Traditions in the smoke

Drivers passing down Ville Platte streets on any given morning are delighted to the different smells in the air of roux and barbecue sauce that are being cooked. While these smells are noticeable to the even untrained olfactory system, there is also a fainter smell of meat being smoked in smokehouses.
One of these smokehouses, located on the southside of town, is still smoking its meat the old-fashioned way.
“We have an old round tub barrel cut in half that we use in our smoker,” Paul Fontenot of Paul’s Meat Market and Grocery said. “We just try to maintain that old time tradition.”
As Fontenot explained, “The old time tradition is not a lot of thermostats and nothing electrical. Everything is done by eye and by feel. You have to adjust according to the temperature and humidity.”
In his smokehouse, Fontenot smokes a variety of meats to be sold in his store including 27 different types of sausages. There are also tasso, turkey wings, turkey necks, pig tails, pig feet, rabbits, ox tail, ham hocks, bacon, and ribs.
Fontenot does not know the strangest thing he ever smoked. As he said, “When you consider what we do, it’s not strange. Probably, if I had to guess, it would be pig tails. I don’t think there’s anything strange about it in this area. When people come in from out of town and see ox tails and pig tails, then they ask ‘What’s that?’”
Fontenot’s craft of smoking meat will be featured on an episode of Man Fire Food airing on Cooking Channel Wednesday, July 3, at 9 p.m.
“The production manager googled smoked meats near Lafayette because they were going do a show in New Orleans,” Fontenot said. “Our Facebook page popped up, and she went on the site and saw the smokehouses and some of the meats.”
This craft, which will be featured on the television series, began for Fontenot while he was working for Lawrence “Teet” Deville at Teet’s Food Store.
“I started working at Teet’s when I came out of high school in 1983,” Fontenot said. “I had worked for Mr. Teet one summer and went back to school. When I graduated, I went work in the crawfish lakes for two days. Then, my dad got me a job back at Teet’s. I stayed there for 11 years.”
“I started off mopping the floors and cutting grass,” Fontenot continued. “I’d help Mr. Teet make sausage in the smokehouse along with tasso and boudin. A position then came available for a cashier, and he asked if I would like to work as a cashier too. So, I’d help in the meat market until noon, then I’d get off and go back and work cashier at 3 p.m. until I got enough experience in the meat market. Then, he just moved me completely to the meat market.”
Fontenot recalled how it was working at Teet’s for all those years. “It was great, and it was great people to work for. I learned a lot about the meat business. If I wouldn’t have worked for Mr. Teet, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am now.”
After his 11 years at Teet’s, Fontenot took his experience with him as he and his wife, Tammy, opened his own store on Chataignier Road heading toward Eunice.
“We opened here in November 1994,” Fontenot said. “The meat market was where the pop boxes are now. It was scary, but I was known from working at Teet’s.”
He continued, “This end of town was looking for something. We came in, and, within a week, it had exploded. We were doing well.”
When Paul’s first opened its doors, there were about 10 or 12 meat markets open in Ville Platte. Now, as Fontenot pointed out, there are only about three. “On this end of town,” he said, “there’s nothing else anymore.”
While Paul’s is doing its part keeping the tradition alive and keeping mom-and-pop businesses open in Ville Platte, Fontenot is joined at the store by his wife and son, Silas.
“I take care of the back while my wife takes care of the front,” Fontenot expressed. “If I had to do my job and her job, I wouldn’t do it.”
“Silas is working with us in the meat market,” Fontenot continued. “He just got his second degree in business management, and he’s going to get his master’s. When he’s finished school, he’s going to slowly take over the whole operation.”
Running the store has been a great experience for Fontenot, but it is better knowing his son will be keeping it going. “It becomes to where customers in a small town like this aren’t just customers,” he stated. “They become part of your family, and you get to know them.”
Fontenot shared what it means to be one of the remaining mom-and-pop grocery stores, still open in town. “We’re one of the few left,” he said. “They’re slowly disappearing. Everything is getting bigger, and small mom-and-pop places are just disappearing. It’s not just in the grocery business. Our Main Street and everything is disappearing.”
“To me, it means a lot,” he continued. “We worked hard all these years, and people get a different feel when they walk in here compared to a supermarket. It’s not just coming to shop for groceries. There’s a relationship between us and the customers.”
He then expanded on that customer relationship. “I always loved preparing things for people,” Fontenot said. “It’s not about preparing meat or smoking meat. You’re putting an experience on their dinner table. Their family is going to be around that and have those memories forever. You want to give them the best quality that you can so that experience isn’t bad for them.”