Hunter Henry was born with only half a heart, but he certainly has no shortage of taste buds. Now, he’s putting them to good use with a new business venture that serves as the first step in fulfilling a lifelong ambition.
The 20-year-old Youngsville resident has a medical history that is long and storied, as he and his parents will tell you.
“He was in the hospital for four years”, said Hunter’s father Robert Henry. “He was degrading fairly steadily during that time as far as his health was concerned. Eventually he was placed on high priority for a heart transplant”
During the first two years of his life, Hunter had three open-heart surgeries, and would continue to struggle with heart-related issues into his teens, culminating in a four-year stint in a Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston while he waited to receive a heart transplant.
From his health challenges however, came his interest in food.
“I was placed on a low-sodium diet, and the hospital food they were giving me was nasty”, Hunter said.
Never one to accept limitations, Hunter met the challenge head-on.
“I was so desperate to eat good food. I began watching YouTube tutorials on how to add flavor without adding too much salt to my diet.” That led to Hunter to develop his own personal seasoning that added a kick to his food, without adding a kick to his sodium levels.
“I had to try a lot of different combinations to get it right. It took a lot of trial and error. When you’re in heart failure that makes it 10 times more difficult. Probably the hardest part is getting the consistency right and actually getting hold of the spices you want to use.”
Through years of troubling health complications, cooking would provide an important form of escape for Hunter, whether it was learning to make sushi in his hospital room or cooking jambalaya plate lunches for the transplant center at Texas Children’s.
A country boy at heart, Hunter took a little slice of Youngsville with him to the bustling atmosphere of downtown Houston.
“I brought in a lot of my garden. My cilantro plants, my tobacco pepper plants. We grew beans in my hospital rooms and gave them to the nurses and doctors on the whole floor”
Hunter has had many ample opportunities to hone his craft including getting to cook on one of the floats in Houston’s Thanksgiving parade and even catering his own sister’s wedding. He learned skills and techniques from several prominent chefs in the Houston area.
Ultimately, Hunter received a heart transplant in 2021 after spending several years on a waiting list and has since been able to move back to Youngsville with his parents. Even after receiving the transplant, Hunter has continued to face adversity, dealing with a stroke that made it more difficult for him to concentrate and stay energized. It has not, however, affected his motivation to achieve.
Earlier this year, Hunter graduated from Southside High School and has made significant headway on his business ambitions, launching his expansion into the retail market as “Uncle Hunter’s Heart-Felt Specialties”. Now the business has a growing online presence, is able to outsource its bottling to an independent co-packager and is being stocked on store shelves at local retailers like NuNu’s and Kartchner’s.
The brand’s name “Uncle Hunter’s” is a way of honoring his older sister’s three children and his role as an uncle. By starting his own retail brand, “Uncle Hunter” is continuing a family legacy carried in part by his own uncle, Adrien Langlinais, the founder of Adrien’s Supermarket, which has been one of Lafayette’s staple businesses for many decades.
Hunter has never lost the experimental edge he developed while at Texas Children’s, taking any opportunity to expose his taste buds to new and exciting flavors and learning new styles.
“His palette is very refined”, said his mother, Laura Henry. “I go somewhere and I get the kiddie menu. He’ll get the lobster, the halibut, the octopus. He wants to try it all.”
Indeed, Hunter’s interest in the culinary world extends well beyond the Louisiana-based dishes, and is constantly trying his hand at cuisine from across the globe. He still considers sushi among his favorite foods to prepare, and is immensely proud of his Indian curry.
Hunter continues to maintain a diverse garden with plants from passion fruit to plum trees and tobacco peppers to multiple different varieties of bananas, and is still thinking about which new plants he wants to try to grow next.
“I want to try mangoes sometime soon, and there’s still so many different spices I haven’t tried out yet. It’s tough when you have limited space”.
While Uncle Hunter’s currently only offers the fajita seasoning, Hunter anticipates expanding the business into new product lines, beginning with a new Cajun seasoning he hopes to roll out sometime next year. BBQ sauce, crawfish boil, and jambalaya mix are among other things Hunter has taken an interest in possibly incorporating into his brand, each with their own distinct Louisiana inspiration.
“It’s important to me to represent Louisiana cooking in this way and to keep that alive. I believe that Louisiana has some of the best food in the world, and I want to give as many people the opportunity to learn about it.”
