ROUSES_Holiday2018Magazine-FINAL.indd

DIRTY WORK by PABLEAUX JOHNSON

photo by ROMNEY CARUSO

must be clear battle lines and dedi- cated partisans on both sides: “Team Dressing” and “Team Dirty” defend- ing their worldviews in a friendly yet furious food fight. I grew up in South Louisiana and always considered rice dressing to be “the one” — an all-purpose, savory side dish that cropped up just about everywhere. In its pure form it was speckled with ground meat (pork or beef ), funky little chunks of mystery meat (liver or chicken gizzards) and the ever-present, sautéed aromatic “trinity” of onion, bell pepper and celery.The darkened rice grains had a thin coating of rich gravy that made the dish irresistible in just about every form — mounded inside my

mother’s weeknight stuffed peppers, alongside “plate lunch” smothered pork chops in Styrofoam containers, in an oversized Pyrex dish at family Sunday supper. At any home-style meal my family served, we were never too far from a filling scoop of this savory goodness. My upbringing put me in Team Dressing by default but, in my desire to be fair-minded, I kicked off some recipe research in a range of classic cookbooks from renowned regional chefs. My first stop for things Cajun is always Marcelle Bienvenu’s legendary cookbook Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make a Roux? A St. Martin- ville, Louisiana girl, she made her

WHEN IT COMES TO KITCHEN CONVERSATIONS, GULF COAST FOLKS ALWAYS SEEM READY TO ARGUE. Whether it’s over the best kind of jambalaya (brown or red?), the proper way to cook craw- fish (boil or steam ’em?) or the finer points of gumbo cooking (don’t even get me started), we enjoy debat- ing foods almost as much as we like eating them. So when the question “What’s the difference between rice dressing and dirty rice?” popped up, I expected to find centuries of spirited culi- nary argument. What’s the differ- ence between the two? Is it a city vs. country thing? For a dish this key to our sub-Southern cuisines, there

34 www. rouses .com