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NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Edited Transcript:

Subject: Ginger & Harvey Gauthier
Date: August 20, 2008
Location: Joyce’s Supermarket—St. Martinville, LA
Interviewer: Sara Roahen

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This is Sara Roahen for the Southern Foodways Alliance. It’s Wednesday, August 20, 2008. I’m in Saint Martinville, Louisiana, with the Gauthier siblings. And could I get you both to introduce yourself and say your birth date?

GG: I’m Ginger Gauthier, and my birth date is September 27, 1969.

HG: Harvey Gauthier, March 17, 1976.

We were talking about your family history and you had an idea of where to start with that.

GG: Actually, it starts with my grandparents, my mother’s parents, Artie and Tick [given name Reginald] Buck. Ricohoc, Louisiana which is very near Patterson and between Centerville and Patterson—Franklin and Patterson. They—my grandfather had his own tugboat, and eventually my grandmother decided to open a café, and she did very well with it. They served hamburgers and, you know—sold gas, boiled crawfish and actually, you know my—my uncle, who passed away a few years ago, continued on with that café. But from there, that’s where my dad met my mom and they married. And of course my dad was from Saint Martinville, so they ended up moving back here. And eventually my—you know my dad was working at the sugar mill, and they decided to open a little convenience store right next door to the house.
GG: And actually that was in 1969, the year I was born. I have two older siblings and—but once that got going—

HG: And what year did they move into Port Street? Like [nineteen]’74.

GG: Yeah, they rented from Millard Sagura, and Daddy quit his job at the sugar mill. And they made a go of it there on Port Street, and they did great. And I remember—I’ve got to tell this story. [Laughs] I remember as a child, they would get such a large order of items in on their truck, but the back room we would climb over sacks and we thought it was so much fun. You see, Harvey is eight years behind me, and I have another brother fourteen years behind me, but the two older siblings and I are each two years apart. And I can remember it was so much fun. We thought it was a blast, and my mom and dad were just like full of stress. [Laughs]

HG: The year I was born—in [nineteen] ’76—they came here [to the store’s current location] and this was originally a Winn Dixie. It was one of the best moves they ever did.

I think you said that you cook here one day a week. What do you cook?

HG: I cook on Mondays.

GG: His lima beans.

HG: Rice and gravy type dishes, always cook dry beans.

GG: His beef and gravy and his chicken stew.

HG: We cook smothered sausage. Red beans and rice I do on Mondays a lot. Pretty much what we grew up on.

GG: Smothered pork and chicken stew and—.

HG: Smothered potatoes. Chicken fricassee.

Do you think that Saint Martinville is particularly a sausage-focused town?

HG: Yeah, the first little—and I’m talking cold snap; I’m talking like sixty-five degrees—every person is making a chicken and sausage gumbo. That’s—I mean if we get into—into the fifties, we run out of sausage and hens and andouille and whatnot.

What’s your best selling sausage?

HG: Chaurice.

If you use that in your gumbo, do you take it out of the casing or do you—what do you do?

HG: Most people in this area will take it and leave it whole on some pieces that they can manage. And they place it into the pot before they start the gumbo, and they brown it. It’s taken out. It’s browned until it’s almost fully cooked. It’s taken out and put to cool, and you start your roux and your other meat. Most people in this area brown their meat for their gumbo. Some people just put their meat into the juice but that—that’s kind of a thing around here—people brown everything and get that little flavor in the bottom of the pot.

Yeah, and you get a lot of the grease out, too, by doing that.

HG: Yes, and then you use that for your roux. After everything is browned and—and cooled, the sausage is cut up into bite-sized pieces with the casing and put back in because the natural casing will cook until it’s completely tender. That’s what you don't get with a synthetic. It all stays a little tough.

But the—the traditional gumbo for—for me would be a hen, chaurice, a little tasso, some okra, and that’s it.

That sounds good.

HG: Some shrimp—get some shrimp and call it a day.

Do you make that here ever—the gumbo?

GG: Oh, yeah, as soon as it reaches seventy degrees, “What day are you making gumbo?” [Laughs]

HG: And we make—I have like a sixty-quart pot that we make. We’ll sell half of it that day and then freeze the other half in little containers and people will buy—buy that and take it home. We have a lady—I’m not going to say her name—she buys like five or six containers. She goes home and she tells her husband that she made gumbo. And he comes in and he’s like, “Oh, my wife made a gumbo for me the other day. I’ll tell you what, that was the best gumbo.” I can't let her secret go, though. [Laughs] But I’ll tell you, you’re going to like that.

So are you known for a particular kind of gumbo in the store, or do you make all kinds?

HG: Well the chicken and sausage mostly. I make a lot of different gumbos at home. But in the store, chicken and sausage is probably the—

Can you tell me, for the record, what the difference is between the chicken and a hen?

HG: A chicken is the—we’re referring to a chicken when we say a fryer, which is a younger, but usually not mature. A hen has been a bird that’s matured and usually is older and bigger, very tough. So you have to cook it a longer time. Chicken tends to cook very fast or fall off of the bone and gumbos—you’ve probably seen gumbos where they take all the meat, take it all off the bone and put it back into the gumbo? That’s not really how it’s made around here a lot. Most people, you actually have a piece of chicken with the bone in the gumbo, and then you know you kind of pick at it in your bowl. The hen allows you to cook the gumbo for two, three hours to get that good broth and flavor from the bones without the meat falling apart.

GG: It gives it a much better flavor [Phone Rings] and you can taste the difference immediately if a gumbo is cooked with a hen. Now I’m not crazy about a rooster but—.

HG: I like roosters, but if you cook a gumbo with a hen and a gumbo with a fryer, and you put the leftovers in the icebox, the one you cooked with hen will actually gel up solid because of all of the, I guess the—you know, the bones and whatnot and that broth and that, you know—and the chicken won't do that because you can't cook—cook it long enough to pull that out of the bones.

GG: Well I don't know about all that, but I know a gumbo with a hen is good stuff.

HG: Gumbo is like one of the few things I’ll eat as leftovers. And we always know when we made a good gumbo because it completely almost solidifies and not—we always skim all the grease and try to get as much grease out of the gumbo as possible. Like sometimes you’ll go get gumbo, and there’s an inch of grease on top of the pot. And you’re like—but that’s—but that’s almost like the boudin and people are getting away from that more and more, you know.

I live in New Orleans, and it’s hard to come by a hen. Do you have a hard time finding hens—suppliers for hens?

HG: No, not really. We have them pretty regular. Hen, rooster, capon [castrated male chicken], we handle all of that pretty regular.

You sell it here?

GG: Oh, yeah, we always have hens. When it’s going to get cold, you can count on it. People call up, “Cut me two hens. I’m coming in,” you know.

HG: Yeah. I don't know how many hens I’ve cut the last minute—walking out the door and say, “Hey, so-and-so is here. Can you cut them a hen?” Because a chicken is very easy to cut, but a hen, it takes a large knife and a little power to cut a hen. But we’ll cut two, three dozen on a cold weekend, you know, and put two, three dozen out whole. Because there are people here that do take the meat off the bone. There’s a few people like that, and that’s a fine gumbo. It’s just not what—what we’re used to.

GG: I’m not crazy about rooster, though. My dad will cook—yeah, my dad will cook a rooster gumbo. I’m not crazy about rooster, but if he puts a hen in it, I think I’ll come and eat.

HG: Ducks, squirrels—.

GG: Duck gumbo, Daddy—you do that, too.

HG: I make that a lot.

What does rooster taste like?

HG: Rooster has kind of a gamey taste. And I’m not going to lie to you. If you probably never had it, and if you don't like—like wild duck and—and stuff like that, you probably won't like rooster because it has that kind of—a gamey—that’s the only way I can really describe it.

GG: Yeah. See I’m not—we never grew up eating a lot of, you know, wild game, so it’s not, you know, something I’m—I’m acquired to or like. Now Harvey likes it because you eat—you know, you cook deer and duck and rabbit and squirrel and everything, you know.

HG: Yeah, tree rats. It’s—it’s a distinct thing. I’m not going to lie to you. There’s this tradition of people of cooking the head of the squirrel. And you can say “I’m a Coon Ass,” whatever—.

GG: Well—well remember Maw-Maw Artie—she goes, “Y’all go eat. I got a squirrel gumbo in there.” And I went and they had the little heads popping up. I’m like, “Maw-Maw, I’m not eating that.” Little squirrel heads in the pot—.

HG: And they eat the brain, okay, and I have never been able to bring myself to and I love—squirrel is my number one favorite thing to hunt, cook and eat. I’ll go to somebody’s house, and they’ll have the heads in the pot; I’ll make somebody else go fix my plate because I just can't bring myself to those little heads and those little teeth looking at me.

You know what’s funny about Maw-Maw’s? To see somebody take a BB or a bullet out of their mouth and put it on the table. It was such a common occurrence, and my dad used to always fuss because he wasn’t—he was never exposed to that.

GG: Yeah, Dad grew up a little different than my mom. You know, my mom, they hunted and fished, and that’s all they ate. And she grew up with, you know, the shotguns locked and loaded at the door.

HG: Now on my mom’s side, gumbo is a real big thing. Seafood gumbo, duck gumbo, squirrel gumbo, rabbit—.

GG: Seafood gumbo is probably like my number one, and then it’s chicken—or hen. Hen, not chicken. But my grandma’s seafood gumbo, oh, my God.

HG: Gumbos were cooked year-round at my grandmother’s. That was a very common dinner but—big, large variety—shrimp and oyster, shrimp and crab, chicken and sausage, sometimes just chicken, ducks, goose.

GG: Sometimes she’d use okra with shrimp in it.

HG: Okra and shrimp. I’ve even seen turtle, rabbit—often. Rabbit is very good in gumbo. Squirrels I might have said already. I’m trying to think what else they would harvest out of the woods over there.

GG: Well I knew we ate frog legs a lot. But I never remember eating it in a gumbo. They’d always fry it—fried frog legs.

So those—those gumbos that you were just listing, would they all be made with a roux?

HG: Yes. All roux-based, even the okra gumbo, you know, because that okra does thicken the gumbo, but it would still be—be roux-based, all homemade.

GG: Yeah. Now a seafood gumbo, I find that they—you know the—the roux is a lighter roux.

HG: Well when we make a roux here, we have the stages of the roux, you know: peanut butter, chocolate, you know, and those—those stages—come in. [Knock on Door] And that’s—those stages of the roux are for different types of gumbos. A dark, dark roux will often be used with wild game. A little bit lighter gumbo—roux will be for chicken and sausage and the lightest roux is normally for seafood because you—. Really, seafood doesn’t—I think the stronger the flavor of the food, the darker you want your roux. But I mean that’s what one of the first things I made—learned how to make was a roux, you know.

And who taught you?

HG: My mom. Um-hmm. But you know, not really taught me. A roux—you have to stand in front of the pot. You can't leave. If she was washing clothes or doing anything else, she said, “Come stir the roux.” So I think it was more out of necessity than continuing heritage.

And would she—what would you be stirring with, a wooden spoon or a whisk?

HG: With a spoon, yeah. Usually worn down to almost nothing, yeah.

What kind of fat would she use back then? Was it oil?

GG: Vegetable oil, you know. That’s what Maw-Maw Artie uses a lot of—just vegetable oil—and she cooks everything from scratch.

And what about you now when you make a gumbo—vegetable oil?

HG: Sometimes. Sometimes I’ll cook all the sausage and try to get as much oil out of that as I can, and then I’ll just add a little oil to that until you have a little flavor, you know, to start with. But I’m not going to lie to you. If—if I don't have time, I’ll just get a jar of roux, you know, because it’s so convenient, you know.

When you say seafood gumbo, what do you mean by that? What’s in your seafood gumbo?

HG: Probably the most traditional is shrimp and oyster by far.

GG: Uh-hmm. A little bit of crabmeat, not a whole lot. You don't want to overwhelm it with crabmeat, you know.

HG: Now my grandmother used to often make a seafood gumbo with the crab still in the shell. She would clean them real good and cut them into pieces, and then they’d actually have the—the crab in the shell that you would pick through while you ate your gumbo. And there would be some shrimp and oyster and some crab.

Have you ever had a boiled egg in a gumbo?

No, but I’ve read about that.

HG: Yeah, it’s very popular around here, too.

What kind of gumbo would you put the egg in?

HG: Any kind, especially a seafood gumbo, and I think that just came out of trying to stretch your seafood a little bit, you know, you put in an egg and—. But we put it in the regular gumbos too.

GG: Yeah, or if you don't have time to finish potato salad. [Laughs]

The last time I was here I bought some dried shrimp. You have a really pretty big selection of dried shrimp.

HG: I use that in gumbos very seldom, but it’s powerful. You have to use a little bit.

GG: When I was a kid we used to eat them raw, like as a snack.

HG: My wife still does that. They have a lot of people in this area that cook the dried shrimp. They basically rehydrate them, and that’s their meal—tomato gravy with dried shrimp or in a gumbo. They won't buy fresh shrimp. They’ll buy a couple packs of dried shrimp. You know probably the number one thing dried shrimp are used for is okra.

GG: Yeah, because we actually sell the dried shrimp or the shrimp powder. They even have the powder you can buy.

HG: A seafood gumbo, I’ll put a teaspoon of the powder if—. If I buy fresh shrimp and I have their heads, I boil it and make me a stock. But if I don't have that, I’ll take like a half of the pack or a quarter of the pack and put it in my gumbo. And you can easily ruin it—because it’s a very, very strong flavor. In the right amount it’s very good.

HG: Now something that’s really not that popular in this area but was very popular by my grandmother’s on my mama’s side was gumbo filé, you know, that’s—.

GG: Oh, yeah, Maw-Maw used to make her own. She’d get this—what was it, sassafras, the sassafras leaves and she’d roast the leaves and grind it all herself, yeah.

What would she roast it in, the oven?

HG: Just in the oven on the sheet pan just to dry them out. Or they would—I’ve even heard of them putting them on a tin roof, like cutting the branches and just leaving the branch on top of the house for a couple of days.

At her house would you add it at the end or would she cook with it?

GG: I don't remember Maw-Maw doing it, but I remember Mama adding filé, you know, towards the end of the gumbo. But I remember at my grandmother’s it was always on the table as an additive, if you chose, you know, if you wanted it. But I remember how Mom, she would add a little filé to her gumbo right at the end when it was just about—when we were about ready to eat, you know.

HG: But at Maw-Maw Artie’s on the table, they always had the filé in a little—usually a baby food jar. That’s what I remember.

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