Po
Boy Views
By
Phil
LaMancusa
Real
New Orleans Food?
Here’s
the questions: What is real New Orleans
food, is there a real New Orleans
food and how would any one of us know it --- if it were a snake would we bite
it back?
The
answers are afoot when I go to John and Mary’s on Orleans Avenue for a boiled
turkey neck, McHardy’s on Broad Street for fried chicken, the Orange House for
Ya Ka Mein and/or over in to the Seventh Ward to find an African-American
grandma selling Huckabucks (ice cups) from her kitchen doorway for fifty cents.
Real New Orleans food is going to Galatoire’s for Crabmeat Ravigote; Pascal
Manale’s Barbecued Shrimp, eating Tujague’s Oysters en Brochette and a fabulous
Ribeye at Crescent City Steak House.
Real
New Orleans food is found at fancy places and filling stations. From the Calas
at Elizabeth’s to the Creole Cream Cheese at the Crescent City Farmer’s Market;
from Lafcadio Hearn to Sara Roahen. Above all, real New Orleans food is an
attitude; Mirliton is New Orleans, Chayote is Mexican… although they’re the
same vegetable. Real New Orleans food goes back nearly three centuries and is a
gumbo of influences.
The
Creoles subsisted on seafood from the Gulf, lake and river; the early Germans
at Des Allemandes kept us alive with their farming and dairy products, they
handed us our first charcuterie. The indigenous peoples taught us to make
hominy, Tasso and the use of powdered sassafras leaves (file); the French
brought their cooking methods and terminology; wheat came down the river to
make our roux; the Africans came and farmed rice (“YaYa” in their language) and
brought okra (quingombo) to our pots; the Spanish gave us the ham (jamon,
jambon) for our Jambalaya and from a common ancestor in Peru came red, black,
white and pinto beans. The Cajuns? Well, the Cajuns have kept us in touch with
our rural and rustic roots.
This new land
of ours gave back to the world: chili
peppers, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, chocolate, tobacco, squash and vanilla; we
in New Orleans adopted celery, artichokes, thyme, coffee beans, sugar cane,
bananas and bay leaves. We made them our own. We took in and we gave back; and,
real New Orleans food is a product of Spanish, French and African cultures with
influences of the Germans, Italians, indigenous peoples and settlers making do
with what they could find, forage and figure out. Slaves bought their freedom by
selling foodstuffs in the streets of the French Quarter; businessmen became
rich importing ice to keep it fresh, housewives traded collards for courgettes
over back fences and Caribbean cooks added a pinch of cayenne to our everyday
dinners. Many cooks did not spoil the soup; they just turned it into gumbo.
Put
aside for a second what our visitors dive into: red beans, gumbo, jambalaya,
etouffee, remoulade, beignets, pralines, bread pudding, poboys--- those are
native to us--- baked in, so to speak, second nature to us and only are window
dressing to the real meat of what sustains us as a people. Try also to ignore,
for now, the ‘newer’ ethnic oriented foods that, happily, has diversified our daily
eating habits in the last, say, two decades (something that newly arrived folks
may not realize), foodstuffs that were once novelties that are now mainstream:
Vietnamese, Hispanic and Middle Eastern. It used to be that you couldn’t find
sushi here with a Geiger counter; now, pretty young things are having it for
breakfast at Whole Foods (another come lately business). These I consider no
less than real New Orleans food, just newer
New Orleans food; updated, expanded, and modified from the old to the new---
the eat goes on.
I do question that ‘modern’ ethno fusion locality
ingredient driven over-fussy and unnecessarily complicated works of art that
pass for high end food nowadays; terrific to look at, hard to eat and harder to
remember except that they contained weird animal parts and far too many
garnishes. But that might just be me, I’m sure it has its place; after all, in
1722 after the ‘Petticoat Rebellion’ when Madame Langlois (Governor Bienville’s
housekeeper) taught our founding mothers the recipe for pecan stuffed squirrel,
I’m sure a few eyebrows raised as well..
New
Orleans, known to visitors for our affinity for music, food and booze has
become polarized four square by conflicting if not confusing messages that are
sending visitors running to our culture pundits for explanations as to our
definitions as New Orleanians as to what is really real New Orleans and what is not. Let me say this about that: Music
and alcoholic drinks are a subjective experience and give rise to opinions
that, like noses, vary from face to face, person to person; I cast no
aspersions toward tastes in those areas; although I have my own opinions, I
mostly keep them to myself.
When
we talk New Orleans food, however, I’m ready to get ‘real’, I’m prepared to get up into some ‘grill’: New Orleans food is like a religion to us here and what we
eat on any given day can be classified as such; all the food we eat here is
good food (I should hope so) but it’s either New Orleans food or it’s not. It’s
found in the components that we swear by: Camellia Beans, Crystal Hot Sauce,
Pickled pork, smoked sausage, Mahatma Rice, CDM Coffee and Chicory and greens
of every description. It’s found in the onions, celery, bell peppers and garlic
that no home is ever without. It’s found in Steen’s Cane Syrup, Zatarain’s Fish
Fry and our own special secret spice mixtures. Real New Orleans food has always
been based on us being locavores and we were slow cookin’ (and slow dancin’)
before ‘Slow Food’ became cool and a convenient catchword.
Our
food rituals set us apart as well; red beans on Monday, King Cake at Carnival
time, Reveillon dinners around Christmas, Gumbo Z’herbes on Holy Thursday, oysters
in months with a ‘R’ in ‘em and that grilled pork chop sandwich from the back
of a pickup truck at a second line winding through the Treme.
Real New Orleans food is eaten all day and all night,
washed down by cold beers and conversation. In the street or at the table, with
smiles and camaraderie; the scent of smoke like perfume amongst the Jasmine,
magnolias and sweet olive comin’ over the fence tells you that a neighbor will
be over soon to invite you for an impromptu ‘cook out’ before a Saints game.
Our gumbo is “too thick to drink, too thin to plow”; our boiled seafood brings
burn to your lips and sweat to your brow; the tropical fruits from Mr. Okra’s
truck perfectly ripe; that praline stuffed beignet from Loretta’s having your
eyes roll back in your head. There is
nothing superficial or elusive in Real New Orleans food and it cannot be had
anywhere but in New Orleans: have a Muffuletta in Des Moines? Not on a bet!
Call it the heat; call it the humidity; call it the water. Call it my
stubbornness; I’ll have Enchiladas, Pad Thai, Pho, Frankfurters, Falafel, Paella
and Pizza in Pittsburg, Pensacola, Flushing and Fargo; I will eat Ban Mi in
Boston, Green Eggs and Ham with a goat on a boat BUT… I will save my crawfish
cravings for the Crescent City--- and only in season.
