys talking about him now probably sound like Cooks did when he talked about the veterans on this roster, back when he was here the first time.
“Oh yeah, I remember when I was young, and he was at Oregon State,” quarterback Spencer Rattler said. “We’ve been able to form a relationship. He’s one of our best vets: super-experienced in this league, and obviously adds a ton of talent on the offense.”
So, here he is, back where it all started. The question is, can he help set off the next party, after having sailed off before the last one got going? Making that happen would really make this a full-circle moment instead of just looping back.
TEAM UP FOR GOOD IS OUR YEAR-ROUND INITIATIVE TO SUPPORT THE COMMUNITIES WE SERVE.
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT We partner with local organizations, charities, and sometimes even our vendors or the New Orleans Saints to raise funds. In many cases, we donate directly. Whether it is helping to feed families, fight disease or respond to disasters, Team Up for Good is how we give back together.
WE’RE PROUD TO SUPPORT TOUPS FAMILY MEAL
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Toups Family Meal is a nonprofit started by Chef Isaac and Amanda Toups in March 2020 to fight food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re still going strong, preparing and delivering thousands of meals to families in need.
This summer, 500 kids will each receive 10 meals a week — five breakfasts and five lunches — all delivered by volunteers. We’re proud to support Toups Family Meal by donating food, products and funding to help make it happen.
“Every time I reach out to Rouses the answer is always, ‘Yes! How can we help?’” said Amanda Toups.
Where the chefs shop
by Poppy Tooker
Nothing tickles me like encountering New Orleans’ greatest chefs accompanied by their children in the carts, “making groceries” for their home kitchens. “It’s our neighborhood grocery,” Alon Shaya declared. “I stock up on basics but, with fouryear-old Ruth riding in the basket, I often end up with pretzels, cookies and croissants too,” he laughed. When the James Beard Award-winning chef finally takes a little time off, he heads to Rouses for head-on shrimp to use as bait for redfish he catches in the bayou. And Shaya’s wife, Emily, relies on Rouses to always have Chisesi’s Smoked Ham Shank, the secret ingredient in her award-winning beans. In the earliest days of Pomelo, Chef Aom Srisuk and Frankie Weinberg’s boutique Thai restaurant, the Tchoupitoulas Rouses store repeatedly saved the fledgling establishment from disaster. “When our original ice machine failed, Rouses became our ice source. We bought large quantities of ice,” Weinberg remembered. Now that the husband/wife team operate a second restaurant, Good Catch Bistro in the Central Business District, the Downtown Rouses has come to the rescue too. “We hosted a large party that requested vegan options,” Weinberg said. For a vegan dessert option, Chef Aom discovered Mauna Loa’s Dairy Free Ice Cream made from macadamia nut milk at Rouses that perfectly complemented her menu.
Isaac and Amanda Toups of Toups Meatery and the soon-to-come Armada Restaurant both adore Rouses. Isaac said, “I love the dry-aged ribeyes and the lump crabmeat. The booze selection is top-notch and, best
of all, I can grab some fresh flowers for Amanda too.” Amanda tears up when she reflects on Rouses Markets’ generous support of Toups Family Meal, the couple’s nonprofit feeding program dedicated to bridging the gap of food insecurity in New Orleans. “Every time I reach out to Rouses the answer is always, ‘Yes! How can we help?’
Chef Samuel Peery remembers his first trip to Rouses after moving to New Orleans to become executive chef at King Brasserie. “I actually took photos to send to chef friends around the country. There was everything from pickled pig’s feet to gator tail and turtle meat!” With a menu that focuses on Mediterranean cuisine, Chef Peery loves to experiment with some of the specialty imports he finds at Rouses.
Another recent New Orleans transplant, Andrew Bell, discovered Rouses when he lived in the French Quarter. “I love Rouses,” he exclaimed. “It’s an easy shot from The Bell” (the authentic British pub he operates on Esplanade Avenue). “Anytime we run out of an ingredient, we run to the Mid-City store. When I have a night off, I head there for fresh veggies to cook at home for a really healthy meal,” Bell said.
Haitian-American chef Charly Pierre of Fritai regularly shops at Rouses for mirlitons. “They’re always fresh and well-priced,” he reported. The highly seasoned dishes of Haiti require a lot of fresh, hot peppers too. “I find the scotch bonnets and habaneros there along with jasmine rice. Often, there are exotic wild mushrooms I use for inspiration too.”
At Tableau, Dickie Brennan’s restaurant located on historic Jackson Square, head of marketing and promotions Lindsay Ross often finds herself running to the Royal Street store for fresh flowers to decorate tables for parties and special events there. “When we hosted a huge Muses private party, the host requested a particular
kind of rum that we don’t normally have, so I just ran to Rouses and was easily able to fulfill that special request.”
As a lifelong New Orleanian, food has always been central to my life. When I wander down the aisles of my favorite Rouses store, I sometimes run into chef friends but I also enjoy visiting with Rouses employees. From the guy at the fish counter who knows just the size I want my salmon fillet cut, to the butcher who trims my holiday standing rib roast to order and the cashier who always greets me with a smile and wants to know, “Whatcha cookin’, dawlin’?,” Rouses is simply my happy place.
Chef Charly Pierre, co-owner of Fritai in Tremé, opened his Haitianinspired restaurant in 2016. In its first year, Fritai earned nods from Louisiana Cookin’ (Chefs to Watch), Vogue (Restaurants of the Year), Eater NOLA (Best New Restaurant), and a James Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant.
Chef Alon Shaya
Chef Alon Shaya is a James Beard Award winner and Chef-Partner of Pomegranate Hospitality, which includes Saba in New Orleans, Safta in Denver, and restaurants at the Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans. He’s also the author of a bestselling cookbook, Shaya. His next venture, Safta’s Table, opens later this year in New Orleans’ Lakeview neighborhood. Images Courtesy Fritai & Saba
Chef Charly Pierre
Lights, Chef s, Action
SOME OF THE GULF COAST’S FAVORITE CHEFS HAVE APPEARED IN OUR ADS
by Marcy Nathan, Creative Director
New Orleans has always celebrated its chefs and restaurants. But when we opened our first stores in the city in 2007 — acquiring A&P’s Southern Division just two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — the city’s love for its chefs had never been stronger.
Food was helping rebuild New Orleans.
We quickly started noticing just how many chefs were shopping in our stores — not just making a quick grocery run, but truly shopping, filling their carts with local produce, fresh Gulf seafood
and ingredients you didn’t find at just any grocery store, but you could find them at ours.
Our deep local roots and focus on fresh, local ingredients stood in stark contrast to the national chain we were replacing.
In early 2008, we launched Where the Chefs Shop — an advertising campaign that quickly became something more: a love letter to everything local and the people who shape Gulf Coast cuisine. It spotlighted some of the biggest culinary names in New Orleans and beyond — Paul Prudhomme, Susan Spicer, John Besh and Michael Regua, who served as executive chef at Antoine’s for decades — alongside rising stars like Alon Shaya and Brian Landry, then at Galatoire’s. Even Emeril Lagasse lent his imprimatur, appearing in print ads that celebrated his connection to the community through food.
My favorite TV spot featured the late Chef Paul Prudhomme proclaiming, “If you live on the Gulf Coast and you’re hungry, there’s no other place to go but Rouses!”
The campaign also gave longoverdue recognition to the people in the kitchen — the ones whose names weren’t always known, but whose food people remembered. We featured the chefs at Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Dickie Brennan’s and Crescent City Steaks. And we celebrated oyster shuckers and po-boy makers
just as proudly as we did the whitetablecloth chefs.
What began in New Orleans quickly expanded across the Gulf Coast, spotlighting the culinary traditions of Lafayette, Baton Rouge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast — and the shared reliance on local ingredients, fresh seafood and time-honored techniques.
When the Saints drafted Brandin Cooks in 2014, we did too — retooling the campaign as The Best Chefs and Cooks Shop at Rouses. And it made sense. Some of the best cooks I know don’t work in restaurants — they cook for their families, their neighbors, their communities. (Cooks has since returned to the team — and to Rouses shoppers’ hearts. See page 60.) That same year, we also opened our first stores in Alabama.
The pages of Rouses Magazine are where we continue to tell the stories of the Gulf Coast’s rich and flavorful food culture. Recent features have included Alex Patout, the Louisiana-born chef known for his iconic Cajun cooking, and another Cook — Eric Cook — who spent years in some of New Orleans’ most storied kitchens, including Commander’s Palace, before opening his own restaurants, Gris-Gris and Saint John, and authoring the cookbook Modern Creole: A Taste of New Orleans Culture and Cuisine
It may have started as a campaign, but it’s always been true: The best chefs and cooks shop at Rouses.
BEING LOCAL MEANS SHOWING UP FOR OUR NEIGHBORS — ESPECIALLY IN TIMES OF NEED.
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT Each year, we help fight hunger across the Gulf Coast by donating millions of meals to local families. Our Food Bank Assistance Program runs year-round, supporting food banks in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. It’s easy to help. You can scan a donation coupon at the register to add a few dollars to your total, or purchase a pre-packed Brown Bag of canned goods and drop it in the donation barrel. From there, local food banks and food pantries collect directly from our stores and get those supplies to the people who need them most.
BACKYARD FRIEND FOREVER BACKYARD FRIEND FOREVER
KILLS MOSQUITOES THAT MAY CARRY ZIKA & WEST NILE
PROTECTING YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS FOR 40 YEARS YOUR NEW YOUR NEW
CONGRATULATIONS TO ROUSES MARKETS ON 65 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE.
FROM OUR FAMILY BUSINESS TO YOURS.
By Ann Maloney
The simplest way to enjoy crisp, well-seasoned fried chicken and pork chops is to let someone else do the messy frying.
That’s one of the reasons Rouses Markets sells about 3.4 million pounds of fried chicken and pork chops each year, with peak sales at major holidays — including, of course, Mardi Gras. Another reason that Rouses fried chicken and chops are so popular is that they are well-seasoned and freshly prepared.
“I have always thought we have not just great fried chicken for a grocery store, but great fried chicken compared to any grocery store or restaurant in the country,” said Mike Westbrook, Director of Deli, Cold Cuts and Sushi. “I put it up there with the best.
“After church on Sundays, we get huge orders to feed large groups,” he said. “Sometimes we get orders for 1,000 pieces of fried chicken.”
While over the years there have been equipment upgrades, the cooking process has been consistent, he said.
“When I first started with the company, I was told, ‘Do not mess with the fried chicken recipe.’ That was like my Colonel Sanders moment,” he said. “It was clear to me the family loved the recipe and tradition, and it is my job not to change it, but to make sure it stays the same for generations of customers.”
Rouses doesn’t offer a copycat recipe to try at home, but Westbrook was willing to share tips for those frying their own.
His first recommendation?
“Always choose fresh, bone-in chicken or pork chops,” he said. The reason: Fresh chicken tastes better, and the bone helps the protein retain moisture, flavor and heat.
Rouses uses brined chicken to ensure the meat retains moisture. Some people like to brine in salty buttermilk, but Westbrook recommends using black tea, because the
tannins tenderize the protein and give it a flavor boost. For one pound of chicken, for example, he recommends ½ tablespoon of kosher salt dissolved in two cups of sweet tea. Soak the poultry for at least 1 hour or overnight in the refrigerator.
After brining, lightly salt and pepper the chicken or chops; then dip the meat in a binder (Westbrook suggests a mixture of buttermilk and hot sauce), and bread or flour the pieces.
For the flour or breading, season it as you like, maybe with salt, pepper and Cajun seasoning. If you’re after a crisper crust, Westbrook has a secret ingredient.
“I like adding cornstarch to my flour mixture,” he said, adding that the ratio should be 2 parts flour to 1 part cornstarch, so for 2 cups of flour add 1 cup of cornstarch. Or, he said, try substituting rice flour for the all-purpose flour.
Finally, Rouses adds special touches, such as double-battering the chicken and chops. The pieces are dipped then coated in seasoned flour — and then those two steps are repeated.
“Double batter matters,” Westbrook says. “It keeps it moist.”
When it comes to the frying oil, peanut or canola oil are best, he said.
Before you start cooking, gather the tools you need.
The right pot: If you don’t have a standalone, temperature-controlled fryer, a deep frying pan, Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot would be best. At home, it is ideal if you can fry everything in one batch — or at most, in two batches — because pieces of crust will break off, sink to the bottom and, eventually, burn.
An instant-read, digital thermometer: The thermometer can ensure your oil temperature is just right, and it is the safest, easiest way to tell if the protein is cooked to the proper temperature.
At home, you’ll want to heat the oil to 300°F, and you’ll want the oil to remain as close to 300° as possible while you’re frying.
To tell if the protein is cooked thoroughly, insert the thermometer in the thickest part of the meat, away from the bone and any fat. Chicken should be cooked to 165°F and pork to 145°F, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This reduces the threat of food-borne toxins.
Tongs: Unless you have a lift-out fry basket, this long-handled, inexpensive, grip-and-lift tool will make it easier and safer to add and remove the pieces from hot oil.
Heatproof rack: You get a crisper crust if you place the pieces on a rack set inside a sheet pan because it keeps the pieces from resting in drained oil on paper towel.
WAYS TO JAZZ THINGS UP
So, you’ve got golden-brown and crunchy chicken or chops. Now it’s time to zhuzh them. And this starts as soon as they leave that hot oil, Westbrook said.
“Don’t be afraid to lightly re-season the fried chicken [or chops] right out of the fryer,” he said, suggesting sprinkling them with a little salt or your favorite Cajun seasoning. “The hot grease will absorb that seasoning.”
Whether you fry them yourself or buy the chicken and chops, think outside the box for serving ideas, he said.
Drizzle the pieces with a little plain honey, Mike’s Hot Honey or your favorite homemade or store-bought sauce, such as Stubb’s Sweet Heat Barbecue Sauce or Frank’s Red Hot. Want a sweeter take? Serve the pieces with your favorite jam or jelly. Westbrook leans toward orange marmalade or spicy pepper jelly. Gently heat the jam or jelly first to make it easier to drizzle.
Finally, if you have leftover seasoned flour, don’t toss it. Use it as the base for whitepepper gravy for the chicken or pork. Place a few tablespoons of the flour in a pot, add oil and stir until it darkens into a roux. Add hot chicken stock or water to reach desired thickness. Keep in mind that if the flour has
touched raw pork or chicken, you must bring it to a lively boil to ensure that it is safe to eat. Fried chicken is delicious cold, but if you want to reheat it or the chops, place the pieces on a lightly oiled, heat-proof rack inserted in a sheet pan and place it in a 375°F oven for about 10 minutes until it’s warm.
Community Coffee, 5th Generation
Local, family-owned businesses know what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself. For over 100 years and five generations, the Saurage family has put their community — and their coffee drinkers — first.
Community Coffee got its start in 1919, when Henry Norman “Cap” Saurage began roasting beans in the back of his grocery store in Baton Rouge. He quickly realized coffee wasn’t just something people drank — it brought them together. Neighbors would stop in for a bag of beans and stay to talk. Before long, Cap was blending coffee full-time.
Today, Community Coffee is still run by the Saurage family. Chairman Matt Saurage, a 4th-generation owner, says working at the company is about more than continuing a Louisiana family tradition — though it’s proudly that, too.
“Our first name is ‘Community,’” says Saurage. “And we have to remember that we are successful because of those around us who support us.”
What matters most to Saurage is the ability to give back — by creating jobs and opportunities and, even more important, by helping improve the quality of life in the communities where he works, and where his customers and employees live.
Our roots are in the local produce business
by David W. Brown
City Produce is the first company that the Rouse family started after arriving in America from Sardinia.
“Around 1899, my great-grandpa came over from Italy,” says Donald Rouse. “He came in through New York with a sponsor, and he had to get work. He had to be settled in before he could send for his wife — my great-grandmother — and my grandpa.” The immigrant moved to Westwego, adjacent to New Orleans, where there was a thriving Italian community. There, he found a job on a little farm, and worked tirelessly until he could afford to set up a sharecropper deal with the landowners. “That is how he started in the farming business.”
Donald’s great-grandmother, and two children, came over in 1900.
Donald’s grandfather, Joseph “J.P.” Rouse, was barely a year old then.
In the early 1920s, J.P. moved to the Thibodaux, Louisiana area, because he felt the ground there was fertile and would be good for farming. Eventually, J.P. was able to buy 10 acres of land. At first, he planted watermelons, tomatoes and shallots — good, reliable local crops. To sell his produce, he opened a little stand on Jackson Street; he would load up whatever he had grown, then bring it all to the stand to sell. Over time, he managed to buy additional land and grow yet more.
“When he did that,” says Donald, “he started growing more shallots and bringing them to New Orleans to sell.” He founded his company in 1923, calling it City Produce.
As the company grew, every day he and his small group of employees would load his big green truck with the best produce he had grown, and drive it all over to sell. Because his crops were so prolific, he also brought shallots to what, at the time, were called “the sheds” in Thibodaux, where wholesalers would buy the crops, load them up on railcars, and ship them to other markets. (The sheds were a lot like the stands on docks today where you can buy fresh shrimp.)
J.P. quickly figured out that he did not need to sell his products to other people to do the shipping — he could do that himself.
Eventually, when a shed opened and J.P. could set up shop there, he started selling his shallots to other markets. When demand exceeded his supply, he started buying shallots from other local farmers as well. For the Rouse family, supporting local farmers has always been a priority, and this is one of its earliest instances.
Unlike other shippers, J.P. or a member of his team would actually go into the fields where farmers grew shallots, and would talk to the farmers to get a feel for the crops, their likely yields and their quality.
J.P. would buy entire fields rather than what was later harvested. Though he never knew exactly how much he was going to get from a harvest, he guaranteed farmers a certain amount of money for the crops — which was a win for everybody — and many local farmers soon worked out similar deals with him.
J.P. and his men began shipping produce out of Thibodaux to markets such as Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, Pittsburgh — even as far away as the Caribbean. And they extended the reach of where they bought products, acquiring such crops as potatoes and sweet potatoes from Fairhope, Alabama and rural Mississippi, and red potatoes from areas in South Louisiana.
When Anthony Rouse, who later founded Rouses Markets, reached age 14, he climbed into the truck driven by his father, J.P., and joined the family business, going dutifully to the sheds for the unloading, sales, loading and shipping of the produce.
The produce business had high times and low. City Produce weathered the Great Depression, though Anthony learned well the lessons of that hard time in American history. When J.P. died, Anthony Rouse and his cousin, Ciro, took over City Produce. But there was trouble on the horizon. The produce export business slowed as more products began shipping from Mexico. Concurrently, the oil industry in Louisiana was reaching its peak, and Anthony realized that farmhands would have other work options and would soon be in short supply, which would make the company harder yet to keep going. So Ciro started looking far and wide for what could be the family’s next move in the food business, and soon settled on the idea of opening a grocery store in Houma.
“They named it Ciro’s because, when you hung the letters on the outside of the store, Ciro’s had fewer letters than Rouse’s,” says Donald. “That’s a true story.”
The two put all their money (and a lot of the bank’s money) into this tiny, 7,000-square-foot store, hiring two workers and doing everything else themselves: from stocking merchandise to working the register. Donald joined the company when he was old enough, bagging groceries and rounding up carts out front. When Ciro retired in 1975, Donald bought out Ciro’s interest in the company, and he and his father renamed the store “Rouse’s.” You might have noticed that Rouses stores today lack the apostrophe. The reason is because in those early days, the lightbulb in the punctuation mark kept burning out, and rather than continuing to spend the money fighting a losing battle, Anthony — ever a practical man — decided to take the apostrophe down from the store sign and solve the problem permanently.
Matt Ranatza, 3rd Generation
Matt Ranatza is a third-generation farmer from Belle Chasse, Louisiana. In 1937, his grandfather grew the very first Creole tomatoes. Today, the family farm has expanded to include local favorites like cauliflower, cucumbers, squash, zucchini — and of course, Creole tomatoes. We’ve always bought from local farmers. In fact, we have more local produce than any other grocery store in the region, including from longtime family farms like the Ranatzas.
The Local Farmers
by Jason Martinolich
If you asked me what Rouses means to me, I’d say “family” and “local.”
My first real job for Rouses was working as a service clerk, grabbing buggies from the parking lot and stacking them together for the store guests. You’d sweat in the summertime, but it was fun too. Next, I learned how to bag groceries. There was a real art to it: stacking things just so, keeping the cold items together. And they also trained me to use a cash register.
When I was a senior in high school, the produce department manager at the store asked me if I would like to work in the produce section.
Every Monday, the local farmers came in through the back door of the store, where the cooler and prep room were. “Hey, are you looking for any produce?” they’d say. “This is what I got from my garden today.” There was Mr. Millet with his navels, satsumas and cabbage. Mr. Peltier with all sorts of things. Miss Verdy with crates of eggplant, squash and bell peppers. I’d check, weigh and pay for their deliveries right there at the prep table. Looking back, I realize that the produce department is where I really learned to put a lot of pride in my work, and to respect our local farmers and providers.
Mr. Anthony Rouse lived next door to the store. You always knew when he was at work; you’d hear his little hint of a Cajun accent, then he’d come up and take the time to talk to us to see how things were going, to see if we needed anything, to find out what the
Lessons from Mr.
Anthony
by Blake Richard
“I was 17 or 18 years old and working in the seafood department at one of the stores,” said Blake Richard, now Director of Marine Supply and Commercial Sales. “It was about a week after Katrina, and Granny and Pa, they were back at home — they were by themselves because everyone was busy running the store. And I remember Pa came to the store and said, ‘I need you, boy.’”
Blake arranged to have his shifts covered and spent the next few days helping his grandfather clean up after the storm. “I woke at five o’clock every morning with Pa, and he would get on his tractor and I would help him pick up the branches.” A tree had been uprooted in the back of the house, and when Mr. Anthony tried to pull the rest of it free, one of the roots broke a water line. “It was shooting out everywhere,” said Blake, “and I remember he said, calmly, ‘Come see, boy.’ And it was hot as can
farmers were bringing in. One time, he asked about the tomato display. It was running pretty low — had any farmers come by? They had, I told him, but the tomatoes didn’t look perfect, so I didn’t buy them.
“Boy, don’t you ever leave farmers having to take produce back,” Mr. Anthony said. “They took the time and did all that work to grow those things. Even if they’re not perfect, go ahead and buy them and just put them on discount. We support the local farmer.”
But out of all the produce, Mr. Anthony was most interested in the
shallots. That was his thing. He had worked with his dad at City Produce, buying, sorting and packing shallots on ice for shipment. When his father, J.P. Rouse, passed away, Mr. Anthony took over that business with his cousin. It’s where Rouses Markets came from. One time, I told him I couldn’t keep up with all the shallots we had on sale because we were selling so many. Bundle them up, he said. “I’d rather make one dollar selling 10 of them, than one dollar selling one.” If the farmers could grow them, we would find a way to sell them. We still do today.
be — I’m out there, it’s just me, Pa and Granny — and Pa gave me a shovel and said, ‘I need you to keep going down until you hit metal.’ And it was a long way down!”
Mr. Anthony had Blake searching for a water valve. “I had no idea what I was doing. So finally, I hit metal. And he said, ‘OK, boy, I need you to dig three feet down and five feet across.’ And I was like — all right!” he laughed. “He commented on it the whole time — I was digging the hole wrong, according to Pa. And finally, I dug this enormous hole and shut the valve off myself. Then we grabbed this big Bobcat tractor; we went out there, and I had to wrap chains around the trunk covered in fire ants, and Pa took off on the tractor and this thing was popping wheelies, dragging this big old tree.”
The tree’s remains finally removed, Mr. Anthony looked at Blake and said, “Now, don’t do what I did and break the water line, but that’s how you fix everything else.”
Jack Miller’s, 3rd Generation
Jack Miller developed his tangy sauce at the American Inn, his restaurant in Ville Platte. He knew he had something special when customers started asking to take some home. He first bottled his Bar-B-Que Sauce in 1955. That bold blend of tomato, mustard and spice hasn’t changed since. Three generations later, the Miller family is still making barbecue sauce the same way Jack did.
Blake said, “I’ll never forget that. He wanted to make sure we knew how to dig a ditch right. He would do everything in his power to teach us.”
Tony Chachere’s, 3rd Generation
In the 1970s, Tony Chachere began mixing up Creole seasoning blends for friends and neighbors in Opelousas. His Original Creole Seasoning quickly became a pantry staple across Louisiana and beyond.
The company remains family-owned, with Tony’s grandson carrying on the legacy — adding new blends while staying true to the bold flavor that made the name famous.
What the Water Couldn’t Wash Away
A LOOK BACK, 20 YEARS AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA
by Marcelle Bienvenu
On Thursday, August 25, I was working at Emeril’s Homebase in New Orleans and, around 4pm, I packed up to return to my home in St. Martinville.
My husband greeted me with the news that a hurricane was in the Gulf of Mexico and was heading toward the Louisiana/Mississippi coast. We both knew the drill.
• Take down all hanging flower baskets and wind chimes.
• Check our battery-operated flashlights (at the time, we didn’t have a generator).
We had a case of bottled water on hand, as always. Medicine, cash and important papers were secured in a watertight container. And both cars were filled with gasoline.
As the weekend approached, we kept up with the forecast and prayed Katrina would not come our way. Other than experiencing a few gusts of wind and light rain, we felt secure and safe. I was scheduled to attend the Duck Festival in Gueydan on Sunday afternoon to judge a cook-off. My contact told me everything was fine, and I spent the afternoon tasting myriad duck dishes. I headed back to St. Martinville in the late afternoon; I observed the darkening clouds and felt the wind bouncing off my car.
When I arrived home, my husband had a cocktail waiting for me, and the radio and television were on. We sat on the porch and noticed that Bayou Teche was a little choppy. We went to bed listening to weather reports. It appeared we were not in the path of Katrina. Aah, we were safe.
Early the next morning I received a call from a photographer friend in Canada who wanted to know if we were okay. He was concerned (as I was) about New Orleans. It wasn’t until later in the day that we were shocked by the news that New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast had taken the brunt of the storm.
Anyone who lived in the devastated areas of both Louisiana and Mississippi after the storm can attest to the chaos that ensued. Phones — both cell and landline — were mostly useless. The electricity was out; in fact, most utility service of any kind was disrupted. I tried to reach Judy Walker, my food editor at The Times-Picayune, to no avail. I remembered that Pableaux Johnson (formerly of nearby New Iberia and a freelance food writer then living in New Orleans) had a second home in St. Martinville. I headed there and found him and Brett Anderson (at the time a restaurant critic for The Times-Picayune), and learned that the newspaper’s staff had fled the city.
After Hurricane Katrina caused severe flooding in New Orleans, the staff of The Times-Picayune evacuated their flooded headquarters and relocated to Houma, Louisiana, approximately 60 miles southwest of the city. Approximately 230 staff members and their families used the newspaper’s delivery trucks to travel through the flooded streets to safety. This move was deemed shocking by some, including Steven Newhouse (chairman of Advance Publications, which owned the paper at the time), who noted that the situation was even worse than imagined.
While many staff members evacuated, some reporters remained in the region to cover the storm. The newspaper’s website was kept updated with continuous coverage, and the print edition resumed publication after four days. The Times-Picayune’s coverage of Katrina was critically important during a time when communication and information were extremely limited; their work earned them two Pulitzer Prizes.
It was a good week or more before I heard from Judy Walker, who was at the time in Houma with other staff members. Needless to say, my weekly food column was not a priority at the moment, and I was told to just hang on.
The staff at The Times-Picayune returned
to the T-P building and somehow got into a temporary rhythm of publishing the paper and, eventually, my food column Cooking Creole returned to print.
About a year after the storm, James O’Byrne, features editor at the T-P, called to ask if I would be willing to put together a cookbook featuring recipes that had been lost and found during the aftermath of the storm.
A few days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans area and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I remember thinking about the opening title of the movie Gone With the Wind, in which it says something to the effect that the civilization once known in the South is no more than a dream, that you should look for it only in books, as it is gone with the wind.
I realized that the New Orleans I knew and loved might never be the same again. I pushed the thought from my mind as my husband and I began receiving evacuees at our home, which was virtually unscathed from Katrina since we were some 130 miles west of the monster storm.
For days we lodged and fed people who had no idea what they were going to find when they returned to the flooded city. But as usual in times of crisis, I turned to my stove and made gumbo, jambalaya, po-boys, and red beans and rice, which gave us all a zone of temporary comfort. After all, we Louisianians do best when our stomachs are full and satisfied.
I’ve always believed that New Orleans locals have a 24-hour-a-day love affair with food. They regale you about a meal they enjoyed the night before, spend most of their mornings deciding what to have for lunch and where to have it, and anticipate the menu for their evening meal.
I (along with so many others) watched as the city was pumped dry and inhabitants
Photos by Romney Caruso
were faced with the arduous task of going through their waterlogged homes and pitching out furniture, freezers and refrigerators packed with decaying food, ruined photo albums, and most of their personal belongings.
And while damaged family photos and other memorabilia caused many a tear to fall, there were many who also cried over their molded recipe collections.
And so it began — rebuilding New Orleans one recipe at a time. It wasn’t long before The Times-Picayune was inundated with numerous requests for favorite recipes lost in the deluge. Judy Walker, through her Times-Picayune recipe-trading column, Exchange Alley, began the task of finding lost recipes — either from the newspaper’s library, electronic files and other databases, or by putting out the call to readers whose recipe files weren’t ruined by the hurricane and could possibly supply a “lost” recipe.
The local, state and federal officials bickered about whose fault it was that citizens were left stranded and wanting, and how the levee system would be rebuilt; meanwhile, faced with the task of removing mountains of debris, the local folks were trying to return to some kind of normalcy.
Residents were anxious for their favorite restaurant, corner store, sandwich shop or neighborhood cafe to reopen. They wanted a roast beef po-boy dripping with gravy, a bowl of thick, rich gumbo, or maybe just a cup of café au lait and a hot beignet to give them both physical and spiritual sustenance
as they embarked on the road of rebuilding their homes and their lives.
Most wanted the kitchen to be the first room (before their bathrooms) to be redone. Many survived on makeshift kitchens with perhaps a one-burner cooktop with heat supplied by canned butane. Others set up outdoor BBQ or gas grills on which they could prepare meals.
A reader wrote: “I, like thousands of others, lost everything in the Katrina flood. I am now living temporarily in Hammond, and I also lost most of my recipes I had cut out of The Times-Picayune over the years. I did have a few in a shoebox in the attic that didn’t get wet. I am sending you a couple of them that your readers might like to have.”
Another reader and frequent contributor sent in this note:
“Now that we’re pretty much trapped inside by the steamy weather, I’ve been taking time when I can to sort through the basketful of recipes I’ve clipped from magazines and The Times-Picayune. Lo and behold, yesterday I came to the very last food section on August 25, 2005, before the big K. It was a shock to read over these yellowing pages and think about those lost days of innocence. I’m going to save this in my Katrina file, but I’m also thinking that others might like to have some of those recipes again as a remembrance of the days before the storm, when we all could sit at the kitchen table and open the paper to the warm pleasures of culinary possibilities.”
It became apparent to The Times-Picayune staff that a book containing beloved recipes of its readers was in order.
Readers were asked to send in requests for their favorite recipes. Within two months, we received over 500 responses. Not only did people make requests for their lost recipes, but also sent in recipes they thought should be included in the collection.
The responses ranged from desperation to appreciation, as well as willingness to share recipes. Some kind and generous soul sent a 40-page fax of his personal recipe collection.
It’s interesting to note that reading many of the letters felt like going down memory lane. There were those who remembered the Italian seed cakes that appear on the St. Joseph Day altars. Others wanted a simple but popular recipe such as dump cake. Some wanted the recipes from the now-defunct McKenzie’s bakery as well as the recipes for Mile High Pie from the Caribbean Room at the Pontchartrain Hotel on St. Charles Avenue and the cheesecake from Solari’s. One lady was anxious to find a gumbo recipe she remembered from a feature on favorite dishes of Saints football players.
We found most of the requested recipes and, needless to say, it was difficult to determine which recipes to include, but we thought the collection offered something for everyone. We included old standards like gumbo, jambalaya, oyster patties, bread pudding, and grillades and grits. But we also chose to include favorites like Mexican lasagna, Country Club
COOKING UP
A STORM
ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT After Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans in 2005, Cooking Up a Storm: Recipes Lost and Found from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans , was published to tell the story — recipe by recipe — of one of the great food cities of the world and the determination of its citizens to preserve and safeguard their culinary legacy. Paperback and hardcover editions are still available at many local bookstores and online.
Vincent Laforet/The New York Times/Redux
chicken salad and Chiqui’s cream cheese dip. And we were happy to include other recipes from bygone days — beef daube glace, calas, Masson’s oyster & artichoke soup and shrimp Mosca.
The majority of the recipes came from columns in the newspaper a myriad of Times-Picayune staff food writers (the late Myriam Guidroz, Leon Soniat, Constance Snow, Dale Curry, Paulette Rittenberg, Judy Walker and me, Marcelle Bienvenu). But
Leidenheimer Baking Company, 5th Generation
Since 1896, Leidenheimer has been baking the French bread that defines a po-boy — light, crisp and famously full of character. Founded by George Leidenheimer, a German immigrant, the bakery earned a loyal following for its signature loaf, perfectly suited to New Orleans’ favorite sandwich.
The tradition continues with 5thgeneration baker William Whann and his father, Sandy, who still use time-honored techniques and recipes passed down for more than a century.
there were other recipes that won honors for home cooks in The Times-Picayune cook-off contest. Some recipes in the collection date back to the 1960s, while others are from more recent years. Several recipes came from restaurants and chefs in the area.
The list of recipes we compiled clearly defines the varied cultural backgrounds and their influence on the cuisine in and around South Louisiana and Mississippi.
When I submitted the final list of recipes to be included in the cookbook, I reflected on my initial response to the disaster. Although there were so many things lost and gone with the wind (and water), the city did return; it’s different now, but perhaps better. Hopefully, this book we created continues to give strength and provide sustenance to those who rebuilt this beloved area.
Marcelle Bienvenu’s timeless classic, Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make a Roux?, is a treasure trove of over 200 recipes — now revised with a Foreword by Emeril Lagasse. Available wherever books are sold.
THE BON TON CAFÉ’S BREAD PUDDING
When it closed its doors, the Bon Ton Café held the distinction of being the thirdoldest restaurant in New Orleans, behind only Antoine’s and Tujague’s. First opened in 1877 at 308 Magazine Street, it eventually settled just down the block at 401 Magazine. The restaurant passed through several owners until 1953, when Alzina and Al Pierce — a husband-and-wife team from the bayou country near Houma — took over. They shifted the restaurant’s cuisine away from its original French Creole tradition, and began serving a menu rooted in Cajun home cooking.
Among the Bon Ton Café’s most requested desserts? A warm, boozy bread pudding, with a recipe the Pierces were always proud to share.
The Pierces retired and closed the Bon Ton in early 2020, just before the pandemic. Bon Ton Prime Rib opened in the same space last year with a focus on steaks — although they still offer a variety of Cajun-inspired seafood dishes.
SERVINGS: 8
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
1 loaf French bread, torn into pieces (about 5 cups)
1 quart milk
3 large eggs, beaten 2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla
1 cup raisins
3 tablespoons margarine or butter
Whiskey Sauce (recipe follows)
HOW TO PREP:
Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, soak bread in milk for about 30 minutes; crush with hands till well-mixed. Set aside.
To the bowl of soaked bread, add beaten eggs, sugar, vanilla and raisins, and stir well. Set aside.
Melt the margarine or butter and pour it into a thick 9" x 13" pan. Spread the bread pudding mixture directly on top, then bake in preheated oven till very firm, about 1 hour.
Let cool, then cut the bread pudding and portion it into individual oven-proof dessert dishes. When ready to serve, ladle whiskey sauce on top of each and and place them on a baking sheet under a preheated broiler. Heat under broiler for a few minutes; watch closely so as not to burn the sauce.
WHISKEY SAUCE
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
½ cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg, well-beaten
3 tablespoons bourbon
HOW TO PREP:
Mix the butter and sugar together until creamy. Place creamed sugar and butter in double boiler, and whisk continuously until very hot and the sugar is completely dissolved.
Remove from the heat and slowly add the well-beaten egg. Whip the egg vigorously as you add it to the mixture so it doesn’t curdle. Let cool slightly, then whisk in the bourbon. Serve over bread pudding.
