Boucherie

About this book

Boucherie traces the long evolution of Louisiana's butchering traditions--from their prehistoric origins to today's revived ritual celebrations--to reveal how foodways serve as both cultural archive and living performance. Drawing on ethnography, oral history, and memoir, Chase Cormier offers a richly layered portrait of the Louisiana boucherie as a site of labor, language, and identity. A former butcher turned scholar, Cormier brings a rare insider's perspective to the work of cutting, curing, and preparing meat. Through firsthand accounts of his apprenticeship in his grandfather's meat market, he invites readers behind the counter to witness the physical and communal dimensions of a vanishing craft. From the era of rural halle meat lockers to the rise of industrial packaging, Cormier chronicles a century of transformation in how Louisianans produce, consume, and converse about meat. At the heart of Boucherie lies an argument about conservation and conversation. Cormier contends that the preservation of traditional practices depends as much on communication--shared stories, recipes, and public discourse--as on the continuation of technique. Through analysis of cookbooks, televised chefs, and culinary marketing, he shows how "Cajun" cuisine emerged through processes of cultural appropriation, branding, and reinvention. These discursive forces, Cormier argues, shaped not only Louisiana's food culture but also broader ideas about race, heritage, and belonging. Richly historical and deeply personal, Boucherie situates Louisiana's butchering traditions within the wider currents of colonization, migration, and modernization. Cormier's narrative moves fluidly from prehistoric hunting to contemporary farm-to-table movements, demonstrating how global trends and local conversations continually redefine what counts as "authentic." Engagingly written and grounded in original fieldwork, Boucherie offers a rare and compelling study of tradition as a dynamic process. In exploring how a once-essential communal practice has become a symbol of regional identity, Cormier illuminates the fragility and the resilience of cultural memory in the modern South.