Culinary Trails in Jeanerette Louisiana

The abundance of fantastic food to be found throughout Louisiana can be a little overwhelming for some visitors, particularly if they haven’t sampled our fabulous indigenous cuisine before. How will you decide where to go and what to eat? To help you manage the choices, we suggest using Louisiana's Culinary Trails as guideposts. The Louisiana Office of Tourism and the makers of TABASCO® hot pepper sauce have laid out seven regional “trails” that traverse byways, prairies, marshlands and waterways that are great sources of some of the finest food you’ll ever enjoy. Discover some of the chefs and restaurants who are keeping the tradition of great food alive and thriving in Louisiana.

It’s nickname is "Sugar City," but Jeanerette derived its real name from John W. Jeanerette, a Carolina gentleman who came to Teche country in 1830 and purchased nearby Pine Grove Plantation. He offered a portion of his house to be used as an official mail depository for local inhabitants, and people sent mail to locals in care of John W. Jeanerette. When the “John W.” was later dropped, the name Jeanerette stuck.

Situated in Iberia Parish on the banks of beautiful Bayou Teche, Jeanerette was chartered as a town in 1878. Today, antebellum homes in and around the city stand as reminders of the boom years when the cypress lumber industry was a mainstay.

Sugarcane was key in the community’s economic growth during the past 200 years, and two sugar mills operate in the area. The manufacture of farm equipment for the cane industry also is important. Livestock, fish farming (hybrid striped bass), truck crops, rice, pecans, and fruits are among other local agricultural activities.

Jeanerette has a municipal airport home to a sizeable aviation community.

Jeanerette Museum, also called LeBeau Petit Musée, preserves the history of life in Bayou Teche. The sugarcane industry’s development over the last 200 years is explained in exhibits, video and an outdoor sugarcane patch.