Feature
September
30
From the Hearth
by Arthur Smith
Bayou son’s unique gift honored at opening of Thibodaux plantation kitchen.
Bill Peltier grew up with a deep reverence for the land and history of Bayou Lafourche.
Born in 1960, one of ten children of Grace Frost Peltier and the late Donald L. Peltier, an attorney and sugar cane farmer, Peltier was “always searching for things that related to history or how people lived,” recalled his sister Penny Tate.
One of his favorite places to explore was the E.D. White Historic Home, about a mile up the bayou from the Peltier family sugar plantation.
Part of the Louisiana State Museum system, the 1830s Creole cottage was home to Louisiana Governor E.D. White and the birthplace of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward Douglass White. Now, thanks to Peltier’s boyhood interests, the spacious oak-shaded grounds have a new attraction: an authentic 19th Century plantation-style kitchen that will help preserve and teach traditional Louisiana foodways.
Peltier settled in New Orleans after graduating from Loyola University, worked as a banker, and eventually became a prominent collector and dealer in Louisiana folk art. “He built a beautiful house on Bayou St. John and he was born on Bayou Lafourche,” Tate said. “We used to kid him about being a true-blue bayou boy. The truth is, he loved both places.”
Peltier died on August 22, 2005, of cancer. He was 45. Among many charitable bequests, he left $50,000 to the nonprofit Friends of E.D. White Historic Home to use however they wished.
“We had planned to add a kitchen to the property someday,” said Friends’ board chair Malcolm Hodnett, an architect. “Suddenly, we had the means to do it.”
The kitchen was built with rough-trimmed cypress lumber and covered with a tin roof. Inside, there’s a wood-burning hearth and oven, furnished with period cast-iron cooking vessels and hand-forged utensils.
Recently, family, friends and neighbors along Bayou Lafourche gathered at the E.D. White Historic Home to celebrate Bill Peltier’s gift.
Louisiana chef John Folse fired up the kitchen to demonstrate traditional hearth cooking techniques and prepare a cochon de lait luncheon served outdoors.
The E.D. White Historic Home and Kitchen is located at 2295 LA. Hwy 1, Thibodaux, LA. For more information or admission, please call 985-447-0915.
