In 1955, Ms. Eula Savoie of Opelousas found herself with a problem: what to do with all the hogs she was raising but couldn’t sell.

She had added the 187-acre farming operation a few years back to supplement the income from the small grocery store she owned with her husband. Thanks to a suggestion from her mother, Ms. Eula decided to butcher the hogs and turn them into Cajun dishes to sell in the store. Those dishes, based on her mother’s recipes, became the centerpiece of a multimillion-dollar Cajun food empire currently celebrating 60 years in business.