Day Trips

Photo by Gerald E. McLeod

Lasyone's Meat Pie Restaurant in Natchitoches, La., didn't invent the meat pie, but they have come darn close to perfecting it.

No matter what you call the half-moon-shaped stuffed pastries – fried pies or empanadas – it is the stuffing that separates one meat pie from another. The origin of the fried envelopes is one of many culinary mysteries, but nearly every culture seems to have something similar. Their portability makes them a favorite meal or snack.

"My dad based his meat pies on the ones that were sold from carts when he was a kid," says Angela Lasyone. She and her sister, Tina Lasyone Smith, run the restaurant that their father started in 1967.

James Lasyone was a butcher at a small grocery store next to where the restaurant now sits when he began experimenting with his recipe for meat-pie filling. The cart salesmen of his youth had all disappeared, but the ladies in town kept asking him for a special mix of ground beef and pork for their meat pies.

After a year and a half of working on just the right combination of ingredients, James talked his boss into letting him sell the pillows of spicy meats over the counter. It wasn't long before they cut a window in the wall just for meat-pie sales. After a couple of years, the butcher hung up his apron and opened a restaurant on the first floor of the Masonic Lodge building next door.

"What my father built is pretty amazing for a man with a sixth-grade education," Angela says. "Dad had a dream, and he followed it. He basically started with $50 in his pocket, a pot, and a burner."

What he started has become a North-Central Louisiana culinary tradition. Although it has many fine attributes, Natchitoches is most often associated with meat pies and the place where Steel Magnolias was filmed. The oldest town in the original Louisiana Purchase (New Orleans is two years younger), Natchitoches began as a riverboat port on a branch of the Red River. At one time, it was the gateway into Texas for El Camino Real de los Tejas (now Highway 6 in Louisiana and Highway 21 in Texas) that ran through Nacogdoches and San Antonio to Mexico City.

After nearly 300 years of existence, the town is the definition of Southern charm. Residents will gently correct visitors when they fail to pronounce Natchitoches as "Nak-a-tish."

"My dad got such a kick out of all the attention that his meat pies brought," Angela says. Now in his 70s and confined to a nursing home, James was thrilled when Vanna White visited his restaurant, even more than when Charles Kuralt, Daryl Hannah, or a long list of other celebrities stopped by. "Vanna White had him grinning from ear to ear when she left," Angela said with a laugh.

The international legend of Natchitoches meat pies began in 1969, when House Beautiful ran a story about them. Since then, Lasyone's has been recognized by Southern Living, The New Yorker, Gourmet, and several books and TV shows as being an American institution.

Over the years, the recipe of 80% beef, 20% pork, and a secret blend of spices hasn't changed. It takes six people five hours every morning to make 400 to 1,000 pies. "In this humidity, the dough is the hardest thing to keep consistent," Angela says.

Lasyone's has spawned a whole industry of imitators. The famous Natchitoches Meat Pie Co. of Coushatta, La., no relation to Lasyone's, sells frozen pies to restaurants, grocery stores, and Wal-Mart. You'll even see signs in yards around town advertising the resident's version of the meat pie. Every September, Natchitoches honors James Lasyone and the local cooks who inspired him with a meat-pie festival.

Lasyone's Meat Pie Restaurant is at 622 Second St. in Natchitoches, La. Besides the famous meat pies, the restaurant serves a great Southern-style breakfast and lunch specials of grilled liver and onions, red beans and rice, catfish, Creole chicken enchiladas, and Cane River Mud Pie, and they have added a spicy crawfish meat pie. Lasyone's is open Monday through Saturday from 7am to 3pm. For more information, call 318/352-3353.

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