New Orleans Food

 I found an article today on CNN.com titled "New Orleans: The food that got them through".  While some of the article, in my opinion, was a bit much (or in some parts not enough) there were two parts that stood out.

"People in New Orleans are passionate preservationists of their city's food history, for it is a massive part of what has sustained them. Coming in as a first time visitor, it's impossible not to notice in the structures and the statements: every event is couched as "before the storm" and "after the storm." Bustling new eateries – more than 300 of them established in the past five years – abut grand dining halls that have served up pommes soufflé, Oysters Rockefeller and shrimp remoulade for over a century.
Tooker refers to these restaurants – Galatoire's, Arnaud's, Antoine's and the like – as "living food museums." Says she, "In France, they'd forgotten about some of these dishes. They're oddities. We'd never stopped making them."
She continued, "The average New Orleanian is only happy if she walks into one of these places and the Trout Meuniere and ideally even the waiter are the same as when she used to come in with her grandmother. Everything has to remain the same. You end up with a perfectly preserved food culture.""

Isn't that the truth!!!  I've thought about it time and time again...other states and cities get hit with hurricanes all the time and for the most part, they clean up, rebuild, move on.  The change for them is welcome because as we all know when it comes to the business of tourists, the newest and best is almost always what they are after.  But for New Orleans and those of us who love that area, familiarity and comfort are what we love best.  Katrina changed everything there...except for the fact that we love to eat.

The only thing that makes me sad here is that, unlike what the article states, many, many, many recipes, techniques and teachers of old New Orleans cooking are gone.  Convenience and speed are the names of the game now and any good southern cook knows that neither of those are a part of those old recipes.  :-)

On a side note, there was another part of the article that made me laugh quite a lot.  I can STILL remember the look exchanged between my mom and dad whenever I'd get the baby out of the king cake.  Apparently there are some New Orleans traditions that will never change.  ;-)

"On Fridays between Twelfth Night and Fat Tuesday, no matter the secular or non-secular nature of a school, often there will be King Cake. Children learn to bite down gently so as not to chip a tooth on the small baby figure that may or may not be baked into their slice. The lucky recipient of the baby is crowned as royalty for the day and bears his or her prize home proudly to parents who might be less enthused; they're on the hook for providing the next week's King Cake."



http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/02/16/new-orleans-the-food-that-got-them-through/?hpt=C1