Alzina Toups

Toups was born into a family of cooks, descendants of Nova Scotian fur trappers. She spoke fluent French and was taught from an early age how to live off the Louisiana bayou; her family raised chickens and pigs and she even hunted alligators in the swamps with her brothers. Her mother taught her how to debone a chicken in four minutes and bake bread in a mixture of mud and Spanish moss known as bousillage.[1]

Toups' only restaurant is called Alzina's Kitchen and was opened in 1977 to cook and serve her church; St. Joseph Catholic Church,[2] for their deanery meetings. The restaurant is housed in an old welding shop, which used to be her son's before he moved to a larger premises and offered it to her. The letters that used to spell out the name Alzina's have mostly fallen off and from the outside the restaurants just appears as an unadorned metal storage building. She cooks with wooden spoons, and cast iron skillets; one is at least more than 100 years old.[3]

One private party is allowed in the restaurant at a time, with no less than 10 guests and no more than 30 guests at a time.[4] Customers eat family-style and are housed in the same room as the kitchen.[2]

She was awarded the Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award by the Southern Foodways Alliance in 2013.[5]