ROUSES_MayJun2019_Magazine-Print

photo courtesy of Nicholls State University

got a $1 million pledge to that end. (The program, in fact, is already up and running.) We also talk about a curiosity of mine, the disappearing Cajun accent. His eyes light up. “True, something’s being lost.” He tells of a star student of his whose parents and sister are both shrimpers, speak Cajun French and English with thick Cajun accents. But the daughter has gone off to study both abroad and in New York. “She sounds like she’s from New York City — she could’ve come off Broadway,” says Folse. “It’s not that that’s bad. But it’s what’s happening.” Folse, in fact, has among the more unusual Cajun accents I’ve en- countered. It seems to me to be somewhere between Brooklyn and the bayou. I ask him about it. He laughs. When a student at Nicholls he took a speech course; the prof called in a linguist to try to decode the accent. The verdict: Cajun with a mysterious mix of Bostonian brogue. Chef remains mystified. “That’s impossible,” he says, laughing. Folse has ordered up cups of the recently cooked megabatches of gumbo, but first wants me to sample his crawfish bisque. It comes, and I dig in. I’m sorry, but nothing coming out of a factory kitchen should taste that good. Next, the gumbos arrive. I take a bite of each and tell Folse what I’m required to tell everybody when I try their gumbo: “Well, it’s not as good as my momma’s.” But I honestly think that in a blind tasting with gumbos cooked in home kitchens, it would hold its own.

Following Folse around his gumbo factory is a bit like fol- lowing Willie Wonka in his chocolate factory. Everything is of grand scale and Folse sees magic being done everywhere. The smooth-functioning technology clearly delights him. He’s effu- sive in praise of his team, to whom he is simply known as Chef. Otherwise everyone is on a first-name basis. As we watch the 5,000-pound batch of gumbo come together, Folse could be someone seeing it for the first time instead of the thousandth. “Look at the color,” he says as the kettle absorbs and stirs in the dark roux slurry that’s just been poured it. “It’s looking like gumbo now. That’s beautiful. Wherever they eat this, they will be eating real gumbo.” “We’re dumping in the chicken now,” a plant worker tells the boss. That means the gumbo’s getting close. They’ll add a little more water, the secret sauce, and then bring the batch up to 190 degrees F and hold for fifteen minutes. Then, a little more salt and the gumbo will be ready for pumping. We head back to Folse’s conference room to continue the discus- sion and where he wants me to sample some factory gumbo. We talk as we go. He’s a man of a thousand ideas and his latest one is the creation of a Bayou Studies Program within the Nicholls State Culi- nary Institute. It would be the “repository for all things bayou, instead of having everything go to LSU or Tulane.” Folse says he’s already

50 MAY•JUNE 2019