Chop Chop Farm – Out to Lunch – It’s Acadiana
If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like meat, you might want to keep this show on in the background and not listen too closely.
If you’re the kind of person who believes there are certain jobs that women just shouldn’t do – for example, that there’s nothing sexy about a lady pig farmer or a woman who knows her way around a butcher shop – you’ll probably be happier listening to an old Skynyrd album than hanging out for the next half hour with Aileen and her two fascinating women guests.
And fascinating they are.
Jamie Vickery has re-written the term “farm-to-table.” Normally when we talk about the commercial farm to table movement we think of restaurants that locally source food from small farms. In other words there are two separate entities – a farmer, and a restaurant. In Jamie’s case, she’s the farm and the table.
Jamie’s company, Scratch Farm Kitchen, raises pigs, lambs and chickens on her farm in Duson. And serves them up on plates – as a caterer, and at the Lafayette Farmer’s Market on Saturdays.
Betsy Bellard is a third generation member of the first family of meat and poultry in Opelousas.
Betsy is Director of Sales and Marketing for the family businesses – Targil Seasoning and Butcher Supplies, Bellard’s Poultry, and the family’s newest venture, Zydeco Chop Chop – a combination of dehydrated herbs and vegetables, already blended and ready to use in anything from traditional Cajun favorites to regular American fare. Betsy and her dad, Tim, starting packaging Zydeco Chop Chop in 2014 and today you can find it in most grocery stores in Acadiana as well as Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and around the world thanks to its availability online.
Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Gwen Aucoin.