Duck Camp Dinners: Chef Jean-Paul Bourgeois

Ryan Barnes for SPLIT REED

By now, most of the waterfowling world has come to know the name Chef Jean-Paul Bourgeois. The Louisiana native grew up as a waterfowler and as one who loved the pursuit of other small game. Taking to the woods after anything that he could bring home that would serve as good table-fare. Growing up in a family of talented cooks, it was almost a pre-destined outcome for him to pursue a career in the culinary arts. Those talents and abilities have led him all across the globe. They took him to far away and foreign places, and most recently, to a familiar duck blind. To enjoy the stories that come at duck camp- the stories being captured through the new series “Duck Camp Dinners”. But who is Chef Jean-Paul? How did he get to be to where he is today? Split Reed sat down with the culinary mastermind to see just where this whole journey began-

 “I was born into the Cajun culture of Louisiana, which is a culture that is deeply enriched by cooking,” says Bourgeois. He says that growing up in that deep-rooted heritage of Louisiana gave him a great background and appreciation for the art of making food for others and an even better appreciation for good cuisine. Having a father and mother that were both great cooks piqued Jean-Paul’s interest in the realm of cooking and preparing food. He mentions that he was always in the kitchen; whether that was helping his dad prepare meals for others, or preparing the meals himself. Being in and around the kitchen, cooking, or helping others was something that felt natural to a young Chef Jean-Paul. This shaped him into who he is now, something that can be seen on Duck Camp Dinners.

When college time came, and the decisions on what to do with his life bore its ugly head, Bourgeois knew he had a talent for preparing quality food, and it was something that he knew he wanted to pursue. He started his career path by taking an externship with Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen in Atlanta in their research and development department. “I just really wanted to explore that side of food. I obviously didn’t end up going into that side of the culinary industry, which was more science and research and development for a large corporation”. After that, he spent 4 months in Lyon, which gave Bourgeois 4 months in France, learning more about the culinary arts and the French countryside. He was able to participate in the Running of the Bulls in Spain, as well as spend time in some of the meccas of the European food realm. Helping expand his talents as a chef, and broaden his ability to find new tastes and create new flavors to help him achieve new ground that had not yet been explored. Not to mention, it all provided him with a unique experience to see an area that had such a profound influence on Southern Louisiana’s heritage and culture. As the final capstone to his culinary education, Jean-Paul received a Bachelor of Science degree in the culinary arts from the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute.

Following graduation, he moved to Napa and the Bay Area of California where he worked in and managed multiple different kitchens. Earning the coveted title of “Chef” by working with different kinds of food, and expanding his ability to prepare cuisine from all sorts of different nuances of the culinary world. However, in the past 12 years, Bourgeois has found himself in New York, working in commercial kitchens, not just known throughout the city but known throughout the country. Leading teams from 15 to 200 people to help create and produce the best cuisine possible. From Roman, Italian to Southern Barbecue, and anything and everything in-between. Quite the expansion from cooking Cajun dishes in Southern Louisiana. However, with that said, it’s safe to say that Bourgeois still depends on his deep-wound Cajun roots to help create new and flavorful dishes in each new recipe he tries.

The time spent in France was an eye-opening experience for Chef Jean-Paul. Learning about so many different elements to the human pallet- what it craves, what flavors accentuate which dishes, and where to go to pursue certain “frontiers” of the culinary world. Which is exactly what Bourgeois did, and is still doing. While there may not be a “Western Frontier” left to settle, Jean-Paul says there is still plenty of unsettled and unexplored territory in the world of food. Exploring new flavors, new tastes, and new recipes. Bourgeois may not be trekking his way into uncharted territory like trappers and explorers of old did, but he sure is trying it in a totally different form and fashion. He’s charting and pioneering new territory with each new recipe he makes, by satisfying his own craving for new tastes, new flavors, new heats, and new elements to better food. From coast to coast of the US, he continues to explore the many different offerings from different cultures, different lands, and different ideas that lead to better food, better taste, and better meals. All are things that he takes with him from kitchen to kitchen, state to state, and also in his unique scenario, the duck blind.

When asked about his history and love for waterfowling, Jean-Paul responded by saying, “I grew up waterfowling. It was something I had always done since I was a kid. My dad started when he was in his 30’s, but even though he didn’t grow up waterfowl hunting, his family still grew up hunting small game; rabbits, squirrels, doves, and things like that. They really were too poor to be able to get out in the mornings and skip a day of work to go out and hunt ducks. Because even back then, duck hunting was just harder to do. It took a little bit more money and a little bit more resources than the rabbit hunting that you could do in the cane fields outside of the house in South Louisiana. Or squirrel hunting out in the oak trees, or catfishing in Bayou Lafourche”. Luckily for Jean-Paul, duck hunting was something that his father had taken up by the time he came around and began taking him on hunts at a young age. He recalls his first trip to the blind being when he was about age 9 or 10, “Looking back at it today, I always thought we had these great, phenomenal duck hunts- but seeing it now as an adult, and all the ebbs and flows of duck hunting, very few people are fortunate enough to go out every hunt, and shoot limits or close to. Despite what social media tells us, and what the waterfowl world tells us, the vast majority of us go out and we chase the ‘high’ and we chase the opportunity to have those amazing and epic hunts where we all limit out in 30-45 minutes. Maybe they’re greenheads maybe they’re ringnecks, it doesn’t even matter. At the time when I was 9 to 13 years old, hunting with my dad, it always seemed like we had those great epic hunts. But as I look back at it, we didn’t”. Chef Jean-Paul mentions a meaningful saying from his dad that he still uses himself when members of the blind get frustrated with missed shots or certain follies; the simple phrase, “we just love to shoot”. Bourgeois recalls that this saying has always stuck with him because, for him and his dad, it was never about trying to kill a full strap of ducks. It was about getting out and enjoying the experience. “It wasn’t about getting out there and shooting an entire limit of ducks. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn’t. But those were the most impactful times of my life with him, were in those duck blinds. I can still hear him today when I missed a bird that was an easy shot on the water because I was ten years old and I could barely hold a gun up, and he’d look at me, not mad, not frustrated, and just say, ‘that’s alright son, we just love to shoot’, and I find myself telling my friends that, even today”. It’s clear to see that Jean-Paul’s father had a large impact on the positive outlook he takes with him each day. Not only to the duck blind, but to the kitchen, and to daily life as a whole.

When asked about Duck Camp Dinners, and what the inspiration and motivation behind creating the series were, Jean-Paul talked about an experience he had five years ago as he and his friends prepared for a morning’s hunt. The stars in the sky, the South Louisiana breeze, the sounds and sights of the duck camp all resonated strongly, and inspired him with five words, “this is a special place”. To which he responded in his own head, “these are special people”. From that point, Bourgeois would undertake to create a way to tell the stories of this area that was so hallowed. Chef Jean-Paul decided he would start his pursuit of Duck Camp Dinners and set up a tripod with his iPhone, cook his meals, and start this docu-series that, little to anyone’s future knowledge, would explode to what it would soon become. “I was just going to go live from my Instagram,” Bourgeois says, half-jokingly, “but as I started talking about it with my friends and with some other people; we started to develop this idea that there was more to tell than just the food”. He says that while this story spawned about five years ago, it really took shape about 18 months ago. After some planning, and some work on all ends, through Chef, Split Reed, and some fantastic sponsors, the idea to create this amazing story-telling experience became a reality.

In speaking on what makes this whole experience unique to him, Jean-Paul mentions that anyone who reads this or watches Duck Camp Dinners may have the same feelings about their own duck camp. The things that make the camp highlighted in Louisiana are also the things that highlight one’s own duck camp. “Really that all distills down to the people that are there,” says Bourgeois. Everyone in the DCD series are friends and have been for a long time. An element that adds to the uniqueness and special atmosphere that surrounds the duck camp. “Anything we do at the duck camp, we get to do together,” he says, “that’s the gravy of it. The meat and potatoes of it all are the people that are there. That’s what makes it so special”. That’s no different from any duck camp. The joy of being out in the field and chasing our quarry is only made better by those that we share it with. A duck blind, only sitting there for the purpose of providing a hide from the ducks, isn’t that unique. It’s the people, the stories, the memories, and the time spent together that truly make it a duck camp. That’s what Chef Bourgeois and company highlight so well within this series. Jean-Paul gives a great description of how he wants the show to be seen, and a great description of the purity of hunting in general, when he says that Duck Camp Dinners, when taken down to the roots, is a story of the game we chase, the food we eat, and the people we share these stories with. A sentiment that anyone can appreciate.

Now, one also shouldn’t mistake the meals being cooked in the series for white-collar, high brass that only those with Jean-Paul’s experience can make. The meals you see on Duck Camp Dinners are exactly that- duck camp dinners. They might just be prepared a bit more carefully than your buddy’s top ramen and sausage you eat in your duck blind. While these meals might just be a touch more, “elevated” than most duck camp food, Jean-Paul makes it clear that these aren’t difficult or unapproachable recipes. They are every once as available to be prepared in your blind as they are to be prepared in the blinds of South Louisiana.

After talking about the ideas and driving forces of Duck Camp Dinners, thoughts were then reflected back to Jean-Paul’s father. “My dad, like every father, teaches them something. Sometimes those things are what to do. Sometimes we learn from our dads what not to do. My dad is no different. My dad taught me the importance of hard work, of grit, of never giving up, of always believing in yourself, and always pouring- not just passion, but your heart and soul and blood and tears into things you believe in”. Needless to say, the Chef Jean-Paul we all know today, wouldn’t be who he is, in multiple different capacities, without the help and guidance from his father. “The only reason I’m as successful as a chef, as a film-maker, and as a husband hopefully, is because I took all the good he taught me, and I applied them. All while rejecting the ‘stuff’ I didn’t like about my childhood. In the end, isn’t that every father’s dream? That their son would grow up to be better men than them”.

Now, as people watch Duck Camp Dinners, particularly episode 3, they might notice the changes that are talked about and highlighted surrounding the Louisiana swamps and the threats that could potentially have on waterfowl habitat. “It’s a damn shame,” Bourgeois says, making note that the levee systems were built out of good intentions. “We didn’t want the Mississippi to flood millions of homes per year and have to be rebuilt. But in that containment of the Mississippi, it created a devastating domino effect of change,” says Jean-Paul. Without the foresight or technology to understand the ramifications of building these levee systems, no one understood the damage it would do to the Louisiana swamps. Because of these levees, man has contained one of the most powerful rivers in the world, but that has forced change into coastal and interior wetlands. Freshwater swamps are now being invaded by saltwater. Habitats have been changed. Areas that were once abundant with teal, gadwall, and other small-water ducks are now large bodies of water that are used by diving ducks. Things that may not seem like a problem now, but as the grains of sand fall through the hourglass of time, ecosystems and habitats like what you see in Louisiana may soon start to disappear. Jean-Paul talks about these problems happening, not only in Louisiana but all over the country because of the containment of the Mississippi. “The domino effect is just too far gone at this point”. Bourgeois says, trying to raise a voice of not only a warning but also a voice of future conservation to the area he loves so dearly.

Jean-Paul mentions that no matter what, things are going to change, and we’re always going to look at the past and reflect on how things “were better back then”. If that’s the case, we better not pass these days by us. Hence the reason for spearheading Duck Camp Dinners, and trying to tell these amazing stories; not only the stories through the camera, but the stories told by fine cuisine. “I want to be able to remember these stories, and share them with the people that I love, and let people know that this is what it was like”. Says Bourgeois. Duck Camp Dinners isn’t just a series to showcase culinary skills and duck shooting, it’s a series to document the true meaning of a duck camp- the friendships, the laughter, and the memories we sometimes don’t even realize we’re making. Memories brought together by the pursuit of waterfowl and accentuated by the taste of a finely cooked meal.