I know I shouldn’t expect much, but I can’t find any really good boudin around here. Some Cajun restaurants will have boudin on the appetizer menu, but I don’t usually try that as boudin in a restaurant seems weird, and I’m there for the crawfish, etouffee, gumbo, etc. For a few short years we had Chris’s Specialty Food, which is a Louisiana company. They made boudin and cracklins fresh in the store, but it wasn’t great. It was decent. If Chris’ would have been in Scott they would have gone out of business. For Dallas, the boudin was as close as I could find. The problem was that it was so mild. I mean, not hot at all. To me, mild means not real hot, but it should have some red pepper…at least a little. So they came and went.
I found this other place that I tried today. It had all the fun Cajun posters and New Orleans stuff. They sold some Poche products frozen, but they made their own boudin. Same thing…. no seasoning. Mild as a slice of bread. Yes, I took it home and took out some cayenne and made it edible, but this place says they are Cajun. The words “Authentic Cajun” are on their logo. I wish they would have Poche’s boudin in their freezer and I would just buy that. Why bother making it? If the reasoning is that they think people in Dallas won’t eat it if it’s spicy, then they haven’t noticed all the Mexican food places on every corner. Not to mention the tons of Thai and Indian places. But making it sub-par perpetuates the mediocre. Yes, people who don’t like spicy food and don’t know much about Cajun food might buy and like it. Good for them, but call it Playgun instead of Cajun, to quote Mr. Nate. To be fair, I have not tried any of their other dishes on their menu, so their other food might be delicious and spot on.
Dallas has some good Cajun restaurants, and boiled crawfish has taken the Metroplex by storm. There are a ton of places serving good boiled crawfish now. It’s a blessing for sure. But boudin and cracklins I guess is too much of a delicacy that suites only the Cajun palette? I really don’t know, but I miss it.
To be honest, I get the closest thing to cracklins at the Mexican Supermercados. Chicharrones are great. Again, I have to season them to get them close to cracklins, but it’s in the ballpark for sure. Actually, they are too close. I eat them all the time. And also, the Mexican markets have those dried shrimp like they have back home. I never knew I would miss those, but I got a hookup for those as well as the chicharrones con mis amigos en el supermercado mexicano.
The end.