Vance Vaucresson: Extending a family's Creole cooking legacy

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Just two blocks from the fish, meat and vegetable market in the 7th Ward that evolved into the famed Circle Food Store – the spot at St. Bernard and Claiborne avenues where his grandfather, Robert Levinsky Vaucresson, a French Polish Jew, opened a butcher’s stall and sausage business in 1899 – Vance Vaucresson is doing his best to extend his family’s food legacy.

Vaucresson, a 1987 graduate of Brother Martin High School, is a third-generation sausage maker, food entrepreneur and cantor at Transfiguration of the Lord Church who decided after graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta that running his family business was both the right thing to do to preserve his family’s cultural legacy as well as a good way to make a living.

Vaucresson had considered taking a corporate job with Kraft Foods in a grocery store position before he was talked out of it by a Morehouse graduate who came back to give the college seniors a candid analysis of the job market.

“He was in corporate America and a really smart guy,” Vaucresson recalled. “He had a good job and everything, but he told us, ‘I heard about the glass ceiling; I now have experienced it. I’ve been passed over. I was much better than some of the people who were promoted. If I had a family business or a small business, I'd do that. Trust me, that’s the future.’”

In his father's footsteps
Inside Vaucresson’s Café Creole & Deli at 1800 St. Bernard Ave., Vaucresson recalls with clarity the day in 1996 that his father, Robert “Sonny” Vaucresson Sr., died at 95 of a heart attack while visiting the family tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 on All Saints’ Day, Sunday, Nov. 1.

On Monday morning, Vaucresson was at the family store at 4:30 a.m. Since the sausage makers had a contract with Orleans Parish public schools, dozens of boxes of sausage patties had to be delivered to 115 schools.

“Our driver came and met me and I said, ‘Sonny’s not going to be here – he passed – but we’ve got to load these trucks,’” Vaucresson said. “So, I opened the side door, and as soon as I opened the door, I just broke down crying. I got it out. Then I said, ‘Let’s get to moving.’”

Sonny Vaucresson was a hustler. He opened Vaucresson’s Café Creole on Bourbon Street, with partner Larry Borenstein, in the 1960s.

“It was the first business owned by a person of color, post-Reconstruction, on Bourbon Street,” Vaucresson said.

In 1970 at the first Jazz Fest in Congo Square, Vaucresson sold his chaurice pork sausage to music patrons. Vaucresson’s is the only Jazz Fest vendor to sell its wares at every festival.

“They made the sandwiches at the restaurant, wrapped them in foil and brought them to the booth where my mom was, with me in a bassinet,” Vaucresson said.

The key to success came when grocer John F. Schwegmann, whose grocery chain controlled 35% of the market, finally agreed to carry Vaucresson sausage in all of his large-scale stores.

“Once he brought us in, that was it,” Vaucresson said. “So, we went to Winn-Dixie and they said, ‘You’re in Schwegmann’s? We’ll take you!’ Eventually, we had to grow and get a truck for delivery orders.”

The elder Vaucresson endured very personal challenges during his lifetime. His eldest son, acclaimed opera singer Robert Jr., died of age-related renal failure in 1992 at the age of 33. He also accompanied his wife Geraldine as she went through decades of battling cancer.

Faith was their anchor
Vaucresson recalled his father and mother clinging to their Catholic faith during those trials.

“I was able to sit there and watch my parents evolve into Charismatic Catholics,” Vaucresson said. “My mother was a 55-year cancer survivor. She beat death twice, and she always attributed it to her faith. My mom had ovarian and cervical cancer, and we gave her three months to live, and she was like, ‘When do I start chemo? – because this is what I do, fight.’ With her type of fight, I could never quit anything.

“My dad was a member of the Monday Night Disciples,” Vaucresson added. “He struggled financially for a while. I was able to see him rob Peter to pay Paul. It got so bad that his head was louder than the TV – he had to put on the TV just to mute the noise. One day, he got out of his recliner and dropped to his knees and said, ‘Lord, I surrender to you. I can’t do it by myself.’ He said after he did that, he felt nothing but peace.”

The current Vaucresson’s Creole Café & Deli, delayed in opening by the pandemic, opened in November 2022 and offers far more than sausage. The seafood offerings created by new chef Bunny Young include smothered okra and crab, crawfish and corn bisque.

“You want to make okra so that it’s not slimy – you’ve got to cook it enough,” Vaucresson said. “You basically build it from there and add other proteins like shrimp.”

The key to fried catfish, he said, is “not to overseason” it.

“Some people will season the fish and then season the fish fry, and then it’s too salty,” Vaucresson said. “People want to amp it up. We make our own flour-based batter and then season the fish a little bit. We season the fish with no salt because we season the batter with salt.”

When he reflects on his deceased older brother’s love for music, Vaucresson sometimes wonders where his own resonant baritone voice might have taken him had he not stayed to work in the family business, but he says God is in control. Before Katrina, he sang in a group at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (then-seminarian Father Steve Bruno was a guitarist), and after Katrina, he sang with Connie and Dwight Fitch in the St. Raymond-St. Leo the Great choir before finding his musical home at Transfiguration. He sings at all three weekend Masses.

“One of them is for my brother Robert, one is for my mom and one is for my dad – I offer that up,” he said. “You hear about purgatory. Hopefully, it’s shaving off time every time I do that. I’m thankful. This is just my journey, and I just hope the good Lord sees what I’m doing and blesses me.”

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Lenten Recipes courtesy of Vaucresson's Cafe Creole and Deli 
Vance Vaucresson and chef Bunny Young

Smothered Okra

2 pounds frozen okra, rinsed

6 blue crabs, cleaned & cut in halves

3 pounds peeled & deveined fresh shrimp

2 cans of whole tomatoes

1 onion

5 garlic cloves

3 cups water

1 bay leaf

½ cup vegetable or canola oil

Seasoned salt

Black pepper

Garlic powder

Onion powder

Directions

Heat oil in stock pot. Add okra, onions and garlic. Sauté okra until slime is fried off. Add tomatoes, water and seasonings. Simmer for 10 minutes, then add crabs. Cook and stir for 20 minutes and, next, add shrimp. Continue to cook on low heat for 25 minutes. Serve over steamed rice.

Chef Bunny Young

Vaucresson’s Café Creole & Deli
 

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Crab, Crawfish and Corn Bisque

2 pounds crawfish

1 pound lump crab

1 pound frozen corn

2 quarts heavy whipping cream

1 stick butter

¾ cup flour

1 bunch green onions

seasoning salt

black pepper

Directions

Melt butter in stock pot. Blend flour to make a golden roux. Pour in heavy whipping cream and mix well. Add corn, crab, green onions and seasoning. Let sauce simmer and thicken on low heat. Add crawfish. Continue to cook for 7 minutes. Serve with toasted French bread.

Chef Bunny Young

Vaucresson’s Café Creole & Deli