Posts Tagged ‘Perrineau’

Bacon of hope? Group takes aim at bayou woes

by on Friday, June 30th, 2017

A volunteer studies water hyacinths in a display at the Bayou Safety Initiative.


If you’ve ever wanted to turn flowers into bacon, now’s your chance.

No, this isn’t just more of the usual bunkum. We are daily bombarded with fantastical assertions, and now we are weary and jaded. Flowers into bacon, you say? Why, only the other week a traveling man of God—with his very own tent and a parish permit and a not untalented banjoist—promised that if I added whatever coinage I could to his collection plate, my prayers would be heard and addressed. I can report that despite my having put a solid three lindens into the holy kitty, not one of my prayers has been answered, including the one about the trousers. But I digress.

If you have the right kind of flower—Eichhornia crassipes, the water hyacinth—you can indeed exchange it for bacon. Of a certain type. While supplies last.

The Bayou Safety Initiative is kicking off its flagship campaign with help from Perrineau & Co., a local provider of innovative meat solutions. Foreign flowers threaten our domestic waterways—nay, our very way of life. Buying liberty bonds won’t stop flowers. Only hippopotamuses, and you, can help.

Perrineau, near packages of lake cow bacon.


In partnership with the initiative, Perrineau & Co. is offering a free package of hippopotamus bacon in exchange for any living water hyacinth plants. This comes in the aftermath of a recent water hyacinth giveaway, the ill-advised promotional effort of a local grocery.

“Our lake cows already help control the water hyacinth population,” said Perrineau. “They find them delicious—but not as delicious as you’ll find our lake cow bacon!”

(In case you’ve been asleep for the past few years—I’m looking at you, Krewe Van Winkle—a “lake cow” is a hippopotamus, at least in the parlance of Perrineau & Co.)

The Bayou Safety Initiative could use your help. The group has offered to pick up water hyacinths from homes and businesses, but the response to the bacon-for-flowers deal has been overwhelming. To volunteer, go to the BSI office at #8 Rue Bayou, New Toulouse.


Jack Mondieu feels far more threatened by zombies and gators than by any flower.