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INTERVIEWS

Henry Amato

Paul Arceneaux

Francis Chauvin

Kathia Duran

Pete & Clara Gerica

Wayne Schexnayder

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Interviews and photographs by Laura Westbrook, director, Louisiana Regional Folklife Program

Henry Amato

Amato Winery & Cheeses - Independence, LA

“[Hurricane Katrina] really tore up the cheese business because we had some real nice customers in New Orleans…We sold to Palace Cafe and a lot of it went to other—the other restaurants. And then we done a big cheese business with Brocato’s for the Cannoli cookies and—and all that's gone, you know. Right now all of it's gone.”

– Henry Amato

Listen to this 3-minute audio clip of Henry Amato talking about being a vintner in Louisiana and welcoming tourists to his winery. [Windows Media Player required. Go here to download the player for free.]

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What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Date: November 3, 2005
Location: Mr. Amato’s home – Independence, LA
Interviewer: Laura Westbrook, University of New Orleans
Length: 44 minutes
Project: Gulf Coast Foodways Renaissance Project/Hurricane Katrina

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Laura Westbrook: All right; I'm in Independence, Louisiana talking with Mr. Henry Amato of Amato Winery; it's November 3rd at oh about a quarter to three in the afternoon and the interviewer is Laura Westbrook. Will you tell me a little bit about how you got started in the wine business? You grew up in the Independence area, so you grew up with the Italian food traditions. Were there wine makers in the community that you knew?

Henry Amato: Well, at that time everybody in this area had strawberries, and then everybody made a little barrel of wine. It was small farms and everybody made their own little wine in this area.

And did your family do that?

Oh yes, oh yes; see, it's legal to make 250 gallons a year per family.

Has that always been the case?

I think so; uh-hm.

Were people careful to stick with that or were there—?

Well, that was a lot of wine, so most people didn't even make that much.

I can imagine that. When did your parents allow you to start, one-consuming some of the wine, and, two-participating in making it?

Well, we was around it so much, I never remember not being around wine because we was involved in actually making wine as kids. In fact, this thing goes back so far that the schools was set up for the kids to be off during harvest season of strawberries. We used to go to schools in different times than you (in New Orleans) because they had us out for the harvesting of strawberries. So I mean it—it goes back a long ways.

So your year would last a little bit longer because you were off for the season—?

Not longer—different—different months.

Different months?

Yeah.

And you were one of the kids that picked? Did you pick strawberries for your family?

Oh yes, oh yes.

And your family had strawberries?

Yeah; every year— in this area they always had some—three and four and five-acre patches of strawberries. Everybody had it; that was just a little extra income. The men mostly had jobs in New Orleans and Baton Rouge in the plants and we used to stay with the moms and the grandmas and, you know, do strawberries.

How were the strawberries marketed?

Back then the only way you could market them is get out on the road yourself and sell them, or bring them to the association. And that's it.

The Strawberry Growers Association?

Yeah, yeah.

Where was that headquartered?

They were—they were all over; the little associations, they had a few in Independence, a few in Hammond, Ponchatoula had theirs; see, it was a bunch of them.

I've seen some of the little tickets that the pickers were given when they would bring in full bushels—

Right.

Did your family use that system, too; how did that work?

We—they gave us wooden nickels and it's the same as the tickets; it’s a token. You know it was a token but it was used more or less the same way as the credit cards they have today. Now, they have a machine. When they take the berries from the picker, it scans their card and adds an extra flat so they just keep one card now, one plastic card.

Hmm; I bet people were nervous when that system went into effect; at least if you have the tokens—

You'll see—yeah.

— you can hold onto them. So your family grew the berries, and with some of the extra berries that didn't go to market, they would make strawberry wine?

Strawberry wine, strawberry jelly, and put them in the freezer, you know.

What about other strawberry recipes? What were your favorite things that your mother made?

We made strawberry jams and jellies and the fresh strawberries during the season, we made strawberry shortcakes and whatever.

Yeah; what about—. [Phone Rings] You want to catch that? [HA indicates “no”] What about some of the other things, some of the family recipes your mom made not related to strawberries? What were your favorite things that your mother made that you remember from when you were growing up?

The breads and the cheeses.

So your mother made cheese?

Oh yeah; we had our own cow and—

Cow—singular?

No; we had about two cows but we used to—

Do you remember their names?

[Laughs] No.

They didn't have names? [Laughs]

They had names. We had two cows and then we had—we used to raise our own meat. We had chickens; yes, I remember all that.

Sounds great.

It was.

Did you have responsibilities that you had to take care of before you went to school in the morning related to them?

That was—yeah; that was a necessity yeah, yeah.

What did you do?

Well, we used to raise baby calves. In the morning you had to go and, you know, feed the cow and let the calves suck the cow and then turn the cow out, keep the calf locked and, you know, that was an everyday thing.

So did you always have kittens around your place?

Kittens?

Uh-hm.

Not that many cats; we had cats but not that many. [Phone Rings]

I've heard people who had cows say that there are always cats hanging around at dairy time.

The cats—we had cats hanging around. We didn't try to get friendly—we was told not to get friendly with the cats because the cats actually was there to kill the rats because you had so much feed there.

When you were asked, or allowed, to start doing chores around the farm, what were the ones that you really liked doing and what were the ones that you would rather somebody else would have the honor to do?

It wasn't a question of liking to do it; you had to do it.

[Laughs] How many siblings did you have?

We had—it was four in our family—two girls and two boys.

So there wasn't too much you could get out of doing with only one other boy?

Right, and I was the oldest.

Ah, and what were your jobs? Now you—you took care of the calves and watching that the calf was fed in the morning?

And working the fields in the evening, and then the schools got out just in time to harvest the berries. And we planted cucumbers and bell pepper and, you know, the whole nine yards.

And when you started helping your family do the wine, how did that go?

It wasn't a big thing back then. It was just a little bitty room and the wine was actually stored in wooden barrels. Now they didn't store the wine in the wooden barrels just to get the oak-y taste; that was a cheap container. That's the only reason why they stored it in wooden barrels. And that's, you know—

And was the wine for every day, was it for Sunday, was it for just Christmas and Thanksgiving; when did the family enjoy the wine?

It was big in the holidays and so on. But I remember they did make some dry wines out of strawberries and the elderly people, during their meals, had the wine they made, you know. And of course, they made blackberry wine, too.

Your winery makes strawberry wine. What are the other wines that you make?

Well, we make strawberry, blueberry, orange, muscadine, and blackberry.

And what's your most popular?

Well it depends on where you're at. [Laughs] Now, if you're in Ponchatoula it’s the strawberry wine; New Orleans is heavier on the blackberry and the muscadine; Belle Chasse, up in there, they were hitting the orange wine. In fact, we made the orange wine for the Festival Board.

For the Orange Festival in Plaquemines Parish?

Yeah; we sold the wine to the Festival Board and they retailed it and made the profit off of it, which was great. It promoted the wine and all, but two weeks before the hurricane hit we donated the wine, so they had their fund-raising and all, and at this time of the year we would be getting ready to make wine for them for the festival.

Yes, for December. What do you see as the differences in the way that people in the Independence area make wine from the time that you were coming up to today? Are there as many people who do it?

No, I don't know of any of them anymore that does it.

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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.