A soft sausage of pork, liver, rice, onion and spring onion, spiced with cayenne — squeezed from its casing and eaten on the go.
What makes it boudin
Pork and liver, simmered then ground.
Cooked rice worked through the meat.
Spring onion, parsley and cayenne; a soft casing you squeeze it out of.
Where it comes from
It came out of the boucherie, where a pig was killed and shared out, and nothing went to waste; rice stretched the meat. The French boudin blanc is its ancestor in name, but the Cajun kind is its own thing.
Now it's sold hot from meat markets and petrol stations across Acadiana, often by the link or the pound for breakfast in the car. Boudin rouge, made with blood, is much rarer than it was.