-Funding for "Louisiana Coastal Cooking" was provided by... ...and by the Plaquemines Parish Tourism Commission.

A short drive from New Orleans, Plaquemines Parish offers a diverse variety of fishing, fresh seafood, rich history and environmental activities in Louisiana's Delta Country.

Learn more at visitplaqueminesparish.com.

-Since 1935, Louisiana's Barataria-Terrebonne basins have lost about 600,000 acres of land, the highest rate of wetlands loss in the country.

Today, on "Louisiana Coastal Cooking," we'll focus on one institution's efforts to preserve Louisiana's coastal region as well as its treasured traditions.

On this journey, we'll meet people who conserve Louisiana's vibrant culture through food and music.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Our first stop is Thibodaux, home to Nicholls State University, for a tour of the Nicholls Farm with Dr. Quenton Fontenot, biological sciences professor and manager of the 277-acre property that serves as an environmental research center.

The farm that has been part of Nicholls since the early 1970s was formerly used for the university's agricultural program.

Today, the property near Bayou Lafourche supports coastal restoration.

In the farm's fertile ground, students and faculty have grown over 35,000 plants that have been replanted along the coast and barrier islands.

-So we are at what we call one of our tree seed nurseries, and this is where we take trees from particular habitats, and we grow them out until they start producing seeds or acorns, in the case of these sand live oaks.

These trees were historically found on the barrier islands in Louisiana, but they kind of disappeared.

We don't know why.

These trees growing here, that we have the acorns that we can collect, grow saplings out and go bring them back to the coast and reestablish them.

We have some persimmons.

My wife and I, Dr. Allyse Ferrara, we're just going for a boat ride along the bayou.

And we saw some wild persimmons growing on this tree, so we picked a few.

Of course we ate some, but then we saved the seeds.

And then, we grew those out.

So we have a wild occurring persimmon that we know can survive in the swamps around here.

We also have some cypress trees growing back over here.

And those came, I think, from either Plaquemines or St. Bernard Parish.

And they were taking seeds from a place where saltwater was coming into.

And the trees that those seeds were collected from are dead now because of saltwater intrusion.

They could possibly have some type of salt tolerance that will be able to withstand maybe an occasional storm surge or something like that.

And, so, what we have here at the Nicholls Farm is a variety of tree species that are adapted to coastal life, living in our estuary that we can collect seeds from so that we can produce thousands of them to go and put back if we need to.

-The farm offers student learning activities and encourages partnerships with conservation organizations.

-So we're here underneath our shade house, and we have maintained in here right now are four different species of native Louisiana irises.

Our ditches used to be full of irises.

Remember as a kid growing up.

Since they started spraying the ditches, we've lost a lot of irises.

And so, you know, yeah, irises are abundant, but they're something that we need to keep our eye on.

We have a wetland here at the Nicholls Farm that we built with Ducks Unlimited, and we partner with the Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative.

And over the last year, we've put about 8,000 irises out there.

And, so, we have a self-sustaining source of these irises that are beautiful to look at in the spring.

We can get the community engaged and come and see that.

One of the things that we're getting into is increasing pollinator habitat.

We've partnered with the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, and they received a grant to buy a bunch of wildflower seeds.

And we prepared a one-acre plot that we planted last year.

So we're seeing a lot of wildflowers out there.

These are native plants that are adapted to this climate.

So what we do is we can collect the seeds, we can take the plants out, split them out and grow them more and increase their abundance, and then bring them back out to areas that need to be restored.

And we know that they'll be successful because they're successful here.

We live in the heart of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary, and you can put a pirogue in the swamps up near Chackbay and paddle all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

It's one connected system.

And, so, what happens in the upper estuary will affect the lower estuary.

Our college students come out here, so it just gets them involved.

I want to make sure that they can take care of our coast.

I want to make sure I still have a good place to go fishing when I retire.

So I'm maintaining it as much as a habitat as I can so that when I retire, it's still there for me.

[ Chuckles ] -Next, we traveled to St. Tammany Parish to meet up with Don Dubuc, an award-winning outdoorsman and conservationist who has covered coastal Louisiana on radio and television for four decades.

Throughout his lifetime, Don has fished and hunted in south Louisiana, where the outdoors is deeply ingrained in the region's culture.

Today, the Louisiana Sportsman Hall of Fame inductee prepares an appetizer featuring waterfowl and small game birds.

-Welcome to the Spots and Dots Lake House Lodge.

We're on the banks of the Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, just out of Slidell.

Today I'm going to be cooking a real common camp dish.

Now, this is for hunters.

It's called game bird pepper poppers.

You can see here I've got dove breasts.

The dove are small.

They're a little darker than the quail, which means they've got a little bit more robust flavor than quail, which is more of a domesticated, lighter flavor.

And I've also got some ducks.

Now, these ducks are teal, green-winged teal.

It's one of the smallest species that you'll find, but it's one of the tastiest.

And you can ask any connoisseur of wild ducks which one they prefer.

It's going to be the small green-winged teal.

Now you'll notice you'll see a little bit of a white creamy substance on here.

And what this is, it's an Italian sweet cream that I like to marinate overnight.

It does some tenderizing, some lightning up, and a little bit of a sweeter flavor on there.

You can use milk or cream, whichever you prefer.

We start off with jalapeño peppers.

Now, you can actually use poblanos, and I do those sometimes, they're a little more work, they're a little bit different taste, but the jalapeño, if you like that crunchy flavor from a jalapeño, that's the way to go.

Then you put some cream cheese in it, or you can use cheddar cheese, whichever you prefer.

And then you place the breast.

And I'll take one of the doves first.

We'll put the dove on top of the cream cheese.

Then we'll use a spice shake.

Any type that's your favorite Cajun seasoning.

And you just simply sprinkle a little bit of it on there.

And then you want to wrap it with a slice of bacon.

And the bacon serves a couple of purposes.

Wild game birds don't have a lot of fat on them, so it provides some fat and some juice, but it also holds it all together, your cream cheese and your duck breast.

So we'll just put that on the side for a second.

So we're going to make one of the quail pepper poppers now.

Again, we've got the jalapeño pepper, cream cheese.

Lay the quail breast in it.

And I'm still using the regular kind of Cajun-flavored, spicy, kind of salty seasoning.

Then you take another strip of bacon and do the wrap and a toothpick to hold it together, and another popper is ready to go.

Now we're going to do the duck.

And what I've got here is a green-winged teal bird.

These are the smallest species that you're going to find, but it's also one of the tastiest.

And you'll notice, unlike the dove and the quail, I've got the skin left on this.

And if you can leave the skin on the dove or the quail, do it.

It's a very thin skin, and sometimes it's a little difficult to keep whole.

So what you want to do, again, like we did with the others, is just place it on the jalapeño pepper with the cream cheese.

Now, on the duck I'm going to use a little different blend of spice.

This one's got a little brown sugar on it as well as the Cajun spice.

And what that does -- a duck has got probably the most robust or game flavor of any of the game birds, and it will kind of give it a little bit of a sweet taste.

So we take another wrap of bacon around the duck, just like we did with the quail and the dove, and a toothpick.

And I'll do a couple more here.

Again, start off with your cream cheese.

And on your jalapeño peppers, you want to hollow that out.

Make sure you get rid of those seeds.

That's where a lot of the hot taste comes is from that and that kind of a core in the middle.

That's pretty much got sometimes a bitter taste.

So you want to get all of that out and just use the shell of the jalapeño.

Take another quail breast, lay it on top.

Use our seasoning.

Another strip of bacon.

And do the wrap.

Toothpick.

And we're just about ready for the grill.

Okay, our poppers are ready now.

We've got a medium-hot to a hot fire.

You want to put these on a pretty good heat, and you set them on there on the grill.

And remember now, you've got three different types of game birds on this one.

So it's a little tricky on the time it's going to take to cook them.

The duck being a little bit of a thicker, heavier meat, it's going to take a little bit longer than the quail will.

And the quail will take a little bit longer than the dove.

But it really doesn't make that much difference because you don't want these birds well done by any means.

Because the longer you leave them on there, they're going to have the tendency to dry out.

And you don't want that to happen.

A good measure of when they're done is you watch the bacon, the bacon gets crispy.

Generally the inside is going to be done.

And you want it done to about a medium rare.

You don't want it raw, but again you don't want it overcooked.

It's going to take about ten minutes or so.

And then, we're going to be ready to eat some poppers.

Now, this area here around Salt Bayou -- it's what this bayou behind me is called -- it empties into Lake Pontchartrain.

And you can see it's used as a waterway for fishermen to access it.

There's a lot of crabbing activities.

This is a very rich environment here because you hear a lot about brackish.

And brackish is a mix of saltwater and freshwater.

And down here at Lake Pontchartrain, right here on the North Shore, you're going to have a lot of salt, a higher salinity content.

So you're liable to find speckled trout, redfish, drum, sheepshead, those type of fish.

Also, there's an abundance of crabs and shrimp.

But as you move up Salt Bayou and into that marsh which sits on the bank of Lake Pontchartrain, the Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge, it starts to change and it becomes brackish plants and eventually becomes fresh, where you'll find cypress trees and tupelo gum.

And whenever you get a wide variety of habitat types like that, you get a wide variety of seafood, fish, and also some wildlife.

The hunting and the fishing and the seafood is woven into our culture.

There's no separating it, and to see it at a loss and become eroded is very disheartening.

But there's some positive things we can be optimistic in, you know, that we will find the money and the engineers and the scientists will come up with the things to replicate what was once here and we've lost so much of.

All right.

It's time to turn our poppers.

We'll flip them over and kind of get that other side as that bacon's getting crispy on that bottom side.

Really looking good.

Looking good.

All right.

Our bacon should be all crisped up which is the main indicator that our pepper poppers are done, so the only thing left now is to put them on board.

Remember now we've got three different game birds here.

We've got duck, which is the teal.

We've got quail.

We've also got some doves, which is the smaller one.

And we're going to take a little look here and see how they came out.

And there you have it.

Pepper poppers for game birds.

-We return to Thibodaux for a foot-tapping gathering that is generating interest in the traditional Cajun music of Lafourche Parish.

Quenton Fontenot is a founder of the nonprofit that aims to preserve the culture of the region through live music and dancing at free jam sessions in the city's old American Legion Hall.

-We started a group back in 2014 called the Cajun Music Preservation Society, with a mission to increase the presence of live, traditional Cajun music in our region.

One of the things that we do is host an open Cajun jam on a first and third Wednesday here in Thibodaux.

We found our home at Gina's at the Legion, the restaurant at the local VFW hall.

And I think that by having a Cajun music preservation society there gives our veterans something a little bit extra.

It's not just for people that want to come and listen, but if you want to play music, you can come sit with us.

We've had Grammy Award-winning musicians sit in a circle with us.

But overwhelming majority are people who are considered to be still learning how to play.

-[ Singing indistinctly ] -We started this about ten years ago, and we started without a lot of musicians in this region.

In fact, we would bring in musicians from Lafayette or New Orleans just to have the music go.

But over time, more and more people started coming.

Sometimes we'll have over 20 musicians there that are playing, and so what we do, we just make the circle bigger.

I can't describe it, what it's like to be in there.

It's like time almost stops.

-Our final destination is St. James Parish, part of the Acadian Coast on the Mississippi River, for a cooking session with parish president Pete Dufresne.

At the family farm run by his sons, Pete shares memories about the culinary traditions that inspire him in the kitchen.

-I learned from watching my mom, watching my grandmother, you know.

Every Sunday, we went to lunch at one grandparent's house and supper at the other grandparent's house, and it was all home-cooked meals, you know.

When I was a kid, we didn't have any fast food restaurants here.

There wasn't any other options but to go to grandma's, you know, after church on Sunday morning.

-Today, Pete prepares a family dish that has been passed down through the generations -- carrots and andouille.

The stew is accompanied by a Sunday dinner staple, dirty rice, plus beet and egg salad.

-So right now we're going to make a two-pound dirty rice.

I have in the pot right now a mixture of ground beef and ground pork.

And also I have two pounds of onions that's been browning and sautéing.

We need two quarts of liquid.

We're going to add one quart of a mixture of different brown gravies and diced tomatoes.

And we're also going to have one quart of chicken stock.

So now we're going to turn up the fire a little bit.

And we're going to get this going and bring it to a boil.

While this is heating up, we're going to add a few more different seasonings to it.

One is going to be some minced garlic.

Just season it according to your taste.

Onions and garlic really makes everything good.

But I do have a little measurement when it comes to the salt.

Being as this is two pounds, you cup your hand and you pour the salt.

Pour the salt in your hand and you make one little pile of salt for every pound of rice.

So if you was cooking a real big pot, cooking 10 pounds, you would do that, make 10 little pounds.

And then, we're going to add some cayenne pepper.

And only measurement for that is you sprinkle it lightly.

You start on one end of the pot, and you go all the way across to the other end, and then you come back and that's enough.

That's going to be perfect.

So I got my seasoning in.

We're going to stir it for a while and we're going to bring it to a boil.

And in just a couple of minutes, we're going to add the green onions.

My mom showed me how to make the dirty rice and, naturally, her mom showed her.

I don't know how many generations it's been handed down into the family, but in speaking of my mom, I really would like to dedicate this.

You know, we recently lost my mom this past Good Friday.

She would have loved to have been here because she's so proud of cooking.

That's one thing that she used to love to do is cook and feed the family.

And there's no time you ever went to her house and there was not something to eat.

So, I know she's watching us right now, and she's going to make sure this dirty rice comes out just perfect.

Another thing, too, that I added previously was a little nutmeg.

This is heating up pretty nicely, so we're going to go ahead and add the green onions.

It's important for it to come to a boil before you add the rice, because that helps make the rice cook properly.

You want the grains to pop.

You know?

Just as long as we got a good boil going on and we're going to be able to add the rice.

The gravy's coming to a nice little boil.

So now we're going to add the rice in slowly.

Again, this is two pounds of rice.

And then, after we add the rice in, now we're going to start the timer.

We're going to time it for eight minutes.

So the reason eight minutes is because, after a lot of trial and error and ruining some good dirty rice, you don't want to cook the liquid out too much because then it's going to be dry and the grains are more than likely going to be hard or crunchy.

And if you put the cover on too soon, then it's going to be mushy.

We're going to reduce the heat just a little bit because it's boiling nicely.

So if you can see, this is about the consistency that you want to have when you go to put the lid on so you can allow it to finish cooking.

So that's eight minutes and that's perfect.

This is what you want to see.

We're going to seal it off.

We're going to put the lid on it.

Make sure it's sealed good.

And we're going to -- The oven is preheated to 350 degrees.

So we're going to go ahead and set it in for about 30 minutes.

-Now Pete begins his family's signature dish, carrots and andouille.

-To get started, we're going to go ahead and make a roux.

Everything Cajun starts with a roux, right?

So, we have andouille that we can get locally right here on Main Street.

You know, the local, the better.

We got the roux going and we're about ready to add the onions.

But before we add the onions, in this pot right here on the side, I have some fresh carrots that is sliced as thin as I can possibly slice them.

The thinner the fresh carrots that you can slice them, the better the dish is going to be.

If you wanted to, you could add the raw carrots to the roux with the andouille, but it just would take a lot longer to cook.

But I choose to have them steaming in chicken stock, because I just find it adds a little extra flavor to the carrots and andouille.

So, we're going to go ahead and put the cover back on here while we get our roux ready.

We're going to go ahead and add the onions.

And again, I don't really have a measurement for the amount of onions.

In my opinion, you can't ever use too much onions.

Onions just makes everything good.

So just cut some onions and just put you a nice little pile of onions on the inside there.

And I think you're going to be all right.

We'll make sure we stir it good because that roux sometimes it gets stubborn, and it's got a tendency to hang up on the edges of the pot.

So we want to make sure we don't leave any right there for it to burn.

I like to add a block of real butter, and it just enhances the flavor of the whole dish.

Let it melt and we're gonna stir it in good.

So now we're going to go ahead and add a little minced garlic.

And I have here a blend of salt, black pepper, red pepper, and granulated garlic.

All right.

Now I think we're ready to incorporate the andouille to the roux.

So we're going to go ahead and add the andouille at this time.

And I like to cut the andouille in half.

You know, because you want to try to get a bite of andouille with every spoon of carrots when it's time to eat.

So right here is about four pounds of andouille, and I have a total of seven pounds of carrots.

We're going to let the andouille cook and smother.

We're going to put the cover on it, because next we're going to go ahead and prepare a very little simple dish that pairs very well with the carrots and andouille.

We're going to make a beet and egg salad.

It's very simple.

It's very basic.

It's the same exact thing as a potato salad that you would normally make for any barbecue or any other dish like that.

But instead of using potatoes, we're just going to use beets.

So, right now we're going to go ahead and blend the egg whites and the beets together.

And we're going to mix them up.

These are beets from the can.

Now, normally I like to use fresh beets when they're available.

You can get the beets that's already cubed and diced.

Or you can get the whole beets and slice them yourselves.

Just whatever your preference is.

It really doesn't make much of a difference.

And be very generous with the salt and pepper.

And that's the only thing we add to the beet salad is salt and black pepper and mayonnaise.

And then we're going to go ahead, and I have the yolks from the eggs right here.

We're going to go ahead and smash those up and add a little mayonnaise.

My grandfather was an avid gardener.

Every year, he made a garden.

And not just every year.

He made a garden all year every year, no matter what the season was, he was growing some fresh vegetables.

Right.

And there we go.

It's just as simple as that.

And in just a few minutes, we're going to finish up with the carrots and andouille.

And then we're going to be able to enjoy.

We've been having our sliced carrots.

We've been having them simmering.

And we're going to start adding the carrots in the stock.

We can turn the fire up just a little bit.

This recipe came from my mom, and I'm sure she got it from her mom.

This is beautiful.

It's starting to look good.

And then, now we're going to add some of our secret ingredient, as well.

Every time I cook with a roux, I come to the conclusion that, when you add a little apple jelly, it really softens the flavor.

It's not like adding sugar.

You know, when you add sugar, you can really tell that sugar was added to the dish.

But when you add apple jelly, it just gives it a real nice flavor.

So there we go.

We got the carrots and andouille in the roux, we have it all mixed together.

The only other thing we have left to add, we maybe add a little green onions.

There we go.

All right, so now that we have everything added that we need to put in, we're going to go ahead and let it cook for a while.

And then, we're going to plate it up and we're going to enjoy a Sunday dinner.

We're going to start with our dirty rice.

Look how beautiful that is.

And then we're going to add some carrots and andouille to it.

I like to add mine little bit on the top and then leave some on the side.

If you don't have enough time on the day to make the dirty rice, you can always use white rice, but it's just not quite as good.

And finally, we have our beet salad that's going to enhance the whole dish and make our Sunday dinner complete.

There we go.

Happy Sunday from our family to yours.

-Coastal scientists and stewards working to shore up Louisiana's vanishing wetlands are also engaged in keeping the unique history and vibrant culture of the state from washing away.

-So my day job at Nicholls State University as a biologist is to work in coastal restoration.

We're saving the marsh, we're preserving the fish, preserving the crabs, preserving the barrier islands, the physical aspect of it.

I guess my night job is to work on the cultural preservation of the area.

Because if we're going to take the time and effort to preserve the physical aspects of our coast, we should be doing as much time and effort to preserve the cultural aspects of our coast.

Right?

That's what makes Louisiana so unique.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -You can find recipes for all of the dishes in this series, chef profiles, and more information about "Louisiana Coastal Cooking" by visiting wyes.org.

Funding for "Louisiana Coastal Cooking" was provided by... ...and by the Plaquemines Parish Tourism Commission.

Nature, tradition, and culture come together in Plaquemines Parish, where the Mississippi River and the Gulf meet in Louisiana's Delta Country.

Learn more at visitplaqueminesparish.com.