{"id":157517,"date":"2026-04-08T12:07:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T17:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=157517"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:07:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T17:07:33","slug":"thursday-april-16-thacker-mountain-radio-and-square-books-presents-ken-wells-for-boudin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/thursday-april-16-thacker-mountain-radio-and-square-books-presents-ken-wells-for-boudin\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday April 16: Thacker Mountain Radio and Square Books Presents Ken Wells for “Boudin”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thursday April 16 at 6pm @ The Powerhouse<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

About the book<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoudin is what the gods would eat if the gods were looking for the transcendent; a dish as satisfying to the soul as it is to the palate.\u201d So writes Ken Wells<\/strong>, Louisiana <\/strong>native and boudin hound, in this lively travelogue through the aromatic precincts of the makers, sellers, and connoisseurs of what one noted Louisiana chef calls the world\u2019s most versatile sausage. Sure, boudin is just pork, rice, veggies, and spices in a casing. Yet in creative hands\u2014and there are many in Louisiana\u2014the link becomes a transformative dish, as at home at breakfast as it is as a lunchtime snack in the car. This book tells you where to find boudin in any cuisine: boudin tacos and burritos, boudin eggrolls and wonton, boudin sushi rolls, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boudin isn\u2019t so much a guide as a journey that explains how a sausage created in the humble rural
kitchens of Cajun and Creole \u201cmaw-maws\u201d and \u201cpaw-paws\u201d has been reimagined into a national food
sensation. We observe the boudin-making rites of the state\u2019s oldest existing boudin producer where
old-school blood sausage is still made. We travel to the Boudin Capital of the World to delve into how the
Cormier family has gone from selling boudin out of a rice cooker in a tiny store to creating the Best Stop
boudin juggernaut\u2014making tons of boudin a day and shipping it all over America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boudin examines the Continental French roots of Louisiana boudin, unveiling some surprises such as a
crawfish boudin recipe in an 1824 French cookbook. Readers will learn how the fabled Lewis and Clark
expedition of 1804 came to feast on buffalo boudin. There are mysteries to be plumbed, some
unresolvable, as in the question of when rice entered the Louisiana boudin recipe. And, yes, there is a
personalized tour along the Boudin Trail, where Wells discovers some extremely rare boudin as he eats
his way across Louisiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the author<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ken Wells grew up on the bayous of South Louisiana, second of six sons of an alligator-hunting father
and a Cajun French\u2013speaking mother and gumbo chef extraordinaire. He\u2019s a Pulitzer Prize<\/strong> finalist (Miami<\/em>
Herald<\/em><\/strong>), editor of two Pulitzer Prize<\/strong>\u2013winning projects (Wall Street Journal<\/em>)<\/strong>, and the author of The Good
Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina <\/strong><\/em>and
Gumbo Life: A Journey down the Roux Bayou<\/strong><\/em>, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the pop-up author<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Beth Ann Fennelly<\/strong>, was poet laureate of Mississippi<\/strong> from 2016-2021. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi<\/strong> and lives in Oxford, Mississippi,<\/strong> with her husband and their three children. Her seventh book, The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs<\/em><\/strong>, is published in February 2026.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>
\n

Boudin<\/em><\/strong>
By Ken Wells
$21.95
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807186008<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday April 16 at 6pm @ The Powerhouse About the book \u201cBoudin is what the gods would eat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":157518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,25263],"tags":[3602,34015,34018,14200,4,4511,602,846,34017,34016,198,655],"class_list":["post-157517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-university-news","tag-beth-ann-fennelly","tag-boudin","tag-gumbo-life-a-journey-down-the-roux-bayou","tag-ken-wells","tag-oxford","tag-pulitzer-prize","tag-square-books","tag-thacker-mountain-radio","tag-the-good-pirates-of-the-forgotten-bayous-fighting-to-save-a-way-of-life-in-the-wake-of-hurricane-katrina","tag-the-irish-goodbye-micro-memoirs","tag-the-powerhouse","tag-university-of-mississippi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/041626-tmr-ken-wells-beth-ann-fennelly-1.png?fit=295%2C295&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157517"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157528,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157517\/revisions\/157528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}