Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005 - (Page 35)

Louisiana Hot Sauces and Seasoning Mixes Both Sides of the State’s Pepper Trade Louisiana's cultural tourism industry is based upon the twin pillars of music and cuisine, and the success of the latter category is grounded, to a large extent, upon the region's use of “exotic” flavors, ingredients, and spices. Of the foregoing culinary triumvirate, spices — particularly hot sauces and seasoning mixes — maintain the highest public profile, thanks in large part to the promotional efforts of both private industry and Louisiana's official tourism apparatus. Indeed, a late February 2005 Internet search for the terms “Louisiana hot sauce” yielded 215,000 hits. South Louisiana hot sauces have been marketed internationally since the 1870s. In 1868, Edmund McIlhenny, a Marylandborn banker turned planter and manufacturer, began to produce his own pepper sauce — in cologne bottles — at Avery Island. McIlhenny's concoction proved an immediate success; indeed, it was so successful that the inventor felt compelled to obtain a patent for his recipe in 1870. By the end of the decade, the fiery Tabasco hot sauce was marketed throughout the United States and England. By the turn of the 20th century, Tabasco's international success spawned numerous local imitators, many of which also eventually enjoyed national and international success. In 1898, B.F. Trappey, a former McIlhenny employee who had established a factory in New Iberia (about 10 miles from Avery Island), began marketing his own pepper sauce under the Tabasco label. McIlhenny trademarked the Tabasco name in 1906, but Trappey continued to distribute the rival brand under the Tabasco label until litigation forced the New Iberia entrepreneur to suspend the practice in 1929. Meanwhile, other commercial rivals had entered the fray. In mid-1913, St. Martinville businessman Edmond Bulliard began manufacturing “‘Evangeline Tabasco Pepper Sauce’ having a fine colored label representing the Evangeline Oak.” Within six months, Bulliard had successfully marketed his product in the North and sales were reportedly brisk. During the Roaring Twenties, Baumer Foods introduced Crystal Hot Sauce (1923) and Bruce Foods debuted its Original Louisiana Hot Sauce (1928). Over the course of the past two decades, a new generation of entrepreneurs — sometimes Cajuns displaced by their native state’s economic woes, but usually persons or companies seeking to exploit the late 20th-century Cajun food craze — has tested, but not really challenged the market dominance of the pioneer hot-sauce manufacturers, many of which are now corporate giants. The most successful of these recent start-ups have exploited niche markets, manufacturing generic hot sauce varieties with customizable labels for the restaurant trade. Because of the perennial marketing success, international visibility, and name recognition of many established Louisiana hotsauce brands, culinary entrepreneurs have been much more successful in developing and marketing closely related products that profit directly from the success of the flourishing regional hot-sauce industry. Packaged seasonings, usually consisting of two or three pepper varieties, salt, and sometimes garlic and onion power, constitute the most notable of these innovative products. Many are produced by small companies, but, in Early 20th-century recent years, frozen Cajun food venadvertisement for dors have diversified their product Tabasco sauce. lines to include seasoning mixes. As a result, seasonings are perhaps the most common Cajun products on American store shelves, and, in recent years, pre-packaged seasoning blends have become the commercial Cajun food products most extensively used by Cajun cooks throughout south Louisiana. Hundreds of variations fill supermarket shelves along the Gulf Coast. A recent survey of the shelves at Adrien’s, a Lafayette neighborhood grocery catering to a predominantly Cajun clientele, revealed 17 brands of Cajun-style seasonings and seven brands of crawfish/crab boil mix, which also contain seasoning spices. Local companies have even developed low-sodium products for health-conscious consumers. The seasoning-mix brands represented on Adrien’s shelves ranged from those of internationally famous celebrity chefs Emeril Lagasse and Paul Prudhomme to local offerings by T-Boy and Cajun Power to “Cajun Bayou Spice” by McCormick, one of the nation's leading spice producers. The clear local favorite, however, is Tony Chachere's seasoning mix, which is found in virtually every Cajun Country kitchen and restaurant. The proliferation of Cajun-style seasoning products reflects two important underlying trends: the enduring vitality of the Cajun culinary tradition in Acadiana, and the continuing evolution of the regional culinary genre. As in past generations, modern Cajun cooks continuously push the envelope by exploring new culinary directions and ingredients, but they never lose sight of the genre's cardinal principle — good food is judged by the layering of complex flavors, shaped in no small part by seasoning schemes as unique as the cooks who devise them. —Carl A. Brasseaux, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Fall 2005/LOUISIANA CULTURAL VISTAS 35

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005 Contents Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Louisiana State Museum After Katrina and Rita Tabasco: Edmund McIlhenny and the Birth of a Louisiana Pepper Sauce Historic New Orleans Collection Louisiana Association of Museums New Orleans’ Coffee Connection No Man’s Land Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism Bookstand (Book Review by Thomas Uskali) Sound Advice (Music Review by Ben Sandmel) Forum (Commentary by Roy Blount, Jr. )

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2005

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