AFJ 2009: Breakfast with Poppy Tooker's Calas, Boudin and Headcheese

Poppy Tooker and a woman from the Creole Country Sausage brought us boudin, headcheese and calas. Tooker prepared the calas, a deep-fried rice fritter sprinkled with powdered sugar. If you've ever had a beignet, the signature New Orleans fried pastry, the calas are somewhat similar. Where beignets can be ethereal, calas are more down and dirty. Tooker says they come from the Creole tradition of always having rice around. Calas were originally sold by street vendors but began as a home tradition. Boudin features rice in the sausage, and, at one point, involved liver. Boudin is often sold at gas stations.

Well fed, let’s soldier on.

-- Claudia Perry, "official" AFJ conference blogger

AFJ 2009: Second line parade and Taste of New Orleans

Taking a cue from Leah Chase, the Association of Food Journalists conference attendees decided to eat, drink and enjoy after the day's sessions. So when the brief downpour cleared, we followed the Storyville Stompers through the streets over to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum on the Riverwalk near the Convention Center. We had our beads, and our hankies and strutted as best we could on the damp streets. Once there, we were greeted by a cacophony of chefs, including Emeril Lagasse, who has three boites here in New Orleans. Others present were Donald Link from Herbsaint, Cochon and Cochon Butcher, Susan Spicer of Bayona, Tommy Cvitanovich of Drago's, Allison Vine-Rushing and Slade Rushing of MiLa (where some of us had lunch earlier), Adolfo Garcia of RioMar and La Boca, David and Torre Solazzo of Ristorante del Porto, Aaron Burgau of Patois and Beth Biundo, the pastry chef at Lilette. While sipping Sazeracs and a fantastic champagne cocktail with brandy, lemon juice and zest, we looked around the museum and gorged ourselves on tuna with a dried baconlike substance that was heavenly. So were the sweetbreads and grits from MiLa as were Emeril's braised pork cheeks with dirty rice. Being fatally allergic to oysters prevented me from sampling offerings from Drago's and RioMar, but the oyster eaters were raving.

Also part of the Museum is the independent Museum of the American Cocktail, which was founded and is run by Laura and Chris McMillian. The museum houses artifacts including mini-stills, old bottles, tiki bar artifacts from the first wave of this renewed fad and headlines from Prohibition and its repeal. Ann Tuennerman, founder of Tales of the Cocktail, organized the pouring of New Orleans drink specialties featuring mixologists Chris Hannah of Arnaud's French 75 Bar, Michael Glassberg of Swizzle Stick and Marvin Allen.

All in a good night of good company, food and drink.

AFJ 2009: Creoles Are Not a Fairy Folk: An Updated Definition, with Food

This panel, moderated by Times-Picayune writer and filmmaker Louis Eric Elie, included kosher caterer Bertha Pichon, Poppy Tooker, who helped the local agricultural and aquacultural people get back up and running post-Katrina, and Leah Chase, proprietor of Dooky Chase, a landmark in the African American community where civil rights workers could meet without fear. The panel’s title comes from remarks made by food writer Alan Richman, who questioned the idea of Creole cuisine even though he spoke at length with Chase.

When Chase (right) was growing up, Creole had nothing to do with food. It was something done at home, being your own culture and your own thing. Chase described herself as a militant child, and she felt the strength around her but lamented it not getting passed on. You gain no strength from not passing traditions on, be it food or master builder skills. They favored the superficial things like how you looked. The favored Catholic church was Corpus Christi and its African American congregation were style leaders.

Chase had no problem with Paul Prudhomme jumping on the Creole bandwagon. Chase said she and others benefited from his marketing skills.

Tooker said the only thing she knew growing up was Creole cream cheese. Chase interrupted to note that Tooker was too young to know the “part-black” stigma of Creole. Tooker noted she was now trying to “passez noir” instead of “passez blanc.” Pichon learned the Creole cooking base of tomatoes, garlic, green peppers and light roux. She spoke broken French and Creole, and had to unlearn that at Catholic school.

What are crucial ingredients? Tooker needs bacon grease and butter in the fridge, celery, bell pepper and onions, thyme bay leaf and flour to make a roux.

Pichon liked bell pepper and thyme and bay leaf but little celery. Chase said there was little celery except for special occasions and redfish and good paprika. You put celery hearts on the table after using outer stalks, and it was decoration as well as an appetizer. Chase also said she mixed up Italian gravies with sardines and eggs but over rice instead of pasta. Tooker promises calas, rice fritters, for breakfast tomorrow.

Creole essentials? Tooker suggested gumbo, bread pudding, stuffing to put in vegetables. Chase wants to get people to the table, something she noted wasn’t only lost by African Americans. She wants her grandkids to make a jambalaya and use some shortcuts. Pichon taught hers sons and daughter to cook. Her son makes a good crawfish bisque using head stock. Everybody loves to eat it, but no one wants to do the work of cleaning and stripping the mud bugs. Chase said the bisque was seasonal. Creoles didn’t eat anything without wine. Kids got wine mixed with water and sugar. Gumbo was served at every festive occasion and on Sundays. Creoles didn’t like fatty meat. Gumbo was always served with wine.

The gumbo was the preamble to a meal with all available meats at a festive meal. Sundays the gumbo was followed by Reveillon of stewed chicken and baked macaroni.

Creole meals need rice, macaroni and potato salad, Chase said and the others concurred.

While none of the panelists used packaged roux, Chase thinks that may come to pass with more cooks with less time.

-- Claudia Perry, "official" AFJ conference blogger

AFJ 2009: The Sicilian Connection (accessorized by fig cookies)

Moderator Sara Roahen, author of "Gumbo Tales: Finding my Place at the New Orleans Table" says she won't talk much since the Sicilians are much more interesting. Creole Italian is one name for the cuisine. By 1880, New Orleans had country’s largest Italian population. A pre-Katrina census counted 250,000 people of Italian descent, mostly in New Orleans. Many local neighborhood boites serve spaghetti and meatballs, usually on Wednesdays. The muffaletta (alternate spelling muffuletta, among others) has Sicilian origins.

Liz Williams, president of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, Arthur Brocato, third generation of Angelo Brocato’s Ice Cream and Confectionary, which was fully rebuilt after Katrina, Sandra Scalise Juneau, who teaches baking traditions and Joseph Segretto, owner of 1179 Restaurant were the panelists. Segretto formerly managed Louis Prima.

How did they get here? Williams’ grandmother came from Palermo in 1903 and various family followed. Her family made big distinction between being Sicilian and Italian. Her great grandfather was a butcher and worked at the French Market. After the butcher generation, there were policeman; then the later generations were more professional.

Brocato is Sicilian on both sides. Grandfather’s family were blacksmiths, and he worked as a banana inspector. They opened a little grocery store on the corner of St. Philip and Dauphine and sold snowballs, peanuts and picked up Creole cooking. The other side of the family went from shoemaking through death by yellow fever and into gelato and cookie making. Cookie and pastries were made for special occasions and for the St. Joseph’s altar. Cassata cake consisted of a pan lined with sponge cake and filled with ricotta, decorated with marzipan and more ricotta or a poured icing glaze. Brocato makes the marzipan version his grandfather made.

Scalise Juneau is also a double Sicilian. Her paternal grandfather came to work in the cane fields, and this accounted for many Sicilians coming to Louisiana. Eventually he sent for the family. Her maternal grandfather established themselves in a small restaurant and then sent for the rest of the family. Grandfather also worked at Hotel Monteleone.

Segretto came from doing a Sardinian luncheon. The food is very similar to Sicilian food. Sicily is largest island in the Mediterranean, and produces the most wine in all of Italy. It also has the oldest aristocracy. The culture is polyglot, and many cultures that blended in Sicily ended up exporting aspects of Sicilian cuisine. The Sicilians then re-imported the variations from places like France.

Many pastries, including our fig cookies (popular for the St. Joseph altar) and the reginale (queen’s cookies), came from nuns in the convents. Each panelist recounted various food memories and shunning of improper marriages. Talk of spadini, sitting on pasta pots as high chairs, and no roux in red gravy. No talk of sauce here. Segretto recommended "Pomp and Sustenance" by Mary Simeti Taylor.

Creole cooking legend Leah Chase noted she makes a light roux with tomatoes and tomato sauce, but uses tomato paste and wine when she wants it to be more like Italian gravy.

Scalise talked about the St. Joseph’s altar tradition that has spread from the Sicilians to other Catholic communities. Along with cucidada (fig cookies), there are savories including stuffed redfish and other baked representations of local foods on the altars. Our later excursion to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum included the altar pictured here.

-- Claudia Perry, "official" AFJ conference blogger

AFJ 2009: Beyond French, Spanish and African-American Hands in the Pot

This year's conference opened on multicultural note, which one would expect from the Crescent City. New Orleans food has many hands in the pot and this panel was devoted to the crossed lines from regions like Croatia, Germany and Latin America into what has become the well-known food of Louisiana. The moderator was Elsa Hahne, author of "You Are Where You Eat: Stories and Recipes from the Neighborhoods of New Orleans." Chef Adolfo Garciai of RioMar noted that saying food is Latino would be the same as assuming that all English-speaking people share a common diet. Croatian native Snjezana Senut-Bjelis noted that her coastal country used mussels in their cooking, but adapted their recipes to incorporate oysters to the point where oysters are now shipped back to Croatia in quantity. Croatians are in Plaquemines Parish, where they can be on the water and fish. The German community brought beer, sausage and baking and settled in the Saints parishes where they learned French and assimilated somewhat, according to Sevilla Finley. One of the best-known German bakeries in New Orleans specialized in French bread. Frieda Waeckerle Arwe, president of the Friends of the German-American Cultural Center (Finley is a co-founder). Arwe focused on the southern most of the 16 states in the country. All German food is fresh. Germans grow everything they cook.

Sauerkraut and red cabbage are featured on Oktoberfest but the sausages are imported from Texas and Illinois to name two places.

Potato pancakes and onion pies (“one of the most fantastic things you can eat,” Arwe notes) are two exports that are well-known for you. The only German restaurant in New Orleans, Kolb’s, closed in 1994. Hahne asked why no one has stepped up since. Arwe notes that assimilation has taken the toll. People don’t know the role Germans played in settling New Orleans. Also, the World Wars saw the muting or elimination of names and cultural touchstones. Some places are doing German cuisine a couple of nights a week.

Rev. Vien Nguyen of Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church, noted that Vietnamese cooking was scary and unknown in the 70s. Vietnamese chefs often ran Chinese restaurants but had some Vietnamese dishes on the menu. Later, in the 90s, the actual cuisine came to the forefront. Vietnamese also run New Orleans’ Japanese restaurants, but had created hybrids like raw fish wrapped in rice paper. The cuisine uses a lot of seafood, but Vietnamese don’t go for raw oysters. Some Vietnamese eat raw oysters but not with horseradish and Tabasco. Redfish was popular but used in sushi with bread crumbs and sauce with fresh herbs, not blackened. The Vietnamese are along the East Bank and West Bank.

Gar is not popular with Caucasians, but Vietnamese make it into a paste and it’s sweet. Vietnamese don’t eat much bread,as it is not substantial. Rice is more solid for fueling agricultural. Banh mi is the Vietnamese po’boy. Nguyen noted that Vietnamese grow their own herbs and sell them at an open-air market. The market was closed for six months, but it took Winn Dixie two years to come back. Many Vietnamese grow vegetables and herbs in their backyards. Growing grass is an insult. Nguyen likes Gar Kho, simmered croaker with tomato and spices and a three-day cooking time.

-- Claudia Perry, "official" AFJ conference blogger

Marion Nestle featured

Greetings fellow AFJ members. Anyone who attended the AFJ conference in Houston probably remembers NYU nutrition and public health professor Marion Nestle and her well-reasoned unpacking of the issues facing the production of food and its industrialization. Nestle appeared on WNYC, the NPR station serving New York City and environs during a segment of the "Brian Lehrer Show" on a bill in the Connecticut legislature restricting raw milk sales in that state. I've linked to the show's page here. The segment will be available as a podcast later.

The people who called in or commented on the show page about the topic were particularly revealing. One woman had two children diagnosed with ADD and she moved out of NY, bought a farm and feeds her kids raw milk, which she stated has more Omega-3s than pasteurized milk, and foods from the farm. Others asked about the e. Coli risk form raw milk (virtually none). One thread that's been running through my mind lately is the number of people who have cornered the market on some cure-all theory involving nutrition and health. In recent months I have been told bread is the root of all evil (this from a personal trainer who couldn't spell "laziness" correctly), dairy products are all wrong for everyone (this from my acupuncturist, who is thoughtful and smart in just about every other way) and that food allergies, especially to gluten, are rampant. I define a food allergy as foods that cause violent, potentially life threatening reactions such as anaphalactic shock or vomiting. Getting indigestion after eating stuffed peppers or half a basket of warm bread at a restauarnt do not count.

Our jobs in food journalism are under threat from so many directions these days it's often difficult to concentrate on best educating readers. With each new diet fad and more nutrition information being delivered by people who don't know the field, it's especially important for our members to debunk the myths of "leaky gut syndrome," "the glycemic index" and "metabolic typing," to name a few. Your work, if you still have work, is cut out for you.

Some posts updated

For those of you who didn't attend the conference in Houston in October, I've added some photos by Richard Swearinger from Better Homes and Gardens to some of the posts. Many thanks to everyone who was there in Houston. My next post will be after I visit the special food collections at NYU. Also, I will post some digital 101 resources soon.