Читать книгу The Food of New Orleans - John DeMers - Страница 9

The Culture That Feeds Us

From kingcakes to Jazzfest, New Orleans is a festival of food

by Errol Laborde

As the days count down to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, it's not enough to be king (or queen!) for the day. The tongue-in-cheek ascension to twenty-four-hour royalty must by accompanied by a festive food— in this case, the kingcake, a sweeter-than-heaven cousin to the French brioche. Before there's truth (the message seems to be), and even before there's meaning, there's a food to give it form.

No one can count the number of ways that food gives purpose and pleasure to just plain getting by in New Orleans. Mealtime becomes, by definition, festival time. Yet to truly understand how and why New Orleans food is what it is and does what it does, you must observe this unique culture in action.

You must observe carefully, though. Anything less produces the standard-issue image of the brain-dead party town bingeing its way into the morning light. This conception is a terrible affront not only to the food of New Orleans but to the millions of New Orleanians who have transmuted life's joys and sorrows into something that touches the infinite, something that might be defined as that rarity: realistic happiness.

Stiming the big pot at the Gumbo Festival.

In the weeks before Mardi Gras (a time defined as Carnival, beginning with the Christian observance of Twelfth Night and climaxing on Fat Tuesday itself), variations on Europe's kingcake have become plentiful. This sugar-coated confection, served at parties and office coffee breaks throughout Carnival season, is as rich in ingredients as it is in legend.

One slice always contains an object, most often a small plastic doll. The person who draws that slice becomes, depending on the setting, the king or queen for the moment—at least until the next party, when another cake is served. "Let them eat cake" is not an insult from royalty here; in New Orleans it can be one of the ways of achieving royalty.

As a matter of geography and government, New Orleans is very much an American city. But to understand New Orleans properly, you have to realize that in terms of culinary innovation, as well as character and personality, it is more than just American—and more than just a city.

In many ways New Orleans is an island, with the river winding along one side, Lake Pontchartrain and its marshes on another, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Like an island, it tends to have a style of its own, including its own dialect and distinctive modes of celebration.

In some ways, New Orleans might even be considered to be the northernmost island of the Caribbean. As in most Caribbean spots, there is a black majority but a European heritage and white economic power.

Like the Caribbean, New Orleans also has a native music form, a tradition of Carnival celebrations, poverty alongside a wealthy social class, voodoo, and a form of cooking that is hot and spicy. See New Orleans and, in many ways, you see the New World.

See New Orleans and you're also likely to see some type of celebration, probably one reflecting different parts of the world. Festivals, in general, reign all year in New Orleans.

First and foremost, there is Mardi Gras. The most visual manifestation of the season is the parade. Less visible, but very much a part of the cultural entwining of the city, is a series of Carnival balls, debutante cotillions, and parties, many with their own royalty. Carnival can be as simple as a parade or as deep and anthropological as its pagan roots, its Christian symbolism, and social stratification.

Festivals are thrown for any number of reasons, like this one devoted to shrimp and petroleum Here, the Knights of Columbus and their wives cat shrimp aboard a shrimp boat.

The world embraces the Carnival season's last day—a movable date tailored by Christianity in order to lend some religious significance to the pagan tendency to celebrate the arrival of spring. The Catholic Church gave the celebration a spot on the calendar and a message: a blowout before the onset of fasting. Fasting, in New Orleans, is a passionate form of eating; it focuses both stomach and mind on the next noteworthy meal.

New Orleans, founded by the French, adopted Mardi Gras with enthusiasm. Ironically, as the church became more lax about its rules for Lenten sacrifice, the city began to experience the best of both worlds. The city became adept at the feasting without the fasting.

Next to Mardi Gras, the biggest celebration is the New Orleans Jazzfest, which is spread over two weekends in late April and early May. Unlike Carnival, at which celebrants prefer liquid nourishment punctuated by the simplest fried chicken or smoked sausage, Jazzfest is about cuisine. As its full name, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, implies, this gathering is devoted to anything and everything that defines a people—which in New Orleans means music, art, and plenty of food.

A highlight of any Jazzfest day is strolling through the rows of food booths serving up Creole, Cajun, soul, African, Caribbean, and just about any other cuisine that ever crossed paths with New Orleans. You can't expect all the tastes to get along perfectly in your mouth, but you can expect them to get along—a mirror of New Orleans in more ways than one.

Yet for all the flavors of Carnival and Jazzfest, sometimes it is the smaller celebrations that can be the most charming.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by the Irish here, as it is everywhere else the Irish have settled. The difference is that the local version has a Mardi Gras touch, including floats. And whereas on Mardi Gras trinkets are thrown from the floats, the St. Patrick's revelers throw (what else?) food. You can bring home the makings of an Irish meal—cabbages, potatoes, carrots, and onions—if an Irish meal is your idea of a good time.

Two days later, the local Sicilians celebrate St. Joseph's Day by building altars to their patron saint. The altars are laden with food, from warm and savory vegetable dishes to cookies of every stripe. Many of these altars are built as repayment for favors granted to those who prayed to St. Joseph.

In another of this city's delightful entanglements, St. Joseph is also honored by the city's African-American community. By tradition, the Mardi Gras Indians—"tribes" of African-Americans who wear glittery native American costumes on Mardi Gras—make one appearance outside of the Carnival parade. And that is on a weekend around St. Joseph's Day.

These March Gras costumes celebrate the great marriage of Louisiana's most favored hot sauce and its best-loved bivalve—the oyster.

Only in New Orleans can you get over your hangover from an Irish party by cheering your way through a Sicilian parade while rocking to the rhythms of Africans dressed as Indians. It's as if the American melting pot went ahead and melted, right here in New Orleans. Believe me: New Orleanians wouldn't have it any other way.