Cajun sausage in the spotlight at Boudin & Beer festival

Bubba Frey's boudin from the Mowata Store in Mowata, LA.

In a dispatch for The New Yorker from one of many trips through South Louisiana’s Cajun country, bestselling food writer Calvin Trillin rhapsodized about boudin, the soft Cajun sausage made with a punchy mixture of rice, pork, liver and seasonings.

“Of all the things I’ve eaten in the Cajun parishes of Louisiana – an array of foodstuffs which has been characterized as somewhere between extensive and deplorable – I yearn most often for boudin,” Trillin wrote.

Cajun boudin (not to be confused with the French blood sausage by the same name) might not register on the roast beef po-boy or seafood gumbo scale of fame or popularity in New Orleans, but the humble sausage from Acadiana is about to get its moment in the spotlight.

On November 11, more than 20 chefs from New Orleans and beyond will serve their take on boudin, sausage and other rustic, pork-centric dishes for Boudin & Beer, a one-night-only food festival devoted to the spicy, rice-y sausage. Friends and celebrity chefs Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali and Herbsaint and Cochon chef/owner Donald Link have teamed up to produce the food festival, which will benefit the Emeril Lagasse Foundation in addition to charities chosen by co-hosts Link and Batali.

The “beer” in Boudin & Beer is Abita, and the Louisiana brewery will be pouring their full lineup, plus two cask editions brewed exclusively for the event: Amarillo Dry Hopped Restoration Ale and “Bourbon Barrel” 25th Anniversary Vanilla Double Dog. Local beer nerds are saying the casked Double Dog is worth lining up for.

Also on tap at the event: “Boudin: The Traveling Exhibit” featuring oral histories and profiles of Louisiana’s boudin elite, and screenings of “To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish,” a Southern Foodways Alliance documentary project about the Louisiana cochon de lait (Cajun pig roast) tradition. For more details, see www.southernboudintrail.com.

Boudin & Beer chefs include Bart Bell (Crescent Pie and Sausage Co.), John Besh (Restaurant August), Aaron Burgau (Patois), John Currence (City Grocery, Oxford, MS), Joel Dondis (Joel Catering, Sucré), Mark Falgoust (Grand Isle Restaurant), Adolfo Garcia (RioMar), Tariq Hanna (Sucré), Josh Laskay (NOLA Restaurant), Spencer Minch (Emeril’s Delmonico), Tory McPhail (Commander’s Palace), Michelle McRaney (Mr. B’s Bistro), Darin Nesbit (Palace Café), Horst Pfeifer (Middendorf’s, The Foundry), Alex Pilas (Eataly, New York), Paul Prudhomme (K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen), Allison Vines Rushing and Slade Rushing (MiLa), Nick Seabergh (Giardina’s, Greenwood, MS), Alon Shaya (Domenica), Susan Spicer (Bayona, Mondo), Stephen Stryjewski (Cochon), David Woodward (Hilton New Orleans Riverside), and Sue  Zemanick (Gautreau’s).

For tickets and more information, visithttp://boudinandbeer.com/