bayous that crisscross
Terrebonne.
A number of old plantation
homes around the parish have
been restored, and visiting
one of these elegant man-
sions provided the perfect
contrast to our swamp
experience. Southdown
Plantation in Houma is a
source of local pride and the
21-room Queen Anne has
been beautifully refurbished
by the Terrebonne Historical
and Cultural Society which
operates it as a museum.
Built by William J. Minor
of Natchez, Mississippi, in
1859 in Greek Revival style,
Southdown was rebuilt in
1893 by his son Henry in
Jungle Gardens of Avery Island, a 200-acre plant and wildlife sancuary adjoining the McIlhenny Tabasco factory
the Victorian style of the day. Several rooms are decorated with the same tongue-tingling recipe created by the founding McIlhenny
original Minor family furnishings, but the centerpiece display is a family in 1868.
recreation of U.S. Senator Allen J. Ellender’s Washington D.C. Surrounded by marshland, Avery Island is the tip of a subterranean
office. Ellender, who died in office in 1972, served 36 years in the mountain of salt, a dome eight miles deep, six miles in circumfer-
Senate, longer than anyone from Louisiana. The office is authentic, ence — and considerably larger than Mt. Everest. Salt is still mined
down to the desk-top items precisely as Ellender left them. here as it has been since the Civil War. But it is the patented pepper
Early next morning we headed west on U.S. 90 bound for New sauce, sold throughout the world, that makes Avery Island famous.
Iberia. I was determined to visit the home of my favorite pepper We watched through teary eyes as potent red capsicum peppers
sauce, Tabasco, which is brewed today on Avery Island following were mashed with Avery Island salt then pumped into oak barrels to
At the McIlhenny Co. on Avery Island, you can tour the factory that makes the world-famous Tabasco sauce
be aged for three years.
Down the production line,
aged mash is mixed with
premium vinegar, stirred for
a month, strained and then
piped into those familiar
skinny bottles.
The best part of Avery
Island, however, lies beyond
the factory where 200 acres
of hill and marsh comprise
the stunning Jungle Gardens.
Cultivated decades ago by
E.A. McIlhenny, a naturalist
of some renown and son of
Edmund, creator of Tabasco
pepper sauce, the gardens
reveal a seasonal profusion
of azaleas, camellias, iris
and chrysanthemums.
32 WELLINGTON LIFESTYLES
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