46
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2014
I
started growing and selling mustard and turnip greens when I was just 13.
My younger brother would help me work the field behind our house in
Bayou Blue, but really, it was my own show. After high school, I went to
work full time at Caro’s Produce in Houma. That was 1960, the same year and
the same city that Anthony J. Rouse, Sr. and his cousin Ciro DeMarco opened
Ciro’s Supermarket. Mr. Anthony was one of the first people I sold to, and the
first thing he told me, after hello, was, “Larry, I want the best quality at the best
price.”
That’s still Rouses’ motto.
Traveling was a big part of my job at Caro’s. One day I was going across the bridge
and realized I forgot my wallet at home. I paid the toll with a box of bananas.
I worked with Mr. Anthony at Ciro’s, then at the Rouses Market he and the
boys opened in Thibodaux in 1975, and at every Rouses Market they opened
thereafter
(Ciro’s closed in 1976 when my cousin Ciro retired – Ali Rouse Royster).
When the Caro’s sold their produce company in 1999, Mr. Anthony asked me
to come work for him as Rouses Local Produce Buyer. I thought about staying
home and watching game shows and
As the World Turns
, but that wasn’t the way
my world turned. I wanted to work.
Rouses Produce Buyers are in the field every day. We check crops from planting
to harvest. I work with strawberry farmers in Independence, tomato farmers in
Belle Chasse and Tickfaw, and shallot farmers in Chackbay. There are farmers
from Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama to the panhandle of Florida who
plant entire fields exclusively for Rouses.
Now when I travel, I always take an
extra box of bananas in case there’s a toll booth.
I’m no longer green at the produce business, but I still love my mustard, turnip
and collard greens. Most of them come from my old stomping grounds, Bayou
Blue, Chackbay and Thibodaux.
—Larry Daigle, Rouses Local Produce Buyer
At Season’sPeak
Mustard, turnip
& Collard Greens
MUSTARD
GREENS
(Top) Larry Daigle with farmer Marty Rogers, Bayou Blue.
(Bottom) Tin Can Greens
the
Outdoors
issue
