Welcome to Poché Bridge

Welcome to Poché Bridge. . , Preserving Cajun cuisine along the bayou for more than 150 years, Poché's is the legacy of the Antoine Poché family from which the name Poché Bridge originates. Current Poché's owner, Floyd Poché, remembers his grandfather having a little wooden building on the property where he would butcher hogs and sell groceries. Boucheries were a way of life in Poché Bridge, usually held on the first cold day of fall, and resulted in boudin, sausage and hogshead cheese. Floyd's great-great-grandfather, Antoine, had a cotton gin down the bayou and was known for making cracklin'. Floyd's father, Lug, started Poché's in 1962 as a slaughterhouse. Six years later, the restaurant and store were added, with the Country Club coming in 1982. Today, Poché's is a mecca for boudin, plate lunches, Sunday barbecue and even necessities like toothbrushes and cold drinks for paddlers coming in from the water., A Bountiful Land , While Poché Bridge was known for its cotton gin when the village was formed in 1859, it wasn't only cotton that was growing in the surrounding fields. Green onion tops and garlic were plentiful and even shipped around the area. Sweet potatoes, peppers and okra were also farmed by local families in this isolated community. The Pochés' property was a center where people could bring their crops for sale or trade. In the 1920s, there was a "store-on-wheels" or le merchant that traded bolts of cotton, thread, needles and thimbles for eggs and chickens. , "At the crack of dawn when the mist enveloped the countryside like a shroud, she [my grandmother] and I drove by horse-drawn buggy to visit relatives at Ile Des Cypres. Up ahead, past the gate and the mailbox, the deep rutted road followed the contour of the winding bayou, past unpainted farm houses where smoke rose skyward above the chimneys and spider webs hung on barb-wire fences. It was a common sight in those days to see a whole family walking toward the fields to pick cotton from dawn until dusk with only a noon meal in between."-"A Journal of Remembrances" by Joyce Poché, Cajun Crossing , Much like Breaux Bridge, Poché Bridge gets its name from an early mode of transportation. The road that is now LA 31 used to run alongside Bayou Teche, and pilings or trees sunk in the getting across. A wooden bridge was built sometime before the 1920s and then the current concrete bridge in the 1970s or '80s. In the old days, horsedrawn buggies would travel across the bridge to Antoine's country store to attend the Saturday night fais do-do., Marinated Pork and Gravy , 1/4 cup cooking oil , 1 Tbsp. sugar , 1 lb. marinated pork , 1 large onion, chopped , 1 large bell pepper, chopped , 4 2/3 cups flour , 2 stalks celery, chopped , 11/2 cups sugar , 1 clove garlic, chopped , 1/2 cup shallots , Heat cooking oil with 1 Tbsp. of sugar until the sugar turns brown. Add the pork and cook until golden brown on both sides. Remove the meat and excess grease. Leave enough grease to cover the bottom of the pan, about 2 Tbsp. Add onion, bell pepper and celery and cook until transparent. Add the pork to the vegetables and cook for 1 hour, adding water as needed for gravy. Add green onions, garlic and desired seasonings. Cook for another half hour. Serve over cooked rice. , From Poché's Meat Market and Restaurant, La vie est dure - "Life is hard" in French as spoken by farmers after world war one when they walked the fields at the crack of dawn, according to Joyce Poché., Poché Bridge , Floyd Poché has a framed record of the song "Poché Bridge" by Cajun Power hanging in his office. Other bands with songs by the same name include Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars with a fiddle-heavy version from their "La Louisianne Sessions" and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys from their "Happytown" album. , Find a complete Bayou Teche music playlist at techeproject.org! , The TECHE Project recognizes Shane Bernard, Patti Holland, Tami St. Germain, Chloé St. Germain-Vermillion and Erin Bass for their contributions to the content of this panel. , For more information, visit: Poché's Market, Restaurant and Smokehouse poches.com St. Martin Parish Tourist Commission cajuncountry.org The TECHE Project | techeproject.org