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Rouses Means Local brands

Wow Wee Sauce by sarah baird

PHOTO BY ROMNEY CARUSO

You never quite know which lessons you picked up in the kitchen as a child will come in handy later in life. Maybe your childhood job was setting the table for formal family dinners, which inspired a love of organizing parties and led to a career in event planning. Perhaps desserts were always your responsibility for family potlucks, ensuring a love affair with pastries and, eventually, a bakery of your own. For Lois Lasseigne of Cut Off, Louisiana, it was her childhood role as “sauce maker” for the family that eventually led to the founding of her company, Wow Wee Dipping Sauce.

“My mom always made me help cook, and the sauces were the thing she had me make, like the dipping sauce and tartar sauce,” Lasseigne explains. “She would have me mix them up. It was kind of my duty.” This childhood assignment inspired a lifelong commitment to a type of sauce that is special not only to her family, but her community as a whole. “It’s actually been my God-given desire since I was young to bottle my sauce, because around here it’s a Cajun tradition that, anytime we boil seafood, we make a dipping sauce. And this is basically what Wow Wee is,” she says. “But we don’t just eat it on seafood. We put it on our sandwiches, we dip our chicken tenders in it, our French fries — we even put it on a hamburger. So, it’s very versatile. There’s really no other sauce like it out there. I’ve heard people say that it’s an alternative to ketchup or ‘the new ketchup’ because, just like ketchup, you can basically dip anything in it.” Boiling seafood is something of a religion in Cajun country, and no meal would be complete without a little something extra — the dipping sauce — for an additional pop of flavor. “Wow Wee is from a family recipe. However, every household where we’re from in South Louisiana pretty much makes a version of it. They may add things like onions or Worcestershire sauce, but the recipe I’ve put forward is just a basic, simple recipe. It’s a base, pretty much. And, around here in this area, if they don’t have to make the sauce — if they can just buy it off the shelf — that’s what they’re going to do.”

And while the dipping sauce might be a known quantity in and around Cut Off, people outside the region experiencing the dipping sauce for the first time are quick to point out just how unique — and delicious — it is. “It’s something different. It’s something people have never had before. When you get outside of this area, the word is pretty much, ‘Oh, it’s different — it’s really good!’” says Lasseigne. Wow Wee has been in Rouses stores since 2011, and the relationship marked the beginning of broader exposure for Lasseigne’s company — as well as plenty of new dipping sauce converts. “Honestly, Rouses is where it all started, because they gave us a chance right off the bat. They say that they support local and they are true to their word. They support local products, they support local businesses, and they have been just phenomenal with that. They have been a blessing. They were our first big customer. They were right there to help, and they never looked back and we never looked back.” Going forward, Lasseigne and theWowWee team hope that slow and steady growth will keep bringing the traditions of her childhood kitchen to hungry seafood boilers, French fry dippers, sandwich makers and everyone in between. “I’d like to keep expanding — like Rouses is doing. I like the way they grow, because they’ve really done it at a steady pace: a little bit at a time. And that’s the vision I have for my business as well. I want to grow a little more here, getting a couple of more stores there, because that way, you can keep up with everything!”

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