St. John Parish Andouille Festival
Go to the official Andouille Festival Web Site
2009 Andouille Festival is October 16, 17, 18th, 2009
Every year in October The St. John Parish Andouille Festival is held featuring music, good times and of course great food featuring Andouille, the delectable sausage for which the festival was named. Thousands of people merge upon the festival grounds for fun filled weekend, highlighted by cooking contest in which contestants prepared their recipes using andouille in three categories: gumbos, jambalayas, and miscellaneous dishes.The Andouille festival was started by the LaPlace Volunteer Fire Department as a fund raiser. It is now held at the Hwy. 51 Park next to the St. John Center.
What is Andouille?
Andouille (pronounced "ahn-DOO-wee") is the Cajun smoked sausage so famous nationally today. Made with pork butt, shank and a small amount of pork fat, this sausage is seasoned with salt, cracked black pepper and garlic. The andouille is then slowly smoked over pecan wood and sugar cane. True andouille is stuffed into the beef middle casing which makes the sausage approximately one and a half inches in diameter. When smoked, it becomes very dark to almost black in color. It is not uncommon for the Cajuns to smoke andouille for seven to eight hours at approximately 175 degrees.
Traditionally, the andouilles from France were made from the large intestines and stomach of the pig, seasoned heavily and smoked. In parts of Germany, where some say andouille originated, the sausage was made with all remaining intestines and casings pulled through a larger casing, seasoned and smoked. It was served thinly sliced as an hors d'oeuvre.
It is interesting to note that the finest andouille in France comes from the Brittany and Normandy areas. It is believed that over half of the Acadian exiles who came to Louisiana in 1755 were originally from these coastal regions.