Rouses_FINAL_September-October-2017

COOKING & INGREDIENTS

supply only, Munford found. He wanted a product where he could connect to the end user, and he had already thought of sausage. Munford had spent months rigging a smoker in his facility, which is between Hammond and Gonzales, in a business partnership with Wayne Jacobs Smokehouse and Restaurant, a state-inspected facility in LaPlace. It took a long time for Two Run Farm Executive Chef Via Fortier and Munford to come up with the recipe for their own smoked sausage. If you’ve ever had homemade sausage made exclusively with wild boar, you may know it can be gamy. The 30-70 mixture with domestic pork gives it a smoother taste, Munford says. It comes in

Munford’s love of horses landed him on the varsity polo team, traveling to Oxford and Cambridge for matches. “You could play polo for $150 a semester, so this not-wealthy kid fromMississippi was able to play polo on these fancy thoroughbreds, so fast and good, so well-trained,”Munford said. “I was able to pay it off by mucking out stalls. It was a lot of fun.” Munford doesn’t get to play polo these days, but he has a new traditional role in life. He is, in his own words, a besotted new dad. His daughter “may be the cutest thing in the whole world,”Munford said.

Original, Green Onion and Wild versions. Munford admits he has mixed feelings about wild boar. His dear friend as a child was his pet potbellied pig, Mr. T. Munford’s Mr. T had the Mohawk hairdo and bad attitude of the TV character. Munford grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. His grandfather lived not far away, and young Charlie spent weekends with him on his farm, learning to love the outdoors, fishing,farming andhunting.As he got older, he sought educational outdoor experiences, including a transformative semester at The Mountain School in Vermont and a lengthy Canadian canoe trip. After high school, Munford went to Deep Springs College, a tiny liberal arts college set on a cattle ranch in the Eastern Sierra desert in California. The all-male school typically has a student body of only 24 to 30 students. Students hire and fire faculty, make admissions decisions, and maintain the facilities and vehicles. They also are responsible for cleaning, cooking, and farm and ranch work. Munford loved it. “I probably wouldn’t have gotten into Yale if I hadn’t gone to Deep Springs,”Munford says. He spent three years on scholarship in New Haven, and received a stipend for his independent study of organic farming in Cuba. At the time, it was difficult to enter the communist country, but because then- president George W. Bush was an alum, Yale students had a special loophole to facilitate their study in Cuba. “At the time, (Cuba) was untouched by tourism,” Munford said. “The economy was so distorted by the economic system. They were rich in knowledge but deprived of fossil fuels and agricultural chemicals, so their organic farming system is well developed.”

Holla ’Backs Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss take on the Arkansas Razorbacks in October. LSU and Mississippi State play them in November. Using wild boar sausage in your jambalaya is a tasty way to make sure we eat the enemy.

Charlie Munford, Charlie’s Smoked Sausage of Wild Boar & Pork

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