Boudin

Two popular sausages carry the name boudin: the French boudin blanc, and the Cajun boudin rouge

The boudin blanc is a delicate white sausage, made of pork, chicken, and/or veal, with the addition of cooked rice. The original French version is very light, while the later Cajun version has increased the rice content, resulting in a chewier snagger.

The Cajun-invented boudin rouge is essentially the same as the Cajun boudin blanc, but also contains pork blood.

All boudin sausages are highly perishable, and are cooked and eaten quickly after manufacture.

research sources include The Cook's Thesaurus and Mortins Opfskritter's recipe

In geology, a boudin is the segmentation of a strong layer of rock surrounded by weaker material into a series of parallel, elongate structures, with cross-sections ranging from rectangular to elliptical.

I submit that boudin is true Cajun food. While many people have heard of jambalaya, red beans and rice, or gumbo, you have to actually live in southwest Louisiana (or marry someone from there) to really hear of it, much less actually try it. For that reason, I tend to regard it as a test: have you been there, or merely tried the food?

Though traditionally made of pork and rice in a sausage casing, other meats include crawfish, veal, and alligator. It can be quite mild or spicy. My father actually describes it as a breakfast food. My wife, from Indiana, has become addicted to it.

Bonus fact: while it is good, the best is smoked. You can get it at Hackett's Cajun Kitchen in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

The Boudin Sourdough Bread Company of San Francisco, specializes in its sourdough French Bread. They have been using the same 'Mother Dough' since 1849. The company claims to be the oldest business in San Francisco, with its founding back in the days of the California Gold Rush by an "Isadore Boudin, a Frenchman with gold fever who wound up in San Francisco in 1849 too poor to buy picks, pans, ponies and tents. Falling back on other skills, he baked traditional French bread nontraditionally, using a sourdough starter."

The company believes its mother dough to be so valuable that a few years ago when the company opened a new 30,000 square-foot bakery in San Diego, they "insured some Boudin sourdough starter for $1 million and flew it first-class for the opening of the bakery."

The company was purchased in 1993 by Specialty Food Corp. of Chicago, and now operates 30 restaurants in the Bay Area and 15 in other parts of the US.

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Sources:
www.boudinbakery.com
The Los Angeles Times. (Record edition). Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 15, 1998. pg. 10
The Los Angeles Times (Pre-1997 Fulltext). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 30, 1990. pg. 1