Thousands flock to French Food Festival in Larose to benefit community center, park

What started as a rained-out event in the early 1970s has grown into something very special, Sidney Triche said.

It was the third and final day of this year's French Food Festival, and Triche was preparing to step up on the stage and auction off the last of the items. He pulled in $33,000 in Saturday's auction alone.

He became emotional as he mentioned how he was planning to share the auction duties in the future. The emotion was a mixture of pride and nerves, he explained. At 87, Triche said three days of auctioneering was becoming difficult, but like a parent sending his child off to their first day of college, he said he was nervous, but he didn't want the festival to ever fade away.

"It's been a good road," he said. "We can't let it go."

The festival is a source of pride for all involved. It had a struggle getting momentum, but has since turned into a very successful event - pulling in about $300,000 in profit each of the past three years it's been held. It did not happen during the COVID pandemic or immediately following Hurricane Ida.

Saturday alone, Bayou Civic Club board member Lindsey Savoie and law enforcement working the festival estimate more than 1,200 people were gathered under the pavilion. According to Savoie, this year's profits won't be known until at least December.

The French Food Festival began in 1973, the brainchild of Weldon Matherne and his sister, Bernice Ordoyne. Then it was called the Bouillabaisse Festival. They were part of the Bayou Civic Club, and Triche was one of the first board members. The festival is the biggest fundraiser the club puts on and is the primary source of funding for the Larose Community Center and the neighboring Larose Regional park.

Matherne, Ordoyne, Triche and other club members gathered in the field where the Larose Community Center sits today, and prepared to sell their home cooked dishes. Mother nature had other ideas.

"Rained out -- Lightning, thunder, water up to our ankles," he said, motioning with his hand to his ankle. "Didn't do a thing with that."

Club members threw down hay and soldiered through, but very few turned out. In true Cajun fashion, those who did show up were in shrimp boots, but it ultimately wasn't much. A lesson was learned though, and the next year the civic club had bought a tent and raised $30,000 for their efforts.

Their uphill struggle contineed the next year. A storm blew through and took the tent down, but the board's tenacity had caught the attention of elected officials. Things were about to change.

"The storm came and blew the tent down the weekend of the fair," Triche said. "Aw man, it was hard-going at first, but then after, that we had to source a lot of political help and grants to build the first building."

Louisiana Sen. Leonard J. Chabert secured a number of grants for the center, and their efforts were gaining steam. The center was built from donations and the grants, and the name of the event changed to its current name in 1982. The next 20 years the club spent about $100,000 in overhead and ended the events with about $80,000 to $85,000 in profit each year.

The 22 food booths remain local because they stay within the area's families, Savoie said. They are passed down from one generation to another. One of those vendors was Joel Barrios of Bayou Boys Po-Boys. Barrios has moved to Needville, Texas, but closed his restaurant in Texas for the weekend to bring his employees to the festival.

Barrios said he has brought many of the South Lafourche regional meals to Texas, and there was no better way to expose his employees to the meals they were making than to bring them to his hometown. He grew up on the other side of the bayou from the festival and used to play on its grounds as a child.

Kristyn Douglas is a waitress at his restaurant. She was hard at work rolling boudin balls at the booth. She's from Wharton, Texas, and this was her first time sampling the food. She said she enjoyed the music and the food, and said if the crew comes back next year she'll be here.

"When it comes to Texas, they don't put the flavor into it for sure like they do here," she said.

Her favorite was the pastalaya, "I'm a big jambalaya person, and to put pasta in it just made it better... it was just something new and different for me."

This article originally appeared on The Courier: French Food Festival in Larose raises money for community center, park