
Matthew Noel
Culinary students at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute
What is the secret to the perfect gumbo? What ingredients do you need for an étouffée? What are the rules for making redfish courtbouillon?
The answers to those questions depend on who you ask. And in Chef Randy Cheramie’s professional opinion, it usually comes down to, “what your grandmother made.”
“Louisiana cooking goes down family lines,” said Cheramie, an award-winning chef who recently retired as a full-time instructor at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute after twenty-five years. “I can taste a gumbo and tell you if a Gisclair or a Guidry made it.”
Cheramie grew up on Bayou Lafourche in Golden Meadow, Louisiana, where land dissolves into water. He was born into a restaurant family, and officially took over his parents’ circa-1940s restaurant, Randolph’s, in the ’80s. For two decades, he fed area fishermen some of the best meals they’d ever eaten and hosted many of the bayou town’s biggest celebrations. In 2001, he sold the restaurant and joined the faculty at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute in Thibodaux full time. Now, more than twenty years later, he continues to play an integral role in preserving and promoting Cajun-Creole cuisine at the Institute.
“Like no other culinary school in the United States, we are very much a part of Cajun-Creole culture,” Cheramie said. A regional cuisine as unique as it is flavorful, Cajun and Creole culinary techniques are described as some of the most important art forms to emerge from the New World.

Matthew Noel
Chef Randy Cheramie, who taught at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute for more than twenty years, retired from his full-time position in 2024—but remains part of the staff as an adjunct professor.
Seven nations had their hands in the pot to create the collection of recipes we now recognize as Louisiana cuisine: Native American, African, French, Spanish, German, Italian and English. Recognizing the contributions of each of these distinct cultural influences has long been at the core of Chef John Folse’s philosophy, which is now passed on to the students of the Institute—the next generation of Louisiana-influenced chefs.
While the seven nations often get grouped under the simplified amalgamations of Cajun or Creole, certain, sometimes subtle, influences retain a stronger tie to their cultures of origin.
“Why do people in Mathews, Louisiana, put olives in their sauce piquante?” Chef Cheramie posed the question as if our interview was his Cajun-Creole Cuisine class. The answer is simple: Because many of the families who historically settled in Mathews came to Louisiana by way of Spain, where olives are a major part of agriculture and cuisine.
Such eccentricities and variations are found in every home kitchen across the state. Few, if any, dishes in Cajun-Creole cooking have a fixed recipe.
For instance, Amelie Zeringue, the department head at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute, likes her gumbo with a controversial addition: tomatoes.
“That is, to me, the best gumbo I've ever had,” Zeringue said. “That gumbo with sausage, okra, shrimp, crab, tomatoes in it.”

Matthew Noel
At the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute
Zeringue’s grandmother was from New Orleans’s Eighth Ward in the Gentilly neighborhood, so her gumbo leaned more Creole, or “city” style, as opposed to the more rustic, “Cajun” styles of rural Louisiana—where Chef Cheramie’s preferred gumbos originate. He said he would never add salted or smoked meats to a seafood gumbo, preferring to emphasize the sweetness of the crabs and shrimp as the flavorful centerpiece. And while Zeringue’s gumbo recipe includes both roux and okra—“I like to put the roux with the okra because I like that mouthfeel of the richness of it,” she said—Cheramie counters that using both thickening agents is redundant. When cooked correctly, he said, a little oil and okra caramelizes and browns to just the right consistency for a gumbo.
This ongoing debate, which unfolds in infinite variations across the region, gets to the heart of what Louisiana cuisine is, in all its diversity. Understanding, and respecting, the many influences that inform different approaches to regional cuisine is the goal of the Institute’s Cajun and Creole Cuisine course, CULA 319—which is a required course for all students at the John Folse Culinary Institute. Over the course of seven weeks, the class focuses on each of the seven nations, and the students learn to prepare regional dishes influenced by that particular culture.
Though the course will be taught this spring by Zeringue, for the better part of fifteen years, Cheramie led the Cajun and Creole Cuisine course curriculum. His secret to a successful semester involved discussing multiple preparation styles and renditions of Cajun or Creole dishes—such as an étouffée made by adding crawfish fat to smothered onions and garlic, or alternatively, with a roux.
“Gathering around a table, breaking bread and opening up a bottle of wine, conversing and laughing and having a good time, is a big part of our culture.”
- Chef Randy Cheramie
Cheramie enjoyed observing which iteration students enjoyed more, though at the end of the day, it usually came down to whichever style they grew up eating.
“That’s what they grew up with, then it’s right for them,” Cheramie said. “Whether you do some little eccentricities that are different from other families, that's just your family. It's all good food.”
Regardless of preparation styles, Cheramie asserts that the overall esteemed reputation of Louisiana food can be mostly attributed to the cultural connections to local resources.
“The Mississippi River and the Mississippi Delta offer ecosystems like no other place,” he said. “So many varieties of fish are available to us. Anything you stick in the ground is going to grow. Our local product is second to none.”
And it’s readily available for the pot. Growing up, Cheramie remembers trawling for shrimp at his family’s camp, where he holds his best food memories. They had a twelve-foot net, the perfect size to catch just enough for supper. If they weren’t in the mood for shrimp, there was a small bed of oysters close to the wharf, and a ready supply of trout, redfish, and crabs, all for the catching.
The other, less concrete quality that is inherent to local cuisine is its connection to gathering. A vital part of the culture of Cajun-Creole cuisine is the company it’s eaten with.

Matthew Noel
Chef Randy Cheramie, working at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute
“Gathering around a table, breaking bread and opening up a bottle of wine, conversing and laughing and having a good time, is a big part of our culture,” Cheramie said.
It's something Cheramie has a little more time for since his retirement in May of 2024. As an adjunct, he still teaches the Culinary Foundations class at the Institute, but his part-time schedule leaves lots of room. Recently, he’s been spending his off days preparing for an upcoming family boucherie.
Two pigs are being fattened, and all his first cousins are planning trips home. The boucherie is a special time for Cheramie’s family that happens about once every five years.
“We drink, and we eat, and we talk about what was and what is,” Cheramie said.
It’s a day that starts early and stretches late into the night. It’s a time and a place where the value of food is made tangible, visceral. And it’s a tradition that connects Cheramie, and all who partake in it, to the culinary world of Louisiana that gave us the dishes that so characterize our culture.
“You only have to leave it for a little while to understand how truly important it is,” Cheramie said. “I’ve eaten all over the country, I've eaten abroad, I’ve seen a lot. I would not want to cook anywhere else but here.”