The venerable Cajun meat market and its collection of smoked, stuffed and trussed pork-centric fare is in the fabric of South Louisiana, and plenty of us here in Baton Rouge trek west toward Acadiana to stock up on cracklin’, jerky and boudin. Here in the Capital City, we might lack the sheer volume of Cajun boucheries found in the state’s coastal prairie, but there are hidden gems in the greater Baton Rouge area that will keep you in good supply of smoky pig parts.
There’s Ronnie’s Boudin and Cracklin’ House on Florida Boulevard, Benoit’s Country Meat Block in Addis, and one of the most visited among area residents—Bergeron’s on Highway 415 in Port Allen, a short distance from the Mississippi River Bridge and downtown Baton Rouge.
Bergeron’s has developed a reputation for its traditional boucherie items, for prepared “black pot” dishes like red beans and rice and crawfish etouffee, and for a wide range of specialty meats. Next door is the companion restaurant originally founded by owner Craig Bergeron, which remains a draw for the lunchtime chemical plant crowd.
The market has also grown to be a top site for deer processing, growing from about 250 deer annually to about 1,000. And just last month, Bergeron expanded the meat market again to include a “general store” intended to make it easier for hunters and tailgaters on their way to parties, games or weekend camps.
“A lot of hunters were coming in to pick up sausages or stuffed chickens to take to the camp, and we figured we needed to add groceries for them,” Bergeron says.
Growing up in Port Allen, Bergeron always loved to cook, especially classic Cajun and Creole fare in cast-iron pots. As a young man, he worked a blue-collar job for Castrol Oil and cooked routinely for plant events and friends’ parties. Eventually, the itch to cook professionally became too hard to ignore, so in 2003 Bergeron rolled the dice and opened his own meat market/café, preparing and selling classic Cajun meats along with plate lunch comfort food.
“I walked away from benefits and job security, and it was really scary,” says Bergeron. “But I kept listening to what my customers were saying. If enough people didn’t like the way something tasted, I’d make adjustments.”
For example, Bergeron stopped putting liver in his boudin, a common ingredient in Cajun Country. “People around here just really don’t like it in their boudin as much they do to the west,” he says.
The freezer case at Bergeron’s is an indication of the entrepreneur’s enthusiasm for his craft. Dozens of different items lie in wait, from signature gumbos, chilis, red beans and other heat-and-eat foods, to meats, seafood and vegetables methodically stuffed with various accoutrements.
It’s a tribute to Louisiana’s penchant for excess and culinary gadgetry. Using a high-octane stuffer that ensures the items aren’t overfilled (a $100,000 investment), Bergeron stuffs pork loin with smoked pork sausage, chicken breasts with jalapeno cream cheese, deboned duck with cornbread dressing, Cornish hens with boudin and all sorts of combinations.
In the kitchen area in the back, Bergeron’s longtime staff is engaged in different aspects of Cajun meat preparation, from deep-frying savory chunks of fatback in a large iron pot, morsels that will soon be sold as cracklin’, to tending the ample smoker’s rotating racks of sausage links.
The boudin and boudin balls are especially popular here. The place sells about 6,000 of its signature boudin balls each week, which are shaped larger than most and shellacked in a thick, crisp crust.
It’s been an intense but satisfying journey for Bergeron, who says he made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. “I’ve just really tried to listen to my customers,” he says.
