Smoking his mark

Teet’s Food Store has been sharing a little Peace, Love and Pounce with its fellow Cajun brothers and sisters since the summer of 1955 when the store was first opened by Lawrence “Teet” Deville.
Now, Luke Deville, who discovered his love for cooking from smoking meats along side his father Chris and grandfather Lawrence, has begun to expand on the specialty foods the store has been known for.
According to Luke, the Ville Platte based store has always thrived on having irresistible smoked meats for people to enjoy. What makes Teet’s smoked delights so special, though?
Luke’s answer proves it’s all about how you do your smoking. “Some people will use wood chips to make their fire to smoke the meats but we like to use a live fire so that our meats are smoked from direct heat.” Luke said, “Smoking the meat this way allows us to have more smoke going on our meats.”
Whatever they have been doing at Teet’s Food Store must be working because it caught the eye of Louisiana author Dixie Poche.
After hearing an ad on the radio for Teet’s, Poche reached out to Luke with the hopes of having them in her book Classic Eateries of Cajun Country.
Luke’s decision to say yes to Poche’s request has begun to pay off since the release of the book.
“I was invited to one of Dixie’s book signings in New Orleans and while there I was able to demonstrate cooking a pounce for the crowd and also allow them to taste it,” Luke said. “What was really neat was that the Southern Food and Beverage Museum is displaying the new seasoning we created not that long ago. It will be seen by a lot of people.”
After the feature in Poche’s book and the cooking demonstration, Teet’s was offered the opportunity to be seen and heard of by the abundant amount of tourists that visit the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans.
The extra publicity has lit a fire under Luke, which has made the 28-year-old push himself to continue enhancing and improving a family tradition that started long before Luke was smoking the meats at Teet’s.
“We have always been known for our smoked meats but not our Boudin,” Luke said. “Changing people’s idea of what our Boudin is has been something I have really been wanting to do for about four and half years now.”
Keeping some tradition alive, Luke has opted to continue using pig intestine as the casing for the local store’s Boudin. When it comes to the stuffing however, Luke was ready to make some changes.
“I finally started really trying to better our Boudin recipe about two years ago,” Luke said. “I began messing with the recipe we had by adding more meat and spices and removing some of the rice.”
It was through test tasters in the community that helped Luke decide when the Boudin was right. “I would give packs out to people here and tell them to try it out and let us know what they think.”
Luke’s final Boudin recipe has become an award winning one. After taking first place in the unlinked category at the Boudin Cook-Off competition in Lafayette, Teet’s Food Store plans to continue building itself a sizable repertoire of Louisiana specialties for people to enjoy.
“I don’t want Teet’s to just supply people with good smoked meats,” Luke said. “I want us to be good at everything especially because I do not plan on going anywhere. This is my future.”