criollo - pelican publishing company best ethnic restaurants_intro.pdf · upon the colony. thus was...
TRANSCRIPT
The Story of Cuisine, like the stories of New Orleans, the United
States, and the World itself, is the story of immigration. Indeed the
word creole, from the Spanish criollo was a legal designation for one
born in the New World. Thus Creoles were from all countries, were
all races, practiced all religions...
Not many realize the first cooking school in America was started
in New Orleans in 1722. Creole cuisine, one of the very few cuisines
truly indigenous to America, owes its beginning to the search for
love, passion, and food ---The Petticoat Rebellion of 1722.
Bienville, distressed by the drunken brawls of his men in this
predominantly male military outpost in the New World, posted a
dowry for any woman who wished to come to New Orleans for the
purpose of marriage. Knowing that a well-fed husband leads to a
happy marriage, the good women who came to New Orleans were
horrified to discover they did not know how to cook with the local
ingredients. This is a dilemma that faces all immigrants -- the search
for the comforting taste of old by somehow using the new. A good
and wise leader, Bienville did not consider something as “minor”
as cuisine a non-military concern. Indeed, he knew it was essential
to the peace and happiness of his men and thus to the success of
his mission. Bienville convinced his aunt, housekeeper and cook
Madame Langlois [pronounced Longue-WAH] to open a cooking
FOREWORD
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school. Madame Langlois, who owed much of her knowledge to
the local native Americans, introduced the young women to filé
[pronounced fee-LAY], grits and shrimp, cornbread and wild honey,
succotash, fish, crabs and the local wild rabbit. Marital bliss settled
upon the colony. Thus was New Orleans truly settled upon the twin
foundations of romance and good food.
In my last book Broussard’s Restaurant and Courtyard Cookbook,
I examined the history of New Orleans and its predominant early food
influences of native American, colonial, French, Cajun and Creole,
German, and Italian through recipes, music, art, architecture and the
history of these special groups, revealing the nuanced cultural blend of
our City. That book was also designed so the host or hostess could have
a Broussard’s Dinner for one’s book club or dinner club by choosing a
recipe, purchasing a recommended wine and playing accompanying
music, all of which is available on YouTube, amazon.com, iTunes or
from the Louisiana Music Factory in New Orleans. I also attempted
to illustrate my personal theory that food tastes differently depending
on the additional concurrent sensory inputs. Those additional firing
neurons affect the sensation of taste. For example, New Orleans food
always tastes better when accompanied by a live jazz band!
In this book, New Orleans’ Best Restaurants: Ethnic, I examine
the emerging culinary history of New Orleans, the contemporary
groups joining the cultural mix of this grand City and infusing our
food with exciting and vibrant energy. Thanks to New Orleans
food great Tom Fitzmorris, we know the number of post-Katrina
restaurants in the greater New Orleans area is consistently in the
1300 -1325 range. When I look back to the Urban Gourmet by
that other New Orleans food icon Richard Collins and examine old
telephone listings, the number of ethic restaurants in New Orleans
was minimal. Richard Collins mentions ethnic restaurants in the
100 range. During the post-Katrina years, there have been 325-
425 ethnic restaurants operating, 25-30% of the City’s restaurants!
This is a food trend that deserves a cookbook!
A good friend and fellow foodie asked my definition of ethnic for
this book and my definition is simple: Food which has not become so
absorbed into our national culture that it is now defined as “American”
cuisine. American cuisine? What’s that? Besh does it brilliantly at The
American Sector and at The Soda Shop at the National World War
II Museum, as does Dat Dog on Freret Street. Like so much else,
American cuisine -- we know it when we taste it! It’s hot dogs,
mac and cheese, hamburgers -- all of which originated somewhere
else but are so absorbed and redefined by American culture that we
think it is our own. And what is ethnic -- just about everything else!
And I discuss a new concept in this book -- “American Ethnic” in the
Americas chapter so check it out!
One of my most amazing discoveries during this journey is that
many of the New Orleans ethnic restaurant chefs are in fact classically
trained chefs. Another discovery was that most chefs have a garden
patch in their restaurant or home where they are growing unique varieties
of herbs. Most chefs have unique sourcing and suppliers, sometimes
themselves! One chef serves tea from her family’s own tea plantation
in the old country, another grows his own old country peppers in his
backyard and makes his own pepper sauce, and a third serves roasted
wheat produced by his relatives back home. Fueling this New Orleans
ethnic food boom are the many quiet ethnic grocery stores and dedicated
butchers, festivals and places of worship and community.
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So what did I look for in a restaurant to be highlighted in this book?
Trained as a mystery shopper for a restaurant consulting firm, I applied
all of that criteria and then I looked for more. I looked for people who
were trying, who were doing more, who were making the extra effort
in their food. The taco served with doubled hot bread and homemade
sauces, the Polish Master Patisserie working entirely from scratch
with no timer on his oven, the third generation Italian chef who still
makes a time consuming complex historic dish on his menu to please
his customers and his sense of honor, the immigrant mother who
only sought to raise her children with her cooking or baking and in the
process created for them and herself an empire. These are the stories
of the men and women in this fascinating new food world.
Opening a restaurant serving the food of the old country is a
regularly practiced first step by new arrivals. Taking what they know
to meet the needs of a growing community while establishing
economic independence is a tried and true method of success.
Once the restaurateur reaches a certain level of success, he is
confronted by what I am calling “The Restaurateur’s Dilemma.”
The Restaurateur’s Dilemma is a rental situation. When the
landlord refuses to sell the property to the restaurateur, the restaurateur
will not invest in maintenance and upgrades to someone else’s
property, even when required to do so under the lease. Likewise the
landlord would rather use the rent funds for his own purposes than
reinvest in what is essentially someone else’s business. Eventually
the successful restaurant business moves on and the unsuccessful
business closes, both to escape the burden of maintenance of
building systems that no long work efficiently. The landlord is now
faced with massive renovation costs or long term vacancy or a
string of failing businesses interspersed with vacancies. Additionally,
once a commercial property has a commercial kitchen installed, it is
effectively limited in the number of tenants to which it will appeal.
In some immigrant communities, the immigrant landlord holds
his restaurateur in rent bondage untile he finally leaves. In other
immigrant communities, the immigrant landlord wisely decides that
he would rather be the mortgage holder of a prosperous business in
a prosperous community than be the owner of many derelict vacant
properties abandoned by both failing and prosperous members of
a less prosperous community. Once the restaurateur becomes
the owner of title, the restaurateur has a greater chance of financial
success and can raise additional capital to maintain and upgrade
the property. For his part, the mortgage holder can then use those
funds to invest in new ventures or for other projects without holding
reserves for repair. In the event of foreclosure, the property returned
is of greater value because it is improved and better maintained,
but more importantly, when a business is successful, the mortgage
holder has helped the entire community to achieve financial success--
which in turn earns him not only greater financial returns, but also the
respect of his people as a wise leader.
Part of the romance and history of New Orleans is its immigrants.
Men of honor and women of courage founded and grew
New Orleans cuisine. We can do no better than to live up to
their examples.
Ann Benoit
New Orleans, LA
September, 2013
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