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ORAL HISTORY

Floyd Poche

Poche's Market

The inception of Poche’s Market occurred sometime in the 1940s, when Floyd Poche’s grandfather, a first-generation American, began to sell pork, boudin, and crackling from pigs that he would slaughter himself. He had a small store in Poche Bridge, an area along the Bayou Teche near the larger town of Breaux Bridge. Floyd eventually bought the business from his father in 1976, and he has since expanded the operation more than tenfold. With the help of his son, Scotty, he now produces several additional products for retail sale (andouille, turducken, and crawfish boudin are among them). He added on a lunch service restaurant that specializes in one-pot cooking, such as pork backbone stew and crawfish étouffeé. Finally, he opened a USDA processing plant, which allows him to ship his products throughout the United States. The family boudin recipe has also changed, conforming to contemporary palates and the availability of ingredients: the liver component is milder, and the heat now comes from fresh jalapeño, rather than cayenne, peppers. What hasn’t changed is Poche’s steady focus on Cajun cooking traditions. This may bear out most blatantly down the road at the family’s RV park, where Cajun families—and often owner Floyd Poche himself—can be found simmering courtbouillon in cast iron pots and boiling crawfish over campfires.