POO YI, PECANS AGAIN!

Marquee on New Site of Cane River Company

Six years ago, I walked into the offices of the Cane River Pecan Company here in New Iberia, Louisiana and was surprised to see, on one wall, a framed copy of a 34-year old article in the Daily Iberian entitled “Pecan Businessmen Beginning Young” with my byline. After I talked with Jady Regard about the framed article, I blogged about the  Company, acknowledging the Dan Regard family for its phenomenal progress with a small enterprise manned by three forward-looking brothers who established a home-based pecan-cracking business called “The Nutcrackers" that  mushroomed into a thriving business selling pecans as far afield as Singapore.

The Cane River Pecan Company features a product line that includes roasted and salted pecans, chocolate-covered and praline pecans, fresh-baked pecan/chocolate chunk cookies, pecan pralines, pecan praline popcorn — and, now, a dessert that CEO Jady Regard has concocted for the “Company Special”—Boudin Pie!

In the window of the Cane River Pecan Company

Jady Regard is one of New Iberia Louisiana’s entrepreneurs who gave up a job as manager of corporate sales for the Chicago Bears and for the LSU Basketball team to take over marketing products of the Cane River Pecan Company. His newest concoction, Boudin Pie, contains one pound of locally sourced, uncased pork boudin, a layer of sweet potato souffle covered with a pecan glaze in a handmade deep-dish crust. Boudin and pecan glaze? I’m told that it’s a dessert infusion that bests all homemade Cajun dishes.

I haven’t tasted this dish yet, but I visited the new headquarters of Cane River Pecan Company on Main Street two days before their scheduled tasting event. I walked around looking at products the company offers and admired the murals of the Natchitoches plantation area on one wall of the showroom — pictures and timelines concerning the pecan growing business. By adding pictures to this wall, Regard hopes to form a museum that will educate visitors about the industry, as well as advertise Louisiana’s rich resources. 

The Cane River Pecan Company was sourced by Jady Regard’s father, Dan Regard (now deceased), who owned a pecan grove on the plantation “Alcock Place” in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He employed his sons to spend their after-school hours and holidays cracking up to 400 pounds of pecans a week, using a large nut-cracking machine he ordered from San Antonio, Texas. Jady and his brothers sold pecans from a shop adjoining the Regard home on Darby Lane and advertised their product on signs placed in store windows of New Iberia and in the local newspaper, The Daily Iberian. From that small beginning, with their parent’s backing, and, later, with Jady’s talent for marketing, The Cane River Pecan Company burgeoned into a worldwide product distributer now equal to other Teche Country products such as hot sauce and rice.

Colorful tins with lids featuring paintings by Louisiana artist Clementine Hunter and, now, lids of tins with pictures of New Orleans streetcars, contain the company's pecan products and line the shelves of the new showroom. In addition, corporations can order custom gift tins of pecan products that show their own logos and personal messages.  

Mais, when the weather clears — if the weather clears — I’m going downtown and get my satisfied from a boudin pie so I can brag about it to my Sewanee, Tennessee friends who often wonder what Cajuns will eat next!