LSU Dining Executive Chef Laurence Landon, center, leads a cooking class for students.

When he’s not hilariously demonstrating clever ways for students to create quick meals in his comedic cooking series on YouTube entitled “Hack the Hall,” Executive Chef Laurence Landon has another regularly scheduled performance: managing the entirety of Louisiana State University’s Residential Dining operations. He knows how to stir the beans, as they say: the talent and commitment to quality and sustainability of Chef Laurence and his team have resulted in the 459 Commons Dining Hall’s certification by The Green Restaurant Association as 3-Star Green Restaurant. But on this day we found him in the kitchen, literally stirring the beans in a huge, rectangular vat, in anticipation of a busy lunch.

Beans taste like home.

Akin with many a Louisiana restaurant, The 5, as it’s called on campus, typically serves red beans on Mondays – a comforting taste of home for students from Louisiana. “Most students coming from other states aren’t aware of this tradition,” said Chef Laurence. He added that it doesn’t take long for them to learn just how important beans are in the food culture of the region. Chef Laurence also rotates lots of international bean dishes on the menu, like congri (a Cuban beans-and-rice comfort food), curries, falafel made with red beans or white beans, vegetarian bean burgers, and one of his favorite fusion foods – red beans and rice “egg rolls” – delicious dollops of red beans and rice wrapped in a wonton (like an egg roll) and fried. “Our menu is part down-home Southern and part eclectic international,” he said.

LSU’s Executive Chef of Residential Dining Laurence Landon stirs red beans ahead of a busy lunch at the 459 Commons Dining Hall on the LSU campus.

How do you red bean, Chef Laurence?

Chef Laurence makes his red beans – and all the beans on his menu – vegetarian, in order to be inclusive of vegan and vegetarian students, and serves platters of smoky meats and sausages that can be selected by diners as sides. His recipe is “pretty classic,” as he calls it – bay leaf, salt and pepper, cayenne, seasoning trinity – but he also adds “a bit of dried mustard and green hot sauce.” Chef orders his Camellia Red Kidney beans 25-pound sacks, and soaks them overnight on Sunday in anticipation of Monday’s lunch. Soaking them, he said, “quickens their cooking time and helps them cream faster.”

The Red Beans and Rice is served vegetarian, with meats and sausages as optional sides.

Healthy eating is part of the curriculum

Chef Laurence and his talented chefs and kitchen staff are at the forefront of LSU’s balanced lifestyle and healthy eating initiative, which brings eating into the educational sphere. The idea is that while students are at LSU, they’ll not only be studying academics, but will also be exposed to new foods and new ways of thinking about their eating habits, health and wellness. Fresh, local produce is a priority, nutritional values of foods are posted, and new life has been breathed into the dining menus as well as the university’s approach to student living – all of which provides multiple opportunities for that nutritional powerhouse, the bean, to steal the show.

Gather ’round with Pableaux Johnson (New Orleans food writer, photographer and one of Epicurious’ recent Top 100 Greatest Home Cooks of All Time) at his next stop in Houston, Texas. His Red Beans Road Show will be staging a Monday-night takeover on January 27, 2020, when Brennan’s chef Joe Cervantez and host Alex Brennan-Martin and their crew will open Brennan’s of Houston for a night of food, friends and fun.

This family style throw-down will feature a chef-created appetizer, Pableaux’s famous red beans & rice with cornbread, and something sweet – plus maybe a surprise or two. Pableaux always keeps it interesting!

Order tickets online while they last, and come break cornbread and make memories with friends and strangers alike.

Photo courtesy of Brennan’s of Houston

Hungry for more details? Here’s everything else you need to know about the Red Beans Road Show:

Good, Simple Food & New Friends

Louisiana food writer, photographer and “general n’er-do-well” Pableaux Johnson meets up with local restaurant chefs in each town or city he visits, to host an informal, family-style feast featuring “good, simple food, camaraderie and appropriate misbehavior.” 

Pableaux Is a Hoot!

Buy your tickets and show up to eat, drink and shoot the breeze with culinary and culture enthusiasts. As ringleader and organizer of the shenanigans, Pableaux gives a short presentation on Louisiana foodways that will leave you hankering for all things Louisiana, and then it’s a fun night of breaking bread (Pableaux’s grandpa’s skillet cornbread, that is), eating down-home, delicious food and drinking a cold beer with a roomful of friendly strangers. 

Local Chefs Are in on It

Pableaux cooks his signature Red Beans & Rice made with Camellia Brand Red Kidney Beans, and his local chef partners serve up a simple starter (like deviled eggs or hand pies) and a dessert (like bread pudding or homemade pie). 

Take the Tradition Home with You

Everyone who attends gets a bag of Camellia Red Kidney Beans and a recipe card to make Red Beans & Rice, so you can start your own tradition at home!

Everyone who attends gets a bag of Camellia Red Kidney Beans and a recipe card for Red Beans & Rice, so they can start their own tradition at home!