48
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2014
the
Holiday
issue
J
ust outside the Gretna end of the Belle Chasse Tunnel, Ben
Becnel’s The Farm is a one-stop shop of sorts. It operates seven
days a week as a bait shop, hot boudin stop, nursery, treasure
trove for things pickled and preserved, and permanent farmers
market featuring produce grown exclusively by the Plaquemines
Parish father/son farming team Ben and Ben Becnel. Ben Sr. and
Ben Jr. have been in business together for more than 40 years since
the younger graduated from high school.Their history with Rouses
goes back almost as long.
On a recent autumnal afternoon, the produce selection at The Farm
included Creole tomatoes, shiny eggplant, yellow squash, and hearty,
pencil-length okra. I picked up some filé powder that an associate
of the Becnel family had freshly
ground and packaged in a reused
baby food jar.
The Becnels’ land — 250
acres of fields and trees — lies
roughly fifteen miles downriver
from the tunnel, around Jesuit
Bend. The habitat is idyllic
down here, even with oil refineries and the infrastructure that
supports them interrupting the landscape. The sky widens and
the vegetation grows more verdant as you travel down Louisiana
Highway 23. Past seafood houses, past citrus groves, past homes
separated by quiet, broad expanses of green.
The Becnels run another farm stand, their original, beside a citrus
grove in Jesuit Bend. Here you can buy saplings to grow your own
blood oranges, and the citrus you also find at Rouses: oranges,
lemons, kumquats, grapefruit, and satsumas — several varieties of
the latter. The first satusmas ripened early this season and were in
Rouses Markets in September. In late October the grove’s unripe
satsumas appeared just on the brink of turning color,while multi-
sized green orbs on other trees would hold out for cooler weather.
Come December or January when the Becnels harvest their Meyer
lemons, Chef Alon Shaya of Domenica Restaurant and Pizza
Domenica will come calling
— either at one of the Becnels’
farm stands, or at a Rouses
Market. Shaya and his cohorts
at Domenica use the Meyer
lemons for making limoncello,
a sweet Italian lemon liqueur,
which bartenders serve super
chilled and straight up as an after-dinner treat. “Becnel citrus isn’t
sprayed or waxed,” says Shaya, “It’s just really natural, so the oils of
the lemon are pure and clean.”
“We’ve been selling produce since the 1950s, and
Rouses has been around since 1960. We have
quite a heritage together.”
—Ben Becnel, Sr.
Ben & Ben Becnel
by
Sara Roahen +
photo by
Frank Aymami
