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supply only, Munford found. He wanted a product where he could
connect to the end user, and he had already thought of sausage.
Munford had spent months rigging a smoker in his facility, which
is between Hammond and Gonzales, in a business partnership
with Wayne Jacobs Smokehouse and Restaurant, a state-inspected
facility in LaPlace.
It took a long time for Two Run Farm Executive Chef Via Fortier
and Munford to come up with the recipe for their own smoked
sausage. If you’ve ever had homemade sausage made exclusively with
wild boar, you may know it can be gamy. The 30-70 mixture with
domestic pork gives it a smoother taste, Munford says. It comes in
Original, Green Onion and Wild versions.
Munford admits he has mixed feelings
about wild boar. His dear friend as a child
was his pet potbellied pig, Mr. T. Munford’s
Mr. T had the Mohawk hairdo and bad
attitude of the TV character.
Munford grew up in Jackson, Mississippi.
His grandfather lived not far away, and
young Charlie spent weekends with him
on his farm, learning to love the outdoors,
fishing,farming andhunting.As he got older,
he sought educational outdoor experiences,
including a transformative semester at The
Mountain School in Vermont and a lengthy
Canadian canoe trip.
After high school, Munford went to Deep
Springs College, a tiny liberal arts college
set on a cattle ranch in the Eastern Sierra
desert in California. The all-male school
typically has a student body of only 24 to
30 students.
Students hire and fire faculty, make
admissions decisions, and maintain
the facilities and vehicles. They also are
responsible for cleaning, cooking, and farm
and ranch work. Munford loved it.
“I probably wouldn’t have gotten into Yale
if I hadn’t gone to Deep Springs,”Munford
says. He spent three years on scholarship in
New Haven, and received a stipend for his
independent study of organic farming in
Cuba. At the time, it was difficult to enter
the communist country, but because then-
president George W. Bush was an alum,
Yale students had a special loophole to
facilitate their study in Cuba.
“At the time, (Cuba) was untouched by
tourism,” Munford said. “The economy
was so distorted by the economic system.
They were rich in knowledge but deprived
of fossil fuels and agricultural chemicals,
so their organic farming system is well
developed.”
Munford’s love of horses landed him on the varsity polo team,
traveling to Oxford and Cambridge for matches.
“You could play polo for $150 a semester, so this not-wealthy kid
fromMississippi was able to play polo on these fancy thoroughbreds,
so fast and good, so well-trained,”Munford said. “I was able to pay
it off by mucking out stalls. It was a lot of fun.”
Munford doesn’t get to play polo these days, but he has a new
traditional role in life. He is, in his own words, a besotted new dad.
His daughter “may be the cutest thing in the whole world,”Munford
said.
Holla ’Backs
Alabama, Auburn and Ole Miss take on the Arkansas Razorbacks in October. LSU and
Mississippi State play them in November. Using wild boar sausage in your jambalaya is
a tasty way to make sure we eat the enemy.
Charlie Munford, Charlie’s Smoked Sausage of Wild Boar & Pork
COOKING & INGREDIENTS