Avery Island, St. Martinville, Breaux Bridge

September 10, 2012

Had peach French toast and green smoothies for breakfast and then headed out for sightseeing.  We first drove to Delcambre and stopped and saw the shrimp boats.

  We then headed for Avery Island where they make Tabasco sauce.  This is the only place in the world it is made and has been there since the Civil War.  It is sitting on top of a humongous salt mountain bigger than Mt. Everest where they mine the salt for the Tabasco.  They grow about 50 acres of peppers for the seeds.  The plants for the sauce are actually grown in South America.  They use a “petit baton rouge” (little red stick) to compare the color of the pepper to the stick to know exactly when to pick them.  They are crushed and put Jack Daniels whisky barrels (whisky removed) and put the lid on and cover it with salt to keep impurities from entering and then ferment for 3 years and then stir for 28 days and then the vinegar is added.  We watched them bottling the sauce in their factory.  There is also a famous huge garden there bigger than Central Park where there is an egret rookery.  We did not go through the garden but I would love to some spring when all the camellias and azaleas are in bloom.  We sample all sorts of their sauces and made some purchases at their store.  We even had jalepeno ice cream and raspberry chipotle ice cream.   Both amazingly good.

Drove on to Conrad Rice Mill/Konriko Company Store.  The mill is over 100 years old and on the National Registry of Historic places.  They still use the old way to mill the rice here and bag it in burlap.  We took the tour which was quite interesting and again sampled the rice and sauces.   On to St. Martinville and saw Evangaline statue (famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) which is a story (supposedly based on truth) of two lovers separated during the deportation of the Acadians.

  Ate lunch at St. John’s Restaurant.  Shockingly Jack had the salad and I had the crabcake.  Cathedral was built in the 1700’s.  Drove further on to Breaux Bridge and walked around and saw Bayou Teche (Indian name for snake) and went to an antique store and wandered around.  Back to Abbeville through horrendous traffic in the big city of Lafayette.  We went out for dinner with Marcel and Cheryl at the Riverfront Restaurant on the Vermillion River.  We went back and heard about their travels.