Macon Magazine

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2024 | maconmagazine.com 95 E very year around this time, a group of farmers, butchers, chefs, food lovers, and veterans come from all over the country to Central Georgia to put on a gastronomical and educational tradition known as the Le Pie du Mont Boucherie. It's held at Comfort Farms, the nation's first Acute Veterans Crisis Agriculture Center, an agro-therapy farming initiative that gives veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other invisible disabilities a place to heal, learn new skills, and transition back to civilian life. A boucherie is a Cajun tradition predating refrigeration, in which communities gather to share the workload of butchering a whole animal, usually a hog, to provide sustenance for the long winter months and pass down cultural practices across generations. Each scrap is utilized or preserved, resulting in a wide array of dishes – from the barbecue you might expect to the head cheese and blood soup that might surprise you. This Boucherie is a celebration of food and camaraderie featuring some of the best culinary voices in the country. In today's celebrity chef culture, it would be easy to assume the chefs are the stars here. But for this weekend, they all blend into the gathering. Nobody is here to promote themselves or their new restaurant. It feels more like a commune than a cooking demo. For three days, the group cooks around the clock to raise funds and awareness for Comfort Farms' mission. People interested in heritage foodways, whole-animal cooking, and creative collaboration come from as far as Chicago, New York, New Orleans, and California, alongside many local participants, for this profoundly unique culinary event. It is all held together by Jon Jackson, owner- operator of the farm and founder of STAG Vets, Inc. The following recounts just one day of the three days at each Boucherie, just one year of seven. FEBRUARY/MARCH 2024 | maconmagazine.com 95

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