In
a dining “world” in which “fast food” has become practically a national
institution, it is refreshing to find one relatively small city where there are
more than 1300 restaurants that are not
a part of any chain and that actually pride themselves on being “different”
from everyone else. Walk down almost any street or boulevard in New Orleans and
you will see what I mean. I believe one could sample a dozen examples of so
ubiquitous a dish as gumbo from as many restaurants or bistros, and find that
they are all good, but all different. Of course that is one of the gastronomic
charms of down-home Louisiana cooking to begin with. With three days at our
culinary disposal though, we wanted to take our search beyond the “everyday”,
and indulge ourselves in some of the acknowledged best-of-the-best.
To understand the history, geography
and tradition that combine to make so-called Creole cooking magical we need to
examine the origin of the word itself: crear,
or in Spanish “to create”,was originally used solely to designate the offspring
of Spanish, French and Portuguese emigrants who were born here. In a larger
sense, it came to mean a “mixture”. However, when other people of French origin
from Canada arrived, they were described as Acadians – a word which eventually
was bastardized to “Cajun”. Actually five cultures had a hand in creating the
food “umbrella” we call Creole (and Cajun).
The Choctaw Indians passed on their
knowledge of how to flavor soups with ground sassafras roots, which the French
called filé; slaves arriving from Central Africa brought with them the seeds of
the kingumbo plant giving us the
thickening power of okra (gumbo) and the art of slow-cooking in iron pots. The
French contributed their ability to make a roux of flour thickening, sauces and
the art of sautéing. The Spanish added their penchant for combining meat and
poultry in the same spicy dish, leaving room for a healthy scoop of rice, and
finally the Creoles escaping from the islands of the Caribbean brought with
them the heat of the cayenne pepper. Add to this marriage of cooking techniques
and cultures the generous “supermarket” lurking in the bays and bayous of
Louisiana, and you have the shrimp, crawfish, oysters, turtles, crabs and fish
just waiting for the pioneer chef. (One Creole gourmet was heard to say that
when it comes to gumbo, “anything that swims, walks, flies, jumps or crawls” is
fair game.) And let’s not forget the locally-made French Andouille sausage – a
gumbo “gotta have”.
If there is one New Orleans
restaurant establishment on every food connoisseur’s “bucket list”, it would
have to be Commander’s Palace. First
established in 1880, and managed for the last decade by the well-known Brennan
family, it ranks among the world’s most highly rated and America’s top 20.
Among its kitchen’s honored alumni are such chefs as Paul Prudhomme and Emeril
Lagasse. My son and I were extremely
lucky to get a reservation there given the brevity of our time window, and we
were welcomed by a professional wait staff and an ambience which whispered of a
long-established respect for history and tradition.
I started with a soup course which
consisted of a demi-serving each of three specialties: a roasted tomato, pepper
& chicken bisque, turtle soup topped with a touch of aged sherry, and a
gumbo spiked with Louisiana hot sauce. My son went for Louisiana white shrimp
wrapped with Tasso ham set off with pickled okra, sweet onions and a 5-pepper
jelly. My entrée was a pecan crusted Gulf fish over crushed corn, spiced pecans
and poached blue crab, while Chris chose a white truffle, oyster mushroom &
Parmesan risotto with smoked mushroom broth. Then, we succumbed to their
classic dessert; a bread pudding soufflé pierced at the last minute by the
waiter’s spoonful of a hot cream sauce. Later, we were invited to the kitchen
where we met Mr. Brennan himself!
We had wisely made friends with our
hotel’s Concierge at the New Orleans JW. Marriott, and when we asked him to
direct us to a restaurant which was unusual, wonderful, and little-known to the
greater public, he managed to get us a table at Clancy’s, an off-the-beaten-path establishment which could easily
be mistaken for a typical neighborhood residence by a casual passer-by, but
which proved to be a rare uncut diamond for “foodees” such as we. Like Galatoire’s, another New Orleans
“secret”, Clancy’s caters to a
committed covey of “regulars”; patrons who have their own table, waiter and
favorite wine, some of them a second or even third generation of a family-like
gemeinschaften. There we were treated to a creamy corn chowder with crab for
openers, crowned – for me – with smoked soft shell crab topped with more
crabmeat, and for Chris with seared sea scallops so tender they parted with a
mere touch of a fork!
To top it off, we enjoyed the frigid pleasure of Clancy’s famous “Ice Box Lemon Pie”.
In the end, there are too many good
things to say about New Orleans and all things “Creole” to fit in one column.
C’est la vie!
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