From New Orleans, With Love

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

I love New Orleans even though I have never been there. With the city in full swing for Mardi Gras right now and multitudes of people from around the country pouring into New Orleans to participate in the festivities, my guess is that I am not alone in this sentiment. In fact, everyone I have ever known that has had the pleasure of living in New Orleans for some amount of time or has vacationed there holds the city in nothing but the highest regard.

People love New Orleans for a variety of reasons: the jazz, the rich cultural heritage, the historic architecture, the people, and of course the food. I can think of no better reason to love a place I have never been to than the quality of its cuisine and the warmth of its people who have brought that cuisine to life.

The cuisine of any given place is a reflection of the people who have passed through it. They bring their traditions and ingredients that they have imported from their motherland. In the case of New Orleans, a major port city and thus a hub of trade over the last 200 years, the resulting cuisine of the city is primarily a mix of its Spanish, French, Caribbean and African roots with the minor influences of Native American, Italian and even German cuisines.

Although many people mistakenly think of Cajun food as being from New Orleans, the city actually boasts its own distinct cuisine called Creole. Although Cajun and Creole food share many similarities and there are most certainly Cajun restaurants in New Orleans, they vary slightly in seasoning, sauces, and technique. Cajun cuisine is a bit more rustic than Creole, a mixture more of French and Southern country cooking resulting in simple one pot dishes like jambalaya and gumbo served with steaming white rice. Creole cuisine borrows more heavily from its French past with the use of rich sauces, bouillabaisse-style gumbo, and a generally more refined presentation.

There are many dishes that we have familiarity with today that find their roots in New Orleans. Not one, but two famous sandwiches where born here: the po’boy and the Italian muffuletta. The po’boy is a New Orleans version of a submarine sandwich, putting anything from fried oysters to sausage on a crusty baguette. The muffuletta is the creation of the Italian owners at Central Grocery. The name is a reference to both the Sicilian bread it is served on and the sandwich itself where layers of Italian meats and cheese are topped off with a salad of olives and marinated carrots, celery, and cauliflower. There are also desserts such as the French doughnut known as a beignet and pralines, as well as the distinctive café au lait where coffee is blended with milk and chicory.

Of the most famous main course dishes in New Orleans, jambalaya, crawfish etouffée, and shrimp Creole all share some similar characteristics. Like the French use a mire poix (diced onion, celery and carrot) as a basis for many dishes, Creole and Cajun cuisine have the Holy Trinity, a combination of diced onion, bell pepper, and celery, that forms the basis for most main course meals.

In addition, the rich sauces of Creole cooking often make use of a roux, a mixture of flour and butter that is cooked over a medium low heat until caramel in color, providing both richness and a thickening agent the broth. And although meat can certainly be found on menus as the star of the dish or as a minor player in the form of sausage, New Orleans’ seaside location means that seafood ranging from shrimp, oysters, catfish, crawfish, even alligator, are the real stars of the meal.

Thanks to centuries of immigrants, New Orleans has developed a culture and cuisine that is unique unto itself. Thanks to the people who have left and brought their culture to other parts of this country, we can experience a taste of New Orleans life in our own towns until we have the opportunity to experience it firsthand. While the lucky throngs crowd New Orleans this week with bead throwing and parade watching, with some seafood, the Holy Trinity, and a side of rice, we can have a little New Orleans all our own.

Serves/Makes: 6

• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 pound pork sausage
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon red pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground sage
• 1 1/2 cup rice
• 1 can (14.5 ounce size) diced tomatoes
• 10 ounces fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined