Our quarterly subscription boxes are full of happiness, delivered right to your door! And they’re a great way to discover the joy of authentic Louisiana cooking. The goodies in each box are a surprise, but you can look forward to 5-10 favorites that include signature & heirloom beans, delicious seasonings, ingredients, tools for the kitchen, and everything in between. Plus, you’ll find some exclusive, handpicked items that are sure to put a smile on your face.

Hummus

A favorite classic, this hummus recipe is creamy and dreamy. Enjoy with pita, crackers, or crudité.

Braised Garbanzo and Tomatoes

This hearty dish hails from our friends at Taste of the South magazine, and it’s sure to please.

Kid-Friendly Pasta & White Bean Salad

Kids and adults alike love a colorful pasta salad. Here, white beans up the protein and fiber!

One-Pot Pastalaya

Pastalaya uses pasta instead of jambalaya’s traditional rice, and the trinity of onion, celery, and green bell pepper round out the savory flavors.

Our quarterly subscription boxes deliver the joy of authentic Louisiana cooking, right to your door. And while the goodies in each box are a surprise, you can look forward to 5-10 favorites that include signature & heirloom beans, delicious seasonings, ingredients, tools for the kitchen, and everything in between. Plus, you’ll find some exclusive, handpicked items that are sure to delight. Find out more, and get cookin’.

Chipotle Bean Dip

A creamy blend of Frijoles de Olla and chipotle peppers in adobo sauce creates the perfect smoky dip for your favorite chips.

Field Pea Salsa

Colorful with a crunch, this delicious recipe features cooked and cooled Camellia Brand Field Peas, corn kernels, red onion, red bell pepper, and cilantro in a fresh lime juice dressing.

White Bean Pesto Pasta

A easy weeknight favorite, this dish comes together quickly with pasta, prepared or homemade pesto, cooked Camellia Brand Cannellini Beans, and Parmesan.

Abita Springs is a quaint village deep in the piney woods of the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about 45 minutes from New Orleans. Once a spa town where New Orleanians came to escape the summer heat and swim in the many local springs, it retains not only its 19th-century architectural charm but also its old-timey general store, right in the town’s CBB (central business block). With an emphasis on local tradition, Artigue’s Abita Market is a family business that serves the little community’s loyal residents, many of whom live in historic Victorian cottages close enough to walk to the store. Customers also include cyclists passing by on the nearby Tammany Trace bike path and day-trippers from New Orleans who come to check out the town’s attractions, including the quirky UCM Museum and the local Abita Beer microbrewery. 

A Small Town with Big Flavor

In addition to the grocery essentials required in any small Louisiana town, like Cajun spices, T-Rey’s local andouille sausage, spicy boiled peanuts and plenty of red beans, lima beans and blackeye peas, Artigue’s also offers a fresh daily specials menu, brought to life by chef Trey Herty. The menu features a rotation of classic Louisiana hot plates and po-boys plus local family recipes like Mom’s Red Beans and Rice with Pickled Meat, T-Rey’s Smoked Boudin, Louisiana Catfish Meuniere and Artigue’s famous Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo. And not to be missed are the side dishes, from tasty Boudin Balls with Pepper Jelly Dipping Sauce to Stewed Green Baby Limas, Baked Yams and Collard Greens.

Artigue’s Red Bean Secrets Revealed

The menu at Artigue’s evolves along with the seasonal produce that’s locally available, while also staying true to New Orleans traditions such as Red Beans and Rice on Mondays. Sometimes the menu is more Cajun and other times it’s more Creole, but at Artigue’s it’s always Louisiana. So how does Artigue’s do red beans? Chef Trey essentially follows his mom’s recipe and adds in a few “chef hacks” along the way. (His mom, Reba, makes the best red beans he’s ever had.) For seasoning meat he uses products he developed – T-Rey’s Specialty Meats Smoked Sausage and Pickled Meat – which customers can also buy in the store. Chef Trey always browns the sausage in a separate pan and deglazes the pan with vegetables to impart a rich umami flavor to his red beans, and he keeps the spice lineup simple and classic: salt, black pepper and cayenne, with garlic added at several different stages of the cooking process and a couple of dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce when serving. Can’t get much more Louisiana than that!

LSU Dining Executive Chef Laurence Landon, center, leads a cooking class for students.

When he’s not hilariously demonstrating clever ways for students to create quick meals in his comedic cooking series on YouTube entitled “Hack the Hall,” Executive Chef Laurence Landon has another regularly scheduled performance: managing the entirety of Louisiana State University’s Residential Dining operations. He knows how to stir the beans, as they say: the talent and commitment to quality and sustainability of Chef Laurence and his team have resulted in the 459 Commons Dining Hall’s certification by The Green Restaurant Association as 3-Star Green Restaurant. But on this day we found him in the kitchen, literally stirring the beans in a huge, rectangular vat, in anticipation of a busy lunch.

Beans taste like home.

Akin with many a Louisiana restaurant, The 5, as it’s called on campus, typically serves red beans on Mondays – a comforting taste of home for students from Louisiana. “Most students coming from other states aren’t aware of this tradition,” said Chef Laurence. He added that it doesn’t take long for them to learn just how important beans are in the food culture of the region. Chef Laurence also rotates lots of international bean dishes on the menu, like congri (a Cuban beans-and-rice comfort food), curries, falafel made with red beans or white beans, vegetarian bean burgers, and one of his favorite fusion foods – red beans and rice “egg rolls” – delicious dollops of red beans and rice wrapped in a wonton (like an egg roll) and fried. “Our menu is part down-home Southern and part eclectic international,” he said.

LSU’s Executive Chef of Residential Dining Laurence Landon stirs red beans ahead of a busy lunch at the 459 Commons Dining Hall on the LSU campus.

How do you red bean, Chef Laurence?

Chef Laurence makes his red beans – and all the beans on his menu – vegetarian, in order to be inclusive of vegan and vegetarian students, and serves platters of smoky meats and sausages that can be selected by diners as sides. His recipe is “pretty classic,” as he calls it – bay leaf, salt and pepper, cayenne, seasoning trinity – but he also adds “a bit of dried mustard and green hot sauce.” Chef orders his Camellia Red Kidney beans 25-pound sacks, and soaks them overnight on Sunday in anticipation of Monday’s lunch. Soaking them, he said, “quickens their cooking time and helps them cream faster.”

The Red Beans and Rice is served vegetarian, with meats and sausages as optional sides.

Healthy eating is part of the curriculum

Chef Laurence and his talented chefs and kitchen staff are at the forefront of LSU’s balanced lifestyle and healthy eating initiative, which brings eating into the educational sphere. The idea is that while students are at LSU, they’ll not only be studying academics, but will also be exposed to new foods and new ways of thinking about their eating habits, health and wellness. Fresh, local produce is a priority, nutritional values of foods are posted, and new life has been breathed into the dining menus as well as the university’s approach to student living – all of which provides multiple opportunities for that nutritional powerhouse, the bean, to steal the show.

Preserving Farm Heritage in Louisiana

For nearly four decades, Coykendall’s passion has been preserving the farm heritage — the seeds and stories — of a small, farming community in Louisiana. A Tennessee native, the 74-year-old horticultural genius is a true Renaissance man and a celebrity in a growing movement that places a premium on farm-to-table cuisine and locally sourced, organic, heirloom food and flavor.

Master Gardener & Seed Saver

Coykendall is a classically trained artist, who studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and for 20 years, he has been the Master Gardner at Blackberry Farm, one of America’s most celebrated destination resorts. In his role at Blackberry Farm, Coykendall cultivates the property’s seven acres of farm land that supply the resort’s award winning restaurants with fresh from the ground, heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables. His work also takes him around the world, searching for seeds and beans and the cultural knowledge of how to grow them.

An Annual Pilgrimage that Became a Treasure Trove

What has inspired Coykendall most is his annual pilgrimage to a small Louisiana community he stumbled upon 40 years ago. Drawn to the Washington Parish area as a college student in 1973, John forged relationships with local farmers and gardeners in the community, where over the decades he has recorded the oral histories and cultural wisdom of farmers and gardeners. Housed in more than 80 beautifully illustrated journals are saved and safeguarded rare varieties of the crops they once grew. Now, the Emmy nominated documentary Deeply Rooted produced by Christina Melton, tells the story of John Coykendall’s journey to save our seeds and stories.

Watch Deeply Rooted, Proudly Sponsored by Camellia

Read Debbie Elliott’s NPR story about John’s work and the Deeply Rooted documentary, watch a preview, and below, hear from Camellia Brand CEO Vince Hayward about our support of John’s efforts to save these culinary and farming traditions.

Since 1923, Camellia brand beans has been deeply rooted in southern dining traditions that bring people together. Our New Orleans-based, family-owned company is proud to support efforts to preserve our culinary heritage through this program and Louisiana Public Broadcasting. The film is currently being nationally distributed and broadcast through American Public Television.

Pictured from L to R: Producer Christina Melton, John Coykendall, Chef Kevin Belton, Vince Hayward (CEO of Camellia Brand), Allison Hayward, Adrienne Ehrensing.

There are so many delicious dishes to look forward to when it’s festival season in Louisiana. From Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest to the Los Islenos Fiesta and the Jambalaya Festival, there’s great music and art to enjoy, wonderful celebrations of culture and heritage, and of course, amazing food that showcases it all.

While you’re waiting to experiencing your favorite Louisiana festivals again, you can dig in to those iconic dishes at home. Here’s a sampling of great recipes to make in your own kitchen. They’re sure to bring the taste of Louisiana festivals to your dinner table.

K-Paul’s Famous Butter Beans ‘That Make You Crazy’

A favorite at New Orleans’ French Quarter festival!

Caldo

An authentic dish served at Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society’s annual Fiesta in St. Bernard, Louisiana.

Creole Jambalaya

An inexpensive, stick-to-your-ribs favorite found at most Louisiana festivals.

South Louisiana-Style White Beans & Rice

Two must-haves at Jazz Fest:

New Orleans-Style Red Beans & Rice