Jeanerette, Louisiana: The Flashing Red Light

LeJeune's Bakery, Jeanerette, Louisiana

Michel, one of my Louisiana cultural interpretors, told me about this bakery in Jeanerette where, if you see a red light flashing outside its door, it means there's bread fresh out of the oven, hot.

My brain collects factoids such as this, caching them into some data closet, so I heard the bakery information, and then forgot about it. Until, that is, when a few weeks later, on a Saturday morning, I was driving from Lafayette to Morgan City on Highway 182, entered into Jeanerette's business district - almost empty of pedestrian or vehicular activity - and saw a red light incongruously sticking out over a storefront sign.

How odd. Ohhhhh, LeJeune's Bakery! Was the light supposed to be flashing? Didn't remember, but parked the car, and went in.

LeJeune's Bakery, Jeanerette, Louisiana

Whereupon I saw warm, plump rolls just asking to be plucked. Too bad the bakery's Generation 6 happened to walk up right then, only to inform me the rolls had been promised to Generation 4, his grandmother.

LeJeune's Bakery, Jeanerette, Louisiana

I couldn't buy a roll, but the owner's son graciously allowed me to look at the bakery's heart, where the bread is made.

LeJeune's Bakery, Jeanerette, Louisiana

Here's a good video the regional news did on the bakery:

Note that one pronounces the family name lazhern and not lazhune. There's a good newspaper story about what the bakery did during ingredient shortages in World War II.

LeJeune's Bakery, Jeanerette, Louisiana

Will Generation 6 go into the business? Too soon to tell, but there's a precedent of non-linear transfers, so if the current direct line doesn't take over the business, maybe a cousin will.

LeJeune's Bakery, Jeanerette, Louisiana

The bread tastes as good as it looks in the picture above.
 

Jeanerette, Louisiana: The Sweetest Place in Louisiana

Sugarcane trucks, Jeanerette, Louisiana 

I'm kind of fascinated by the sugarcane harvesting. No idea why. But I like the shape of the trucks. The harvesting machines are like dinosaur robots. And the sugarcane is so green. 

I first wrote about sugarcane in Louisiana here.


Recently, I drove through Jeanerette ("the sweetest place in Louisiana"), which is on Highway 182.

Right on the edge of town, in the short-short video below, you can see: unharvested sugarcane, sugarcane being harvested, empty going out for more sugarcane, and the plant processing the cane. Not to mention the killer song by Blind Boys of Alabama. (I heard them play this very song at Columbia's first Roots 'n Blues Festival.)

I got out of my car to take some pictures of the processing plant. The processing produces an aroma that is not unpleasant. It's not the enticing fragrance of peppers roasting in New Mexico, but it has a homey, agrarian smell. Like barns and horses and earth.

Sugarcane plant, Jeanerette, Louisiana