Paul Kieu
Visitors to Cajun Country often come in search of food—but they won’t get very far on foot. Enter Marie Ducote-Comeaux, her orange bus, and her fourteen years as a history teacher. With Cajun Food Tours, she and her team of guides make short work of darting between the area’s culinary landmarks.
After spending nine years as an assistant principal at an elementary school, Ducote-Comeaux was nearing the end of her rope. “I loved my little school, but it was hard for me to stay passionate in administration,” she said. “I had been praying for a couple of years about what to do next because I knew I couldn’t hang on much longer. I had considered going back to teaching or becoming a counselor but wasn’t feeling drawn to either of those.” She took her first walking food tour in Baltimore in November 2010 and immediately fell in love with the concept. “I thought ‘What a brilliant way to be introduced to a new area. Too bad you can’t walk around in Lafayette or someone could do something like this, because what better place to experience food and culture?’” said Ducote-Comeaux. “Plus, you are literally and figuratively experiencing the unique flavor of an area.”
[And if you go a bit further west, check out Popsicles, Pale Ales, and Pizza in Lake Charles]
As she began the 2011–12 school year, she knew it would be her last one, but she still had no idea what she would do next. In November, exactly a year after taking her first food tour, she took her first bus food tour in Louisville, Kentucky. That night she had an epiphany about what she was supposed to do with the rest of her life. “In bed at the hotel, I got this overwhelming and complete knowledge that I was going to do a food tour,” said Ducote-Comeaux. “It was so vivid and scary that I almost had a panic attack, and I immediately started trying to pray the idea away, but it consumed me, constantly all day, every day. Within about three weeks my brain had every single detail figured out, from how to pay for it down to the tiniest details of what the inside of the bus would look like.” (Her bus is currently decorated with string lights of Tabasco sauce bottles, orange curtains, and a tip jar of which 50 percent is donated to local organizations that feed the homeless.) That spring, Ducote-Comeaux bought her bus and quit her job; she led her first food tour in the summer.
Paul Kieu
Marie Ducote-Comeaux leads the Cajun Food Tours.
Since that time, she has led over 1,000 tours to people from places as far as Canada, Australia, and Great Britain to enjoy some of the best food Cajun Country has to offer. “Visitors are fascinated by so many of the everyday things we don’t even think about,” said Ducote-Comeaux. “Like crawfish farming, drive-thru daiquiri shops, using the word festival as a verb, and eating boudin in the car for breakfast.”
During the tour, Ducote-Comeaux tells the story of each restaurant and its owners as well as the background of each dish attendees eat on the tour. Her time as a teacher comes in handy as she shares the history of Acadiana with her attendees along the route, peppering in the occasional Boudreaux and Thibodeaux joke. While many of her visitors come from outside the U.S., Ducote-Comeaux has been pleasantly surprised to find that close to half her participants come from local or semi-local areas. “People come on my tour to celebrate everything from their 90-year-old grandma’s birthday to bridal luncheons, and they all have a blast,” said Ducote-Comeaux. “I have locals who have done it eight or ten times with different groups. I most love to take people to places that have been around for decades that cook food like my grandmother used to.” Visitors who want to squeeze in as much Cajun cooking as possible can go as far as to take both a morning and afternoon tour, which cover two different routes.
"Grueling, as you can imagine, researching for a food tour, but somebody has to do it."
While food is at the center of her business, Ducote-Comeaux’s passion doesn’t lie in local food but rather local culture. “I’m proud of our past, our people, our stories, and all the things that make us so unique,” said Ducote-Comeaux. “I’m passionate about sharing all that with visitors, and if I thought I was passionate about Acadiana over 1,000 tours ago, I’m ten times more passionate now because there’s nothing like seeing this place through the eyes of people from all over the world to show you just how special it is.”
Paul Kieu
Since beginning her business in 2012, Ducote-Comeaux has worked hard to promote and expand it, offering her attendees a free bottle of mini hot sauce with a warm smile in return for their honest review of her tour. She has also expanded her offerings, with several new tours in the works. Currently, visitors can take the Original Cajun Taste Tour, which ferries visitors between various cities in the region including Lafayette, Youngsville, and even Broussard and is available every day except Wednesday and Sunday; the Around the World in Acadiana Tour offered on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, highlighting international cuisine; or the Walking Breaux Bridge food tour, set in the city’s historic downtown on Saturdays. She is currently developing a Boudin & Brew tour and has plans to create a Walking Foodie Tour in Downtown Lafayette and a Cajun day excursion tour; eventually, she hopes to expand to downtown New Iberia or Abbeville.
[If you're still hungry, swing by Suire's Grocery in Kaplan for a turtle-meat special]
Her husband, Mike Comeaux, serves as fifty percent co-owner in the business and offers all his support. “He has been 100 percent proud of me since the day I sat him down and talked non-stop for an hour, telling him every detail I had planned for the business,” said Ducote-Comeaux. “I couldn’t do it without his help and support. He keeps the bus shiny, chrome polished, and after a long, two-tour day, he’s always got a drink waiting for me.”
In addition to her husband’s support, Ducote-Comeaux has recently brought another family member from behind the scenes to help lead her tours. “Next to my husband, Mike, my oldest daughter, Whitney, has been the biggest fan of the business since the day I told her my plan,” said Ducote-Comeaux. “Like me, she’s proud to call herself Cajun and loves all things Acadiana. She’s been helping me for four years with blogs, my website, social media, phone calls, bookings, and tour development. We’ve both always loved downtown Breaux Bridge, so she’s the perfect person to lead our new walking tour.”
Paul Kieu
While she enlists the help of her family to keep the business running smoothly, tour development is a task she is happy to continue shouldering. “Of course, there’s a lot of research and development that has to be done before you launch a tour,” said Ducote-Comeaux. “Grueling, as you can imagine, researching for a food tour, ah, but somebody has to do it.”
This article originally appeared in our June 2018 issue. Subscribe to our print magazine today.
