As of this writing, the towns of Scott, Broussard and Jennings all claim the title of Boudin Capital of the World, according to today's Wall Street Journal.
As of this writing, the towns of Scott, Broussard and Jennings all claim the title of Boudin Capital of the World, according to today's Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ carries the story by Timothy W. Martin under the headline: Cajun Towns Feud About Sausage With Links to the Past with the subhead: Boudin Bragging Rights Are Up for Grabs Along the Interstate in Southern Louisiana. You can read it here.
Check it out. It's a good read with a lot of humorous back-and-forth between the mayors of the respective towns. There's also a video how boudin is made accompanying the story. Filmed at Billeaud's Grocery in Broussard, the workers making boudin aren't wearing those proctologist gloves we see everywhere these days. That alone should scare away the some people and therefore leave more boudin for the rest of us.
Scott, already known for "Where the West Begins," was crowned by the state legislature in April as Boudin Capital of the World. The town reportedly makes 1.3 million pounds of boudin a year.
Broussard claims legislators bestowed the inaugural title on it sometime in the 1970s. Broussard also used to have a boudin festival and, of course, a Boudin king, but it no longer has either.
Actually, not all of the municipalities are going for global recognition with the title.
Jennings takes it considerably further and actually considers itself Boudin Capital of the Universe. Perhaps that has something to do with the only reliably recorded sound received from deep space in 1977 that has what experts consider the quality of an intentional signal. It was picked up by Ohio State University's giant radio telescope in the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project.
Called the "Wow!" signal because of that's what a professor wrote on a printout that documented the signal.
Incidentally, the signal from space reads 6EQUJ5; coincidentally, boudin has the same amount of characters.
Speaking of boudin, Gourmet magazine named the annual Boudin Cook-Off as one a Top 10 food festival.