The History of New Orleans’ Cuisine Antoinette Richardson

Where Did This Style Originate? Food from southern Louisiana is mostly originated from French influences, but it also has the spiciness of Spanish food, the use of okra from West Africa, the use file from Choctaw Indians, and sandwich style of Italians. Settlers used ingredients found locally combined with cooking styles of their homelands to create an entirely new cuisine.

Traditional Additions to New Orleans Dishes All traditional dishes call for “The Holy Trinity”, a combination of celery, onions and green bell peppers. This mixture is a reference to the Trinity of the church since Louisiana is a dominantly Roman Catholic region and the three vegetables are so often used. Most dishes also use a French thickening agent called roux. Butter or oil is simmered with flour until the desired color and thickness is reached.

Gumbo Gumbo is one of the most well known of all dishes to come from New Orleans. The name “gumbo” comes from the West African word kimgombo, meaning okra. With a variety of ways to make it, there really isn’t a specific recipe. The choices of seafood (crab and shrimp), chicken, audoullie sausage or ham, leave room for many different combinations. The basis of making gumbo is to have a dark roux, which gives it the smooth, rich flavor. Another way to thicken it is to use okra, or file.

Crawfish Etouffee Etouffee comes from the French word meaning “to smother.” The seafood, whether it be shrimp or crawfish, is smothered in vegetables with a tomato based sauce. The sauce begins with a roux, but it is a blonde roux, or lighter colored one. Depending on if you’re making it the Cajun way or the Creole way, will determine if there are actual tomatoes in the dish.

Red Beans and Rice To you Mondays may not be very important, but in New Orleans, Mondays used to be the traditional “wash days” for most mothers. On a typical Monday, the woman of the house hold would put red beans in rice on the stove to cook while they did laundry. Usually, they added the leftover hambone from Sunday’s dinner to add flavor to the dish. Now as a tradition, it is eaten on Mondays all over New Orleans.

Muffulettas When Sicilian immigrants came to New Orleans in the late 1800’s, they brought much of their Italian cuisine with them. One of their biggest influences was the muffuletta. A muffuletta, is a large cold cut sandwich invented in 1906 at Central Grocery. It is composed of a round Italian loaf of bread, about 10-inches across, filled with piles of Italian cheeses, meats and a green olive salad. Most times it is shared between two people because of it’s huge size.

Po-Boys Po-boys are large, overly stuffed sandwiches made on a large rectangular loaf of French bread. Originated from the Martin Brothers’ Coffee Stand and Restaurant, These sandwiches were freely given out to streetcar conductors on strike during the great depression. Every time a striker would enter the restaurant, they would yell out “Here comes another poor boy!” thus the name “po-boy”. It has become the shotgun house of New Orleans’ cuisine.

Beignets The beignet, French word for fritter, was first introduced to the city in the 18 th century by French-Creole colonists. The fried, usually square, raised pieces of yeast dough, topped with powdered sugar is most commonly eaten for breakfast. They’re also usually served with a cup of café au lait, a blend of dark coffee, chicory and milk. You would probably catch a native using the fraise “going for coffee and doughnuts”, referring to the two. In actuality, donuts derived from the beignet.

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