La Grande Boucherie des Cajuns

MAGNOLIA CITY PARK
ST. MARTINVILLE
10:00 AM - 6:00 PM

SATURDAY

February 2, 2008

February 21, 2009

The Saturday Before

Mardi Gras!!!!!

MUSIC

Travis Matte & The Zydeco  Kingpins

Cajun Nation

Junior Melancon & The Come Down Playboys

Also featuring

Arts & Crafts, Food, Fun, Refreshments, and Much More!

VARIOUS TIMES – ROOSTER FIGHT DEMONSTRATIONS
1:00 PM – BUTCHERING OF THE PIG
2:30 PM – SQUEAL LIKE A PIG CONTEST


Sponsored by: La Grande Boucherie des Cajuns, Inc.
A Louisiana Non-Profit Association benefiting the Youth of St. Martinville and Other Civic Projects

Traditionally, Cajun social life centered around the home. Neighbors came together to fashion their own entertainment. Then, as now, food was central to any gathering of friends and family.

Among Cajuns, anything can be a celebration, including the butchering of a hog. Called a Boucherie, the occasion still brings together aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors, all of whom participate, and leave with some byproducts of the butchering. Sharing animated conversation and often some cold beer and wine, the participants produce from the freshly killed hog des tripes, which most everyone in the rest of the country call chitterlings, p’ tit sale or salt meat, andouille sausage, pork meat patties called platines, the perennial favorite boudin, which consists of rice and pork dressing stuffed in an edible casing, hog’s head cheese, marinated pork or grillades and smoked meat for seasoning which Cajuns call tasso. Also from the hog comes gratons, the original Cajun snack food. Called cracklins in other parts of the country, gratons are produced along with lard, another important byproduct of the Boucherie. The skin is scraped and the fat layer next to it rendered into lard for cooking, after which the skin and attached fat residue are fried into crisp, tasty gratons.

It is not by accident that the predominately Catholic Cajuns from St. Martinville hold their annual “La Grande Boucherie des Cajuns” right before Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of the Lenten season. The community comes together for one last “bon temps.”

For Vendor Information and Applications, please call Wanda Barras at

337-394-6683.