Page 35 - March & April

ROUSES.COM 33
Chef John Folse is the past president of the American Culinary
Federation, a prolific writer, television and radio host, has one of the
few chef-owned food manufacturing companies in America. His food
is served all over the country.
I was born in St. James Parish in 1946 on Cabanocey Plantation, a home-
stead my great grandfather purchased in the early 1900s. I was the third of
eight children and my mother died when I was still quite young. My daddy
was a trapper who worked hard, very hard, to keep the family together—with
plenty of help from our neighbors. We were poor and we relied on the land
every day for sustenance. The land never let us down.
My mother, father, and ancestors before were all good cooks. How could they
not be, having been reared in the heart of Cajun country? There is the Gulf of
Mexico with its abundance of salt water seafoods, an array of fresh-water lakes
and rivers and of course, the lush, green and tropical swampland—what I call
the “Swamp Floor Pantry.” These elements are the foundations of Cajun and
Creole cuisine, as such they are also the foundations of our culture.
We really are what we eat.
I often encounter cooks who are searching for a base of good cooking and I
always wonder why they don’t simply look at their own culture and environ-
ment, especially in Louisiana and South Mississippi where we are fortunate to
have the very best ingredients at our fingertips. When we honor the heritage of
our people in our cooking we are guided to spices and flavors that will enhance
them.
It was this philosophy that led to the idea for the Chef John Folse Culinary In-
stitute (see story on page 34) as a way to preserve Louisiana culture and cuisine
by teaching chefs, students and community members to master the art of Cajun
and Creole cooking with an emphasis on the influences of Cajun-Creole cui-
sine: Native American, Spanish, French, African, German, English and Italian.
The institute, which is on the Nicholls State University campus in Thibodaux,
began offering courses for college credit in 1995.
Thibodaux is also home to Rouses Markets. Rouses first caught my attention
when I started the institute and I was also just starting my manufacturing busi-
ness. They came to me and said “We want to have Louisiana-made products
and ingredients unique to our heritage in our stores.” We were on the same
page! Rouses was the first company to carry my products and I got much of
my start in the aisles of Rouses! I was doing cooking demonstrations at their
stores long before I was on television. They were also on the cutting edge of the
sustainability movement that many people, thankfully, have adopted, and they
started reaching out to local chefs and forging relationships with us long before
others recognized the value in relationships of this kind.
—John
CHEF JOHN FOLSE, AAC
CHEF JOHN FOLSE & COMPANY/
RESTAURANT R’EVOLUTION
LOUISIANA’S CULINARY
AMBASSADOR TO THE WORLD
WHERE THE
SHOP
S H O P
CHEFS