ABBEVILLE — What started as an idea from a student eight years ago has turned into an annual tradition at Abbeville High School.
Each year, they have a Boucherie that provides students with an opportunity to learn how to process a hog and cook different foods using it.
Shane Theall, an agriculture teacher at Abbeville High School, said, “We’re trying to teach by student-led. Everything is basically student-driven. Students scrape the pig. The students skin the pig. I’m supervising to break down the different components, but they actually are using the knives. They’re actually using the saw," he added.
Students were placed at different stations to cook sausage, jambalaya, boudin and cracklins.
Joseph Hebert, an Abbeville High School student, said, “"It's very interesting to me, but I've never seen it before though."
Another student, Meah Lege, shared how she learned to make sausage during the Boucherie. “They have a machine, and then they kind of put skin, kind of like the wrap on it, and then they process the sausage through like a little grinder, and it goes into the skin, and then they just tie it, and then they cook it,” she said.
While the Boucherie teaches some students how to process and cook a hog, it teaches other students about anatomy. Using a pump to push air into the hog’s lungs and examine the heart, the school’s health students are able to use the Boucherie as a learning experience.
Jacob Craft, Louisiana’s FFA Vice President for Area II, said, “They’re showing their CTE students, their health students, their FAC students, their FFA students all about, not just the Boucherie and the culture of it, but the anatomy of the pigs, and the different types of foods you can get out of the pigs.”
Teachers and students at the high school say they are already looking forward to next year’s Boucherie.
