The Cajun Turkey Company - Dallas Morning News Article
Fans gobbling up a local shop's Cajun fried turkeys
Cajun fried turkey impresario turns holiday hobby into a bayou-tinged tradition
10:00 AM CST on Wednesday, November 16, 2005
By BILL MARVEL / The Dallas Morning News
Some great things have come out of American garages: the Apple computer. Metallica. The Cajun Fried Turkey.
The Apple, of course, was born in the garage behind Steve Jobs' parents' home and went on to revolutionize the computer industry. Metallica started as a California garage band. And Cajun Turkey...
Well, it hasn't quite replaced the Norman Rockwell turkey as an icon of Thanksgiving togetherness, from Grandma's oven straight to the table. And it isn't as well-known or widespread as the holiday spiral-cut ham. But out in a shopping strip in Far North Dallas, Billy Howell is working to change that.
A glance will tell you the Cajun Turkey Company is not your average shopping-strip store. There are the rocking chairs out front. And the screen doors, the kind that close behind you with a slap.
"I'm from the South," Mr. Howell explains. "I grew up with screen doors on my home."
He was born in New Orleans but, as a kid, moved across Lake Pontchartrain to the town of Covington. He grew up eating traditional roast turkey on Thanksgiving. "But I put Tabasco sauce on everything."
By the time he got a job in the clothing industry, married and moved to Plano, his tastes were considerably more sophisticated. He had turned into quite a cook. He would show up at holiday parties and family get-togethers with a turkey deep-fried Cajun style and marinated in Geaux Juice, his own variation on a friend's sauce. "I like taking a turkey to parties," he says, "because it always stands out in the center of the table."
Friends raved about his turkeys and picked them clean to the bone. In 1993 at a New Year's party "where there was a lot of beer," Mr. Howell recalls, someone said his turkeys were so good, it was a shame to waste them on friends and family. He should sell them.
And so he and a friend formed a partnership, and they did. The next October, they bought a small newspaper ad – one inch, $150 – and orders started to roll in. By New Year's Day they had sold about 600 turkeys. By February, they were broke again. Fortunately, both kept their day jobs. (His partner has since dropped out.)
That first year, Mr. Howell was frying the turkeys in his garage because, well, you don't want to fry a turkey in your kitchen. He explains: The turkey comes out of the refrigerator chilled to the high 30s or low 40s. And the oil is heated to 350 degrees.
"When the turkey hits the hot oil, it erupts," he says. "Nobody is ever prepared for that. Their first inclination is to drop the turkey." The splash can spatter hot peanut oil all over the garage floor or on anybody who is standing by.
"I always tell customers 'You've got to cook one yourself to appreciate how difficult this is.'"
Difficult and, his lawyer warned, possibly against health regulations. "We realized the Health Department would have taken my house, my car, my wife. I was a clothing salesman. What did I know?"
His second year he had a barbecue caterer prepare the birds. He sold 1,600, and orders were coming in from out-of-state. The year after that, a plant in Lubbock took over the frying, and Mr. Howell opened a retail store behind a Chevron station off the Dallas North Tollway. Unfortunately, people couldn't find it.
The current location at 5519 Arapaho Road – the one with the rocking chairs and screen doors – offers visibility and space for packing and shipping. In a back room, employees (25 at peak season) answer phones and take orders via the Internet (www.cajunturkeyco .com). Four years ago, Mr. Howell hired an operations manager, Richard Black, to help run things.
During the past seven seasons, the Cajun Turkey Company has sold more than 300,000 pounds of fried turkey. Gross sales last year passed the $500,000 mark. This year, Mr. Howell figures he'll sell 4,000 turkeys, plus thousands of hams, tur-duc-hens and tur-duc-hen rolls (a Paul Prudhomme invention: Place de-boned chicken inside de-boned duck, inside de-boned turkey).
Riding the wave of interest in Cajun cookery, he has also expanded the line to include a wide range of Louisiana specialties.
When the seasonal rush ends in January, he plans to keep the place open, though he'll hang on to his regular job for the time being. Someday, he hopes: Franchise stores all over the U.S.
"It's all been from the heart and my passion," Mr. Howell says. And although he no longer fries turkeys in his garage, he still takes them to friends and family.
"I still have the joy of watching their faces. I still get a little rush when there's nothing left on the bones."
The Cajun Turkey Company can be reached at 800-809-7881.
E-mail bmarvel@dallasnews.com