Thursday, February 20, 2014 - Avery Island

I have a grumpy Bear this morning, as the Beaver twisted herself up in the covers and slid out of bed last night, flopping her tail about helplessly on the floor. Poor Bear worked on righting her for quite some time, eventually setting her upside up. Shortly thereafter, she arose to visit the bathroom. Bear helped her back into bed, complaining of sleepiness while tormented by Lowly Worm, the Beaver’s alter ego. Lowly worked hard to turn Beaver onto her left side for sleeping.  Lowly failed. At long last, Bear adjusted Lowly’s blanket and pillow, turning her onto her correct side. Breathing a sigh of relief, Bear returned to slumbering.  A short while later, Beaver and Lowly got up to read their Nook, inadvertently waking Bear once more, much to Bear’s disgust.

I suggest some caffeine to Bear this morning, only to find my suggestion heartily disdained.

Whew!  Silence may be the better part of valor here. Our first stop, the Alexandre Mouton house, disappoints, reminding us of touring a random old house in South Carolina.  Heavy on mold and furniture, the house lacks any explanation of how the Mouton family morphed from poor, dispossessed Cajun refugees into Governor and first family of Louisiana. 

Ah, but the internet provides answers.  A Jean Mouton, probably not a Cajun refugee, emigrated to Louisiana early on, acquiring massive lands and a plantation.  Enriching himself by successfully exploiting enslaved African labor, his wealth funded his patrician son Alexandre’s stint as governor. 

As governor, Alexandre balanced the state budget by liquidating state assets, leasing out prison labor and flat refusing to spend one single red cent on anything.  No wonder Louisiana lacked roads before Huey Long!  Alexandre did support public education and enfranchising landless white males, two quite progressive ideas for the time and for Louisiana.

Exploring the house, we find one picture of Jean’s grandson Alfred.  The photo’s caption notes that he died in the Civil War, nothing else. Curiosity piqued, I research his life, finding him the most intriguing of the bunch.  Alfred Mouton served as a Confederate general during the war.  Aided by an obligatory draft, he recruited Cajuns and other poor whites to “The Cause.”  Stuck in the war derisively called “a rich man’s war but a poor man’s fight,” and seeing no gain in supporting slavery and the wealthy, much of his Cajun army deserted, melting into the swamps to become guerilla, Union-supporting jayhawkers.

The Mouton House displays their collection of Mardi Gras outfits accompanied by beads in the traditional colors of gold, green and purple.  The docent hands me some beads, apologizing for restricting me to the first floor (no elevator). Ascending the steps to the second floor, the boys report little to see. We depart. Outside in the parking lot, we find a thirty-foot tall holly hedge, by far the coolest thing about the house.  ”Enough Moutons!” Pearl shouts.  Trapped against the hedge and unable to open her ramp, she squirms around impatiently, finally gaining enough clearance to allow me entry. 

Today, to all our chagrin, we encounter the second poorly engineered feature of our BrawnAbility cripple van.  The BraunAbility conversion added motors that move the driver’s seat back and forth, up and down and side to side, all to accommodate wheelchair transfer.  But the D- student design engineers didn’t fasten down the Honda wiring harness controlling normal seat movement.  We run over the wire harness with the seat, severing numerous connections.

“I wish that you hadn’t burdened me with BraunAbility.  Hondas, as you well know, will outlast you,” Pearl huffs, fussing at us.  “Pipe down, Pearl!  You know full well that the Beaver can’t get into the van without the ramp.  And if Beaver weren’t crippled, we would have kept the Prius.  We would never have met – you’d have different owners, probably ones who wouldn’t talk to you,” lectures Bear.  Pearl begins to cry deep, loud, wracking sobs.

We pull into a gas station attempting to quiet Pearl.  A Colorado plated van crying loudly in traffic attracts attention, even in Louisiana.  Sitting in a Lafayette gas station we learn all about Honda fuses, but the Honda-controlled portion of the seat remains inoperable.  The boys use the cripple mechanism to move the seat back and forth, but I can no longer reach the gas pedal, for good or for ill.

Pearl recovers her composure.  Her sobs reduced to just an occasional sigh, we give up on the seat and head down Louisiana route 90.  Our brief jaunt takes us to Avery Island, a massive salt dome a few miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico and incidentally the home of Tabasco sauce.  (No, I don’t understand why an island is inland-it’s Louisiana.)

The Avery family has owned Avery Island since 1818, initially using the land as a sugar plantation.  In 1862, the Averys discovered the underlying salt dome and began massive mining and shipping operations, the Confederate Army their largest customer.  Unsurprisingly during the course of the war, the Union Army conquered the island and destroyed all shipping and mining equipment.

A banker, one Edmund McIlhenny, married into the family before the Civil War.  After the war, flat broke, banks decimated, the family mining equipment annihilated, McIlhenny found himself mollycoddling over food.  An avid gardener, bored with bland Reconstruction-era cuisine, he dreamt up a new business venture:  pepper sauce. 

Currently, a seventh McIlhenny descendant, aided by 200 workers, produces Tabasco here on Avery Island. Yeah! We enjoy seeing a food company not owned by Pepsi, Tyson, Kraft or Nestlé. Many of the workers, also second & third generation employees, appear to have the same roles as their ancestors, the majority of blacks working in the fields and whites in the factory.

We learn the McIlhenny family secret-where there’s salt, there’s oil.  The island has an immense salt mine and oil, providing all the income the family needs.  Is Tabasco merely noblesse oblige?  A good thing, whatever the reason.  By supporting, retaining and maintaining the plant on Avery Island, the family has preserved employment and local infrastructure in the rural marshlands of Louisiana.

To make Tabasco sauce, workers pick peppers at the peak of ripeness, selecting only those peppers whose color matches their “baton rouge” or red stick. On the day of harvest, workers grind the peppers into mash, mix the mash with salt and seal it in white oak barrels to age for three years. The workers cover the barrels with an additional layer of salt.  Opening the barrels at the appropriate time, workers mix the mash with premium vinegar, stir it daily for 28 days, then bottle the sauce.

The company saves seed from their peppers each year. Take that Monsanto! No terminator genes in seeds here! To mitigate farming risks, the company grows the pepper plants around the world.

We tour the McIlhenny plant, watching employees operate machinery bottling Tabasco sauce.  The manufactory uses the same bottling machinery my father used in his factory all those years ago.  Déjà vu engulfs me as I watch the bottles run along the beltway, each bottle pausing to receive its allotted share of pepper sauce from the overhead hopper.  Tossed back in time, peering through a dim, veiled mirror, I observe a different factory.  Via the same process, Dad supervises his plant as his workers bottle various cleaning products. 

Returning to now, I watch Tabasco’s machines spin caps onto the now-full bottles, affix labels and pack the bottles into boxes.  Employees watch, resolve jams, and perform periodic quality controls.

Unlike most fermented foods, people the world over love Tabasco.  I discovered Tabasco in my teens, ever seeking escape from my family’s bland white bread cuisine.  Scandinavian-Americans worship white food.  We even have official food whiteners-Miracle Whip, cream of celery soup, marshmallow cream, etc.  Besides being spicy, Tabasco was red.  I rebelled, really breaking the mold here!  I vaguely remember putting Tabasco on mashed potatoes.  I was a convert, but not alone.  Asians find cheese disgusting, while we find stinky tofu downright scary, but we all enjoy Tabasco. Long ago, the British ran a “Buy British” campaign in Guam, outlawing Tabasco sauce. The company proudly reports riots ensued, ceasing only when Tabasco became legal again. A map shows a hundred Tabasco sauce-importing countries.

Leaving the factory, we visit the gift shop. Bloodroot and I find several must-have Tabasco items, namely an apron, a magnet, boxer shorts and some bottles of sauce. The Bear finds some shirts he likes but refuses to purchase them, deeming them too expensive. This is an old argument. “How much does it cost to drive to Louisiana?” I think.  I always buy something small to remember each trip, fulfilling my obligation as a good tourist.

Snowy egrets adorn the factory.  Huh?  By the 1890s, egret populations had declined precipitously, decimated by hunters seeking egret plumage for hats.  The McIlhenny heirs became ardent conservationists.  In 1895, a Ned McIlhenny rescued the last eight egrets, bred them and created a sanctuary on the island.  Freed, the birds migrated to Mexico to return annually with others.

As we’re already on the island, we visit the sanctuary/nature preserve named Jungle Gardens. We see roseate spoon bills, snowy egrets, fluffier headed egrets, and a gray hawk. We walk amongst oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, mangroves and cypress trees.  We delight in spring’s blooming magnolias and camellias. Resting under a 300 year old Cleveland Oak, named after the president (Grover Cleveland) who visited the bird colony, we startle an alligator that actually moves, but doesn’t bite us.

 Ned was a big collector.  After establishing the rookery and saving the egrets, he included a Japanese Shinto gate, Roman Temple, and a centuries-old enshrined Buddha in the gardens. When the family found oil on the island, Ned insisted upon burying some pipelines, rerouting others around specific trees and painting any remaining visible pipeline green.

Bear and Bloodroot walk up to see the old nursery. I nod off. They return brandishing bamboo sticks that they whirl about, trying to out-fight each other like some goofballs in a kung-fu movie. Has my family morphed into Bruce Lee’s?

The boys tire.  Returning to Pearl, we drive out to revisit the Jean Lafitte National Park, desiring to soak up all the Cajunness we can.  Too late again, the park closes in ten minutes. On to Lafayette where we cook a good supper and rely on Toby for Cajun culture. 

Over dinner we raise our glasses to toast Paul Distad.   He would be 87 years old today, were he not 13 years dead.  All day I’ve been musing and reflecting that I never saw him really old.  When he passed, one month before his 74^th birthday, his hair hadn’t turned fully grey yet.  What a life we now live, where 73 just isn’t all that old.  I still cry; I loved my daddy.