New Orleans is all about its history and culture. Some traditions we’ve been doing for years with no signs of slowing down anytime in the next century. Vance Vaucresson knows a little something about history, culture and tradition. As the third generation of Vaucresson Sausage, Vance heads a family business that has been a part of the fabric of the city for generations. Not only is he helping flavor the food of the city, Vance was also named a state historian by the Governor’s office and the Vaucressons have been a part of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival since the inception. As the longest running food vendor for the festival, we wanted to get Vance’s take on history, food and rocking out at the festival.
Q: What was the start of Vaucresson Sausage? Focus on the sausage company started with my grandfather, Robert Levinsky Vaucresson. He was a butcher by trade. And he had a stall in one of the many public markets in the city of New Orleans called the St. Bernard Market, which is now – once it was privatized – commonly known as the Circle Food Store. Once that was privatized, he moved on a corner of North Johnson and St. Bernard Avenue into his own building, had a meat market there and then he bought the building where his cousins had a pharmacy, Belfield’s Pharmacy, which is on one of the many Island properties in the city where it’s bound by three streets. This one is bound by St. Bernard Avenue on Onzaga Street and North Prieur, and that’s where we have Vaucresson’s Meat Market up until one of the principals died, my uncle, and my dad closed it. When you live with multigenerational businesses, usually each generation has their own ideas. My grandfather was a butcher by trade and he was good at it, made sausages from his trimmings, which became what we were known for our creole hot sausage made with pork. Same recipe that’s been passed down and whispered in my ear. We write it down, learn it and burn it.
Q: How did you get involved with the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival? When we had the restaurant on Bourbon Street, our partner Larry Bornstein, his good friend was George Wein, who started the Newport News Jazz Fest. And he was at the restaurant. My dad told me the story, he said, there was a lunch at the restaurant. George came in, sat down at a booth, Larry and my dad joined him. And Larry brought this manager of Preservation Hall guy, a tuba player who moved here from Michigan. His name was Allan Jaffe. So Allan came and he sat there and they were just basically talking to George about the Newport News jazz festival. The question came up, “Well, how come you never thought about having that here? This is the birthplace of jazz. Why doesn’t New Orleans have this type of festival or acknowledgement?” What I understand is from that meeting, George left there and a brainstorming session happened. And he talked to a young record store manager by the name of Quint Davis, and another young lady by the name of Allison Miner, to help him to produce New Orleans jazz and Heritage Festival. It was in Congo Square, and they asked my dad to be a food vendor, one of the first food vendors. We’re fortunate enough, I don’t know how we did it but we did it, where we’re the only original food vendor left in the group. I think we’re going into 54 years. We found that, you know, if you truly want to talk about ambassadorship, a lot of us vendors have done it for years. My mother and dad used to tell me they had more musicians at the first Jazz Fest then they had actual people. And first few years, especially after they moved to the Fairgrounds, the second year, about maybe six booths, and you struggled to break even as a vendor. But over time, they just felt loyal to it. It grew. We were fortunate enough that a food critic for the New York Times came down, Mimi Sheridan, and wrote an article about Jazz Fest that kind of took us to another level in terms of acknowledgement and having people say, “Hey, I may need to come down there.” And so it just grew over time, once the world got an understanding of this wonderful gem. And now it’s a destination festival. It’s huge. And, you know, we’re just thankful to still be a part.
Q: How do you prepare for Jazz Fest? We get to making sausage. We sell thousands. So we’re making it now and putting it in the freezer. We’re doing hot sausages, the alligator sausage – which we inherited: We had a vendor that got out of Jazz Fest. And they came to me, and he said, “Do you want the alligator sausage?” And I was like, you know, growing up and seeing that all exotic stuff for our tourists is basically to impulse purchase. So, if you have alligator, if you have crawfish, if you have oysters, it’s almost an impulse purchase. So, we said sure, we’ll take the alligator. We’re also going to have the crawfish sausage, and we’re going to have a new sausage because we got to have a non-pork sausage. And that’s our jerk chicken sausage. Hot sausage is what we’re known for, but if I can put it on your palate as a visitor, I usually get you.
New Orleans is all about its history and culture. Some traditions we’ve been doing for years with no signs of slowing down anytime in the next century. Vance Vaucresson knows a little something about history, culture and tradition. As the third generation of Vaucresson Sausage, Vance heads a family business that has been a part of the fabric of the city for generations. Not only is he helping flavor the food of the city, Vance was also named a state historian by the Governor’s office and the Vaucressons have been a part of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival since the inception. As the longest running food vendor for the festival, we wanted to get Vance’s take on history, food and rocking out at the festival.