Partners bring Cajun flavor to Lowcountry

Getting out of town shouldn't be such a hassle anymore for Steve Meaux.

Before opening Cherie's Specialty Meats with daughter-in-law Heather Hill in October, Meaux and wife Cheryl would have to sneak away to visit family in Louisiana. If people found out they had a trip planned, they were hounded for a taste of Cajun country.

"They would ask, 'Hey, how about bringing back a turducken? Or some boudin?' I got a truck and started filling up coolers because everybody wanted us to bring products back. It got to be so much work," Meaux says, although he was glad to do it as long as he could.

Meaux has lived in the Charleston area for 24 years and always has lamented the lack of Cajun food here. He's nurtured the idea of opening a specialty shop for some time.

A while back, he told his daughter-in-law, who had some food service background, "When you get tired of teaching, you let me know."

Last April, she decided not to renew her contract to teach art in Dorchester County. She wanted more flexibility with her time since her 3-year-old son is in day care.

She and Meaux became business partners. "We had a few too many glasses of wine one night, and we started talking about it," she says with a laugh.

Says Meaux, "I've never been in the food business, but I'm a Cajun. All Cajuns love food and love to entertain."

The result is Cherie's Specialty Meats & Fine Coffee, which opened in October. The Louisiana foods shop is in Tanner Station, a new shopping center in Hanahan on Tanner Ford Road across from the Bi-Lo off North Rhett Avenue.

Meaux and Hill say the business already is building a local following.

The products are authentic Cajun and are aimed at the person who wants Cajun meals at home. Two large freezer cases are filled with take-and-bake meats, appetizers, and main and side dishes. They include sausages such as pork and alligator, shrimp and crawfish pies, creamed spinach and crab au gratin, gumbo and etouffee, and deboned, stuffed chickens and Cornish hens.

The talker is the unusual "turducken," a deboned chicken stuffed inside a deboned duck stuffed inside a partially deboned turkey with stuffing in between. (A "turporken" substitutes pork tenderloin for the duck.)

Cherie's source for the turducken is La Boucherie in Houston, owned by Meaux's nephew and family.

The store also sells a smattering of other Louisiana products, such as the Community Coffee line, hot sauces and seasoning, and real cane syrup.

A few other items are gourmet but not Cajun connected — fresh kobe and Angus beef and a number of cheeses, for example.

Teresa Taylor is the food editor. Reach her at food@postandcourier.com or 937-4886.