ROUSES_JanFeb2019_Magazine_Updated

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2019 FREE! everyday THE SOUP ISSUE

LOLIS ERIC ELIE ASKS, GUMBO: SOUP OR STEW?

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PHO (SUCH AS PHO AND KNOW DON’T RHYME)

SOUPER STARS: WHAT’S YOUR SIGN?

TURTLEY DELICIOUS

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2020 IS OUR 60TH ANNIVERSARY, WHICH HAS ALL OF US THINKING about where we’ve been and where we are going. We began in 1960 with a small neighborhood store, Ciro's, in Houma, Louisiana. As a convenience to their custom- ers, my father and his brothers sometimes delivered what was purchased. Fifty-nine years later, we still offer grocery delivery, only now instead of my dad and Uncle Tommy doing it, profes- sional shoppers personally select everything on your list and deliver it your home or office the same day, often within an hour. We also offer curbside pickup. Our first Rouses supermarket opened in Thibodaux in 1975. My grandfather lived right next door, and we used the homemade smokehouse in his backyard to make our Cajun specialties. Today, we have state-of-the-art smokehouses in our stores, but the recipes are the same ones my grandfather used. That first supermarket also had the first deli in Thibodaux. The food was so good people would buy lunch to serve for dinner. Prepared foods are still a big part of what makes us special, and an even bigger part of our business today. And it’s not just fully cooked food — our chefs and cooks are making it easy for you to serve your family a home-cooked meal with ready-to-cook offer- ings. Our butcher shops offer more than just great steaks. We have stuffed meats and vegetables you can just pop in the oven or on the grill. My grandfather always wanted to be “first” — that first Rouses supermarket also had the very first floral shop and bakery in the area. It was the first grocery store in Louisiana with a barcode scanner. We still want to be first to market with everything, because we want you, our customer, to experience it first. That’s why we went directly to Italy to get our olio novello . It’s the first batch of oil made from the olive harvest. The olives are picked early and pressed immediately, which preserves the luscious flavor and fragrant aroma of the olive fruit. You’ll definitely catch us reminiscing a bit this year, as we prepare to celebrate next year with a big blowout. We’ve experienced many changes over the past 59 years, and it’s a lot of fun looking back. One thing hasn’t changed. The same values our founder, my grandfather, Anthony J. Rouse, Sr., had back then — such as hard work, family and a commitment to giving you the best quality at the best price — still apply today. Whether you shop online or in person, we want you to have a remarkable experience every time. by Donny Rouse CEO, 3rd Generation from the family

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Culinary & History

Oysters Rockefeller Cover Photo by Romney Caruso

Recipes 20 Mock Turtle Soup 25 Corn & Crab Bisque 25 Crawfish Bisque

Soups

26 Stuffed Artichokes by Sara Roahen 32 Andy Warhol and the Art of Campbell’s Soup Cans by David W. Brown 35 Progresso Soup by Helen Freund 53 Oysters Rockefeller by Helen Freund Cooking 33 How to Roast a Chicken 33 How to Carve a Chicken 63 How to Make Your Soups Even Better by Chef Marc Ardoin 65 From Soup to Nuts

26 Stuffed Artichoke Soup 31 Creamy Tomato Soup 54 Oysters Rockefeller 55 Oysters Rockefeller Soup 59 Chicken Noodle Soup 65 Mixed Nuts with Shallots In Every Issue 2 Letter from the Family 5 Contributors 6 Letter from the Editor 7 In Our Stores

11 Gumbo: Soup or Stew? by Lolis Eric Elie 17 Turtley Delicious by Sarah Baird 23 Bisque (Not So Quick) by Marcelle Bienvenu 29 Souper Stars by Sarah Baird 45 What You Need to Know About Pho by David W. Brown 51 Dakota & Mansurs: Absolutely Crabulous by Sarah Baird 52 Felix’s Fish Camp Crab Soup by Marcy Nathan 57 Chicken Soup for the Bowl by David W. Brown Sandwiches 33 Grilled Cheese by Liz Thorpe 34 The Vietnamese Po-Boy by Rien Fertel

Celebrate Black History Month

OFFICIAL SUPERMARKET o f the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

37 A Creole Culinary Legacy by Lolis Eric Elie 41 Who Is Lena Richard? by Toni Tipton-Martin 42 Nellie Murray: The Leah Chase of the 19th Century by Zella Palmer

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Congratulations

The Shelby Report’s Southeast Retailer of the Year Shelby Report is the leading publication of the food and beverage industry To Read the Southeastern Retailer of the Year issue visit www.rouses.com

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SARAH BAIRD Sarah Baird is the author of the books New Orleans Cocktails and Short Stack Edition: Summer Squash . Her work appears regu- larly in/on Saveur , Eater , GQ , First We Feast , PUNCH and Food & Wine . She was the longtime food editor and restaurant critic for the New Orleans alt-weekly, Gambit Weekly . MARCELLE BIENVENU Marcelle is a cookbook author, food writer and chef/instructor at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State Univer- sity in Thibodaux. A native of St. Martinville, in the heart of Cajun country, Bienvenu wrote Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catho- lic and Can You Make a Roux? and Stir the Pot: The History of Cajun Cuisine with Eula Mae Dora, and other books and cookbooks. She also co-authored five cookbooks with Emeril Lagasse. DAVID W. BROWN David is a regular contributor to The Atlantic , The Week and Mental Floss . His work also appears in Vox, The New York Times, Writer’s Digest and Foreign Policy magazine. He is a regular commentator for tele- vision and radio. HELEN FREUND Helen Freund is an award- winning food and travel writer and the dining editor and restau- rant critic at Gambit Weekly . She is a regular contributor to The New Orleans Advocate and Reuters . She holds a culinary degree from Paris’ Le Cordon Bleu. KACIE GALTIER Kacie is an illustrator and one of our talented chalk artists. She is a native of Houma, Louisiana. You can see her designs and art in our stores all over the Gulf Coast. ​

TONI TIPTON-MARTIN Toni Tipton-Martin is the author of The Jemima Code: Two Centu- ries of African American Cookbooks , a work that celebrates the impor- tant legacy of African American cooks and their cookbooks. She is the winner of a 2016 James Beard Book Award and the 2016 Art of Eating Prize. LOLIS ERIC ELIE Lolis Eric Elie is a New Orleans born, Los Angeles based writer/ filmmaker. He recently joined the writing staff of the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle. Before that, he wrote for the OWN series Greenleaf and the HBO series Treme . A former columnist for The Times-Pica- yune , he is the author of Smoke- stack Lightning: Adventures in the Heart of Barbecue Country and editor of Cornbread Nation 2:The Best of Southern Food Writing . A contributing writer to Oxford American , his work has appeared in Gourmet, The Washington Post, The New York Times and Bon Appétit . RIEN FERTEL Louisiana born Rien Fertel has written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Men’s Journal, Southern Living, Saveur and The Local Palate . His book, The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Sara Roahen is the author of Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table and co-editor of The South- ern Foodways Alliance Commu- nity Cookbook .​ Hog , came out in 2016. SARA ROAHEN

ROMNEY CARUSO Romney is a Mandeville resi- dent and has been a professional photographer for over 25 years. He has styled and photographed food for hundreds of local and national publications, and for several cookbooks. His portrait series of chefs and bartenders, titled “Shakers, Knives & Irons,” was recently displayed in New Orleans and Los Angeles. PATTI STALLARD Patti is a freelance copy editor, proofreader and copywriter with decades of editorial experience in both the marketing and publish- ing arenas. A native New Orlea- nian and a culinary devotee, she was part of many creative teams that crafted ADDY award- winning campaigns for a vari- ety of clients, including tourism, professional sports and higher education. LIZ THORPE Liz is a world-class cheese expert. A Yale graduate, she left a “normal” job in 2002 to work the counter at New York’s famed Murray’s Cheese. She is the founder of The People’s Cheese, author of the Book of Cheese: The Essential Guide to Discovering Cheeses You’ll Love and The Cheese Chronicles , and coauthor of The Murray’s Cheese Handbook . Her work and interviews with her have been in everything from The New York Times to Men’s Journal to The Oprah Magazine and NPR and The Today Show. ZELLA PALMER Zella Palmer is the Director of the Dillard University Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture whose mission is to research, document, disseminate, preserve, and celebrate African Ameri- can culture and foodways in the South.

www. rouses .com OUR CONTRIBUTORS

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PEOPLE OFTEN REFER TO THE CULTURE OF THE GULF COAST AS A GUMBO. It’s a somewhat cliché way of saying we’re a lot of different, ordinary ingredients — people, places and experi- ences — that are pretty good on their own, but when combined, they are transformed into something sublime. In a good gumbo, the chopped-up vegetables — the trinity of onion, bell pepper and celery — cook down into one singular flavor. But the other ingredients still shine through. I can distinguish between the Conecuh sausage in the green gumbo at Dauphin’s in Downtown Mobile, Alabama, and the hot Creole chaurice sausage Chef Leah Chase uses in her Gumbo Z’herbes, a HolyThursday specialty at Dooky Chase’s in New Orleans. Both gumbos are wonderful. It’s the same with our 62 stores. They sell mostly the same stuff, but each one has its own personality and foods that reflect its own commu- nity and its own people, as well as our Rouses brand. That’s not true of every grocery store — some are so identical that when I’m secret shopping the competition, I sometimes forget which city I’m in. But I don’t need to see a customer walking around in just a bathing suit to know I’m at the Rouses Market in Orange Beach. My office is at our store in Downtown New Orleans. When I need to clear my head, I wander the aisles. The grocery store is a natural place to strike up a conversation, but everyone talks to everyone at this store — and sometimes to himself or herself.The game “costume- not-a-costume” was invented for this store. And it’s not unusual to see pirates, vampires, Saints players, movie stars and regular customers in a second line behind a brass band, waving napkins like handkerchiefs. I love that all of our stores are the same, but different. That Sulphur, which is about half an hour from the state line, has just a bit of a Texas twang. That everyone at the West Mobile store calls me ma’am (well, maybe I don’t love hearing that, but I do love the unique South Alabama sensibility it reflects). That I see everyone I know at the Rouses on Canal Boulevard inThibodaux, no matter what time of day I’m there — it really is Thibodaux’s town square. And I’m not the only one who appreciates all of this. We have fans that make a sport out of visiting the various Rouses Markets along the Gulf Coast. It’s like trying a new and different gumbo wherever you go. Soup’s on! In the pages that follow we celebrate some of the best bowls on the Gulf Coast, including local favorites gumbo, crawfish bisque and turtle soup. The recipes were created by our corporate chef, Marc Ardoin. Chances are you’ve cooked recipes Marc developed for past issues. You’ll want to cook these recipes as well. I had the chance to taste every soup Marc cooked and Romney Caruso artfully styled and photographed (here’s a secret: We actually shoot each issue right in my office). And each soup is better than the next. by Marcy Nathan EDITOR’S LETTER

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JANUARY IS

HELPING THE GULF COAST GROW Our local produce roots run more than 90 years deep. J.P. Rouse founded the City Produce Company in 1923, bringing fruits and vegetables from local, indepen- dent farms to the rest of the state and eventually to stores around the country. When his son, Anthony J. Rouse, Sr., opened his first grocery store in 1960, he made supporting his farmer neighbors a priority. He bought all of the produce from the farmers in the area, whether he needed it or not, because he said it was important for the commu- nity. Generations later we are more committed than ever to our local farmers and to bringing you the very best this region has to offer. RESPONSIBLY SOURCED SEAFOOD Fishing has been a unique way of life for people here on the Gulf Coast for generations. As the Gulf Coast’s grocer, and avid fish- ers ourselves, we feel a particu- lar commitment to preserve and protect our seafood industry, which plays such an important role in our culture and economy. Most of our seafood comes from local fisher- men with whom we have close personal and professional relation- ships. But our commitment doesn’t end at our coast. We’re mindful of how all of our seafood is caught and farmed. AN OLD-FASHIONED BUTCHER SHOP Leland Rodrigue was the butcher at our first store, which was known for having the very best meat selec- tion in Houma. We still have full- service butcher shops in our stores, and trusted butchers available to answer your questions about cuts, grades and cooking techniques. Every steak is still cut by hand, the way Leland did things. Choose from steakhouse quality USDA Prime beef and USDA Choice beef, or more affordable options. Most of our stores also have a dry- aged beef locker, in which the beef is aged at least 25 days.

at Rouses

ONE CHILLY SUNDAY AFTERNOON, I WALKED INTO MY PARENTS’ HOUSE to find not only my mom in the kitchen making bacon-lettuce-tomato soup, but also my dad in his outdoor kitchen setup making a beef and vegetable soup. Two soups with one stone! Jackpot. My mom is not a big vegetable person — well, let’s be honest: She hates veggies. (Please don’t tell her grandkids, because we’re trying to keep the fact that vegeta- bles are optional eating a secret from them for as long as possible.) So of course she was making a cream-based soup with thick slabs of bacon that would mask the flavor of the tomatoes and lettuce in the pot. My dad, on the other hand, is a really big vegetable eater, as well as a meat-and- potatoes kind of guy. What he calls “vege- table soup” is really about half beef and half huge chunks of potatoes floating around. It makes complete sense to me that they were making these two very different soups on the same day; what did not make a lot of sense was how big each of their pots were! — Ali Rouse Royster, 3rd Generation Get even more soup recipes online, including those for my mom’s BLT soup and my dad’s vegetable soup, at www.rouses.com .

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AUTHENTIC CAJUN SPECIALTIES We’re proud to continue the South Louisiana tradition of crafting our own Cajun specialties and real Cajun food. Our authentic boudin, spicy andouille, sausages, hogshead cheese and stuffed meats are made with Rouse Family Recipes that go back three generations. Cooking and heating instructions are avail- able at www.rouses.com. Our cheesemonger is an American Cheese Society Certified Cheese Professional, a title that requires passing a master exam covering everything from dairy regions to cheese making, ripening, storage and serving. We love to share what we do and what we know with our customers. Get his tips about cheese and how to build the perfect cheese board at www.rouses.com. PRIVATE LABEL PRODUCTS If Rouses Markets is on the label, you know it’s good. We have close relationships with the dairies that bottle our milk, bakeries that make our sandwich bread, and manufac- turers who package our products. Every Rouses Markets private label food item has been personally tasted by the Rouse Family and is guaranteed to deliver the best qual- ity at the best price. PREPARED FOODS You’ll always find something hot and delicious on our line. Depend- ing on your location, you might find barbecue, pizzas, burritos or a Mongolian grill. All of our stores feature grab-and-go meals, including $5 daily deals, fresh sandwiches and salads, and heat- and-eat dinners. Don’t miss our Limited Time Only fried chicken, chicken tenders and rotisserie chicken flavors. GROCERY DELIVERY If you don’t have the time to come to Rouses, Rouses can come to you! Order online at www.rouses.com for same-day delivery to your home or office. CHEESE & CHARCUTERIE

SOUP & SALAD BARS Our make-your-own salad bars feature an ever-changing selection of prepared salads and fresh-cut vegetables and fruits. Our hot soup menu changes daily, though you’ll always find our famous gumbo — it’s a favorite year-round. Our licensed floral directors are as picky about the flowers we sell as our chefs are about the ingredients that go into the foods we make. Visit www.rouses.com to order flowers for delivery within speci- fied areas. FRESH SUSHI You’ve probably seen our profes- sional in-store sushi chefs hand- crafting sashimi and sushi rolls. We also have a variety of sampler platters, and sides like edamame and seaweed salad. Special orders and sushi platters are available. Imagine having your own personal dietitian with you when you shop. Rouses registered dietitian has handpicked more than 500 grocery items that have lower sodium, saturated fat, healthier fats, more fiber and less sugar. Just look for the Eat Right logo on the shelf tag or package. FRESH FLOWER SHOP CAKES & DESSERTS There are as many reasons to order our cakes and cupcakes as there are ways to customize them. If you’d like to place a special order for a cake or dessert, stop by or call your neighborhood Rouses Market. For locations visit www.rouses.com. WINE, SPIRITS & BEER We offer wines and spirits at every price point and have experts on the floor to answer questions and offer pairing suggestions. Our craft beer selection includes cans, bottles and kegs from all over the Gulf Coast. EAT RIGHT WITH ROUSES

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CHEERS to 100 YEARS! In honor of Community Coffee’s centennial year, we want to celebrate communities that inspire us. Let’s raise a cup to the incredible communities of Community® coffee drinkers who are helping to usher in our next 100 years.

• • • •

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Quality chicken, raised on America’s farms since 1935. Some things never change.

Available at

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olives antipasti groceria

Visit our website for easy weeknight Italian recipe ideas and entertaining tips for charcuterie and cheese boards!

www.delallo.com | Follow us@delallofoods

Spice World is America’s favorite garlic, grown with pride and passion for nearly 70 years and three generations strong. The fresh, bold flavor of Spice World products are proudly sold at Rouses Supermarkets. Whether you’re making boudin, boiled crawfish, or any other Gulf Coast specialties, Spice World and Rouses have the high-quality garlic products you need. CALIFORNIA GROWN WITH LOUISIANA ROOTS Spice World, Founded in New Orleans in 1949

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photo by ROMNEY CARUSO

by Lolis Eric Elie

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the thicker the gumbo, the better it is. “It should not look like dishwater. By the time you put it in the refrigerator and take it out the next day, it should be congealed to the point where it looks like gelatin,” he said. This question is not confined to gumbo or even to New Orleans. The answer might just as well be found in the dictionary as on the plate, for the words “soup” and “stew” have different linguistic origins. “We’ll start with soup, since its story (like its broth) is clearer,” Sam Dean wrote in

vogue for breadless broths), the word came to us, and we started making ‘soups’ instead of ‘pottages’ or ‘broths.’” “Stew’s path to modern crockpots, though, gets a little hazy right from the get-go,” Dean wrote. “The first time that the Old French word estuve jumped to English shores as “stew,” it meant either a stove, a heated room, or a cooking cauldron.” According to the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, our word “stew” comes from the Middle English word “stuen,” which comes from the French word “estuver.” It means “to cook in a little liquid over a gentle fire without boiling.”

THIS IS NOT A QUESTION THAT IS APT TO COME UP WHEN A BOWL OF GUMBO IS FIRST PLACED BEFORE YOU AND YOUR MOUTH IS WATERING, either with hunger or with nostalgia for all those previous bowls of gumbo and the cherished memories that go along with them. No. This is a question you are most apt to ask yourself in the preparatory stages when you are reading the menu — or in the later stages — when you’ve made such a dent in the bowl that you feel suffi- ciently satisfied to expend energy on mere conversation. Your answer to the soup or stew ques- tion might be dictated by the nature of the bowl in front of you. Are you feast- ing on the relatively thin gumbo at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, or the relatively thick gumbo at Upperline Restaurant? Even if you consult the experts, you may come away uncertain. The late Ella Bren- nan, whose Commander’s Palace restau- rant helped define contemporary Creole cuisine for generations of diners, offered a somewhat confusing personal history on the soup or stew question. Speaking in The Times-Picayune to food critic Brett Ander- son in 2004, she recalled her childhood experiences with the dish: “It was a shrimp and okra gumbo,” she said. “My mother didn’t always serve it with rice. If she was serving it as soup, no rice. If she was serving it as an entrée, with rice. Then as time went on, I remember very distinctly oysters being added. If she was feeling very ambitious, my mother would drive down to the market and get gumbo crabs.” Mary Sonnier, who owns Gabrielle Restaurant with her chef-husband Greg, comes down on the soup side of the equa- tion. “Greg’s gumbo is thicker than Mrs. Chase’s, but not as thick as a stew would be,” Sonnier said. “Though it’s probably richer in flavor and mouthfeel because of the stock and darker roux.” Arguing to the contrary is City Council- member Jay H. Banks who, though not a professional cook, takes his gumbo- making very seriously. “No sir. Gumbo is a stew,” he said. “I was always taught that

CHEF LEAH CHASE photo by CHERYL GERBER

the January 25, 2013 issue of Bon Appétit . “The word started out in the Germanic family, from a root that’s since grown into modern words like ‘supper,’ ‘sup,’ and ‘sop,’ and that originally meant ‘consume some- thing liquid.’ “This hopped over to Latin at some point before the 6th century to mean, specifically, a piece of bread eaten in a broth, a suppa. This then bopped along into French,where it started to mean both the broth-soaked bread and the broth itself. After a linguis- tic long jump across the English Chan- nel in the 17th century (and a concurrent

But any effort to use linguistic history to determine gumbo’s soup-ness or stew- ness comes fraught with its own dangers — for instance, for the European words that are being used to define a dish with distinctly non-European origins. The word “gumbo” is African in origin, and variations of it are used in several branches of the Bantu family of languages to describe the vegetable “okra.” In her book, Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa’s Gifts to NewWorld Cooking , Jessica B. Harris wrote, “Okra goes by many names. In England, it is known as lady’s

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Gulf Coast

fingers because the young pods should be small and delicate. In the New World, most of okra’s names reflect its African origins and ring with drumlike sonorous- ness: quiabo in Brazil, quingombó in Span- ish, and gumbo in French.The French term, which is taken from the work ki-ngombo in one of the Angolan languages, has given us the term gumbo.” One reason people might be tempted to call gumbo a soup is that it is often mistak- enly associated with bouillabaisse, a soup that hails from France’s Provençal region. Truth be told, there is more that separates the two dishes than that joins them. Most obviously, bouillabaisse uses primarily fin fish, which is seldom used in gumbo. Bouillabaisse also features a rouille, an add-at-the-table sauce of peppers, garlic, saffron, lemon juice and egg yolk. All of those ingredients — save the saffron — were readily available in early New Orleans, yet the cooks who crafted gumbo didn’t see fit to use them. Clearly, bouil- labaisse was not the Old World dish they were seeking to replicate with gumbo. Okra the vegetable, though indigenous to the African continent, is very much at home in the American South. Okra dishes can be found throughout the Afri- can continent. In her umbrella descrip- tion of African cuisine, Harris coined the phrase “soupy stew” as a sort of split-the- difference approach to the soup vs. stew question. “From Morocco in the north to South Africa, from Kenya in the east to Camer- oon in the west, the continent’s traditional dishes tended to be variations on the theme of a soupy stew over a starch or a grilled or fried animal protein accompa- nied by a vegetable sauce and/or a starch,” Harris wrote in her book High on the Hog. In Nigeria, where many Louisiana resi- dents can trace their ancestral roots, it seems that every dish is called a soup — okra soup, edikaikong soup (which features periwinkles in the shell), egusi soup (which is made with ground melon seeds), to name a few. All of these dishes can contain a combina- tion of meat and seafood, depending on the cook’s preference. “It’s never a soup in the Western way; it’s always a stew,” said

Tunde Wey, a Nigerian chef whose Lagos food stall was an early tenant in New Orleans’ reincarnated St. Roch Market. When speaking among themselves, Nige- rians usually refer to these dishes simply as “egusi” or “edikaikong,” Wey said. There’s no need to define them by the English words “soup” or “stew,” because those words offer no additional clarity to people already well-versed in Nigerian cuisine. Fatmata Binta, a chef based in Accra, Ghana, shares her knowledge of West African cuisines on her Fulani Kitchen website and Instagram feed, as well as

Another feature of Creole gumbo, the mix of seafood and meat in one dish, is also a feature of West African cuisine, though it is not common continent-wide, she said. “Throughout West Africa people do assorted meats, a lot different proteins. In East Africa I find they don’t mix two different proteins in one dish.They find it very strange.” When West African okra soup arrived in Louisiana, it was quickly Creolized by the introduction of Native American and French techniques. Filé powder, the ground leaves of the sassafras tree, was

photo by ROMNEY CARUSO

through her “Traditional Nomadic Dine on a Mat Experiences” in Accra. She said that the soupiness or “stewiness” of okra dishes varies across West Africa. “In Sierra Leone, it is more of a soup,” she said. “We do not make a base of sauce to make the soup. We go right in, put the water, boil the meat, then add the other ingredients. In Ghana I would say it’s a stew. They boil the okra separately and they put baking soda in it to make it more slimy, more thick like a stew.”

long used by the Choctaw and other local ethnic groups in their cooking. Simi- larly, the French tradition of adding a roux — a combination of fat and flour — also became a staple — not only of New Orleans gumbo, but of many foods that Louisianians hold dear. Perhaps it is just coincidence that both of these ingredients impart not only flavor to a dish, but also additional thickness. (Suspicious minds might wonder whether these early cooks were attempting merely

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divided neatly into appropriate categories — soups, salads, appetizers, entrées and desserts. Among the traditional Creole restaurants in the Crescent City, there is a clear consensus. Antoine’s, Arnaud’s, Commander’s Palace, Galatoire’s and Tujague’s all list gumbo among the soups. Of course, since restaurants tend not to have a “stews” section, perhaps gumbo was placed among the soups strictly by default. While the soup vs. stew debate is an inter- esting jumping-off point for an explora- tion of the linguistic and culinary origins of gumbo, it’s a question that is unlikely ever to be settled conclusively. Perhaps the great lesson here is that language is often an insufficient tool to capture the vagaries and nuances of the culinary art.

than most Creole gumbos, they are also a bit thinner — more soup-like, if you will — than many of the gumbos found in New Orleans. In a multitude of Gulf Coast homes, gumbo is the first course of Thanksgiv- ing or Christmas dinner. Regardless of its relative thickness or thinness, its place as the opening course of a meal suggests that we are treating it like a soup rather than like a stew. How often have you seen a stew listed among the appetizers at a restaurant or in a cookbook? For the home cook, or the home diner, it matters little whether the dish being cooked or served is a soup or a stew. The people for whom this really matters are the people who have to write restaurant menus. In those texts, the offerings are

to improve the flavor of their gumbos or to tip the scales in the soup-stew debate.) The question of whether gumbo is a soup or a stew might well depend on where or by whom the gumbo was made. In New Orleans, the home of Creole gumbo, the dish tends to rely more on seafood than meats, and tends to be thin when compared to its cousin versions from Cajun country. Cajun gumbo, which often relies on a combination of sausage and fowl for its protein components, tends to be thicker and darker. But even those broad definitions can be misleading or inaccurate. Prejean’s in Lafayette features several different gumbos on its menu and, while they tend to be based on a darker roux

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Perfectly crafted turkey guaranteed to score points at your super bowl party Find us in the deli section.

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T h r o w Y o u r O w n B I G G A M E P a r t y

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by Sarah Baird

FOR SOME WISTFUL DINERS, MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD ARE DIRECTLY LINKED TO THE SCENT OF JAMS AND JELLIES BEING CANNED IN A GRANDMOTHER’S KITCHEN , or the taste of their first bites of a nectar- flavored snowball on a hot summer day. But for James Beard Award-nominated chef Slade Rushing of Brennan’s in New Orleans, his childhood memories taste a little bit more, uh, reptilian. “When I was growing up [in Mississippi], my mom likes to say that I was eating turtle soup at six months old,” Rushing says. “Just the smell of it gives me a rush of nostalgia to this day.” For those unfamiliar with turtle soup, the dish might be something of a head- scratcher. How did the slow-wobbling turtle become the focal point of a creation that’s not only revered as a Gulf Coast delicacy, but has become synonymous with über-high-end dining? After all, as Rush- ing points out, no one is exactly lining up to eat turtle cooked in other ways. Ultimately, the dish’s regional popularity comes down to a confluence of geographic location and the historic cultural stew of New Orleans cuisine. Early pioneers of Creole cooking — who were looking to re-create decadent, hearty soups rooted in Francophone traditions — found that, while traditionally rich ingredients like veal weren’t as common in Louisiana, the swamps were full of turtles — from snap- pers to red ears and everything in between. Turtle, with its seven distinctive types of meat, proved to be an ideal, velvety soup component that was able to create luxury from a local source. Soon, no one missed the veal at all. “Our turtle soup is one of our most iconic

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Gulf Coast time you are lost in a dream that is so still, so perfect, and so all absorbing that you wish, lazily and sadly, it might never end. But you swallow the soup and open your eyes, discover that the face of nature is unchanged, and then, your intellect having reasserted its sway, you conclude that the turtle, like the swan, yields its only perfect symphony in its death” Adding to the undeniable strangeness of turtle soup’s legacy is the fact that there’s a faux version of the stuff that, in the eyes of some, is even more popular and delightful than the original. Mock turtle soup was first stewed up during the mid-1700s in England, when the national craze over green sea turtle meat from the Caribbean had reached a reptilian fever pitch. Out of all the turtle- based delights served up during this era, turtle soup quickly became the most coveted and highly prized delicacy, carry- ing the same sort of class-status weight a tray full of Beluga caviar or a bottle of 1998 Krug Champagne Vintage Brut does when served today. It was a dish reflective of rarified air in the truest sense of the term; a soup so fine that its primary ingre- dient, green sea turtle, had to be shipped — still alive — thousands of miles across the ocean before the dish’s preparation could even begin in earnest. Needless to say, the price point was out of range for most people, and chefs began experimenting with how to create a version of the dish that retained the unique flavor profile and textural consis- tency of the soup without ponying up for an exorbitantly expensive meat. The common solution? Calf ’s head, which had a similarly jellylike quality and didn’t skimp on the richness. “Hannah Glasse, in the sixth edition of Art of Cookery (1758), added calf ’s head to her turtle soup recipe because it had the same gelatinous texture,” writes Jennifer McLa- gan in Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal . “In later editions, she doesn’t even bother to use turtle at all, replacing it

It’s a meat that can be very intense and tacky. In your mouth, [eating turtle meat] can be like that feeling you get after eating ham-hock greens or pig ears. Because of that, the intensity of our seasoning needs to liven up the ingredient, so that’s why we use a three-day veal stock and lots of spices and hot sauce in the dish.” Chef Rushing agrees. “Turtle meat is a lot like veal in a sense, but it’s a prehistoric animal. My dad would get turtles to make turtle soup, and the heart would beat for like an hour after butchering. They’re really durable animals that are hard to break down, and the meat itself requires a lot of attention. But when it’s braised properly, it can be as tender as veal.” While the Gulf South might be the only region still carrying the banner for turtle soup in the present day, it wasn’t too long ago that the dish was a nationwide phenomenon. Groups of men known as “snapper hunting parties” would venture out to catch turtles in much the same way they take to their duck blinds or tree stands now, wading through creek beds and ponds to grab up the terrapins with hands and hooks. Even America’s founding fathers — from George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, to Ben Franklin and Aaron Burr — were diehard turtle soup lovers, with an affection so extreme that one of the country’s first social clubs was named the Hoboken Turtle Club. When club members gathered, bowl after bowl of turtle soup was served, alongside a steady flow of cocktails and, according to some reports, stewed eel. Club member (and noted polar explorer) I.I. Hayes famously compared the taste of turtle meat to “fried seal’s liver and walrus bacon” while the description from an 1878 New York Times article on the Turtle Club proved a bit more flowery: “When you eat turtle soup you remove the spoon and shut your eyes, and your soul, on the wings of sensuous thought, passes outward into lotus land, and for a

dishes on the menu, and the recipe goes back probably 300 years.We like to say, ‘If it crawls across your yard, a person from Louisiana has a recipe to cook it,’” laughs Chef Tory McPhail of Commander’s Palace. “The recipe I use here is one that Paul Prudhomme and Ella [Brennan] came up with in the early 1970s based on tradition, history and our climate here in New Orleans. One of the things we make sure to do is always garnish turtle soup with eggs, because a century ago, if you didn’t have any fresh seafood to help fill out the soup, you could boil some eggs and chop them up to add a little extra protein to the meal during leaner times. Turtle soup really rings true to the heritage of Louisiana.” Today, the turtle soup that’s found on menus from the Grand Dame restaurants of the French Quarter to mom-and- pop joints lining the Acadiana coast is as singular and personal as the individual preparing it. Some, like Chef McPhail, add egg to the dish,while others slide a bevy of vegetables in alongside the turtle meat. The addition of sherry, for most, is a critical piece of the flavor puzzle. And there are even diehards who judge whether a turtle soup is truly “authentic” by the presence of two differ- ent kinds of turtle fats: the green-tinged calipash fat from inside the upper shell of the turtle and the buttery-yellow cali- pee fat attached to the bottom shell. No matter the specific preparation, though, the decadent, umami flavor and one-of-a- kind texture afforded by turtle soup ensure that, many times, this appetizer steals the show for the entire meal. “New Orleans is definitely a soup town. We serve thousands of bowls of turtle soup in the course of the year.During busy times, we serve hundreds of bowls a day,” says Chef McPhail. “We buy our turtle meat already detailed and grind it, but turtle meat is extremely rich, so we have to gently braised the whole thing down.

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Gulf Coast

with calf ’s head cooked in stock and flavored with Madeira. She does, however, maintain the pretense that it is real turtle soup by serving it in a shell.” The ubiquitous nature of mock turtle soup as a dish that was fancy — but not real-turtle-soup fancy — carried over to the United States, where most cooks continued to make it with calf ’s head, brains or a combination of offal meats. And while the Found- ing Fathers were known to fawn over turtle soup (the real thing), Abraham Lincoln made it a point to serve mock turtle soup at his inaugural luncheon as a message of austerity and frugality. (In 2009, President Obama used a similar tactic, serving a menu of dishes inspired by Lincoln’s choices at his own inauguration — including mock turtle soup.) Mock turtle soup remained a staple across the country — most notably as a signature dish of Cincinnati, Ohio, where slaughter- houses were plentiful and calf heads extra-cheap — until the mid- 20th century, when the penny-pinching dishes of yore tapered off in favor of low-priced TV dinners and the heat-and-eat concoc- tions that fill our freezer aisles today. It’s even increasingly rare in turtle-soup-loving New Orleans, where — if you can find it on a menu — the “mock” portion of the soup is likely veal, ground beef or a combination of the two. But, to this day, there remains — among a certain type of culinary oddball — a strange affection for dishes like mock turtle soup, if for no other reason than its relative scarceness and, for that, cultural value. “Soups are like paintings, don’t you think?” Andy Warhol mused in a 1962 interview. “Imagine some smart collector buying up [Campbell’s] Mock Turtle when it was available and cheap and now selling it for hundreds of dollars a can! I suppose it’d be smart now to start collecting Cheddar Cheese soup.” And while Warhol might’ve deemed mock turtle soup his favorite, it’s author Lewis Carroll who ensured that the dish will continue to be a literary and artistic reference for generations to come. In 1865’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , our heroine-who-fell- down-the-rabbit-hole, Alice, meets a sniveling, crying creature known as the Mock Turtle, illustrated as having both a tortoise shell and flippers but the head, hooves and tail of a young calf. He regales Alice with a story about how he was once a “real turtle” but fate had different plans: “When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the sea.The master was an old Turtle — we used to call him Tortoise —“ “Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” Alice asked. “We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock

Turtle angrily: “really you are very dull!” Eventually, the Mock Turtle stifles his sniffles long enough to recite a poem for Alice about (what else?) the glory of mock turtle soup, that could just as easily be used as an ode to the real thing: Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen!

Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

MockTurtle Soup Serves 6-8 bowls WHAT YOU WILL NEED 4 tablespoons butter 1 medium onion , chopped 2 stalks celery , chopped 1 medium carrot , peeled and chopped 2 tablespoons tomato paste ½ pound spinach , finely chopped 3 cloves garlic , minced ¾ pound ground veal ¾ pound ground beef 1 teaspoon white pepper ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper 1½ teaspoons dried thyme 1 teaspoon dry mustard 1 teaspoon black pepper 1 teaspoon dried basil ½ teaspoon ground cumin ¼ cup dry sherry ⅓ cup flour 15 ounces tomato sauce 2 quarts beef stock (if store- bought, simmer the scraps from the onion, carrot, celery, and pars- ley with it in a pot for 30 minutes) 2 bay leaves 2 teaspoons lemon zest , finely chopped 3 hard-boiled eggs , finely chopped 1 tablespoon parsley , fine chopped HOW TO PREP In a heavy-bottomed pot, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion, celery and carrot.

Cook the vegetables until caramel- ized. (Tip: Use a little water to help scrape some of the fond off the bottom of the pot. It will help the vegetables brown more evenly.) Add the tomato paste and sauté for 3 minutes to cook down the natural sugar. You must stir this often so it does not stick and burn on the bottom of the pot. Add the spinach and garlic, and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Season the ground beef and veal with the white pepper, cayenne, thyme, mustard, black pepper, basil and cumin. Add the seasoned ground beef and veal to the pot, and brown. Deglaze the bottom of the pot with the sherry, scraping up the fond on the bottom of the pan. Add the flour and mix it in well with the meat and vegetable mixture, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes to cook out the floury taste. Add the tomato sauce and beef stock. Add the bay leaves, and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the lemon zest, hard-boiled eggs and parsley to the pot 10 minutes before serving. Ladle the soup into warmed bowls, and serve.

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Sweet, Tangy and very addicting!

Made with fresh & natural ingredients.

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by Marcelle Bienvenu

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Gulf Coast

photo by ROMNEY CARUSO

enjoy cooking together since “it is not tricky to make — it just takes a long time.” And, indeed, her recipe indicates that it takes the better part of a day to prepare. Of course, I realize that the recipe for our local crawfish bisque is also a daylong (or more) procedure. Julia gives instructions on how to buy a lobster: “It must be lively: it spreads its claws, arches its back, and flaps its tail noisily.” She goes on to give detailed instructions on how to cut up a lobster and how to cook it. I had to flip through several pages before I got to the actual instructions for preparing the bisque. First, according to Julia, you have to get your mise en place ready —meaning all the ingredients measured, pots (yes, several pots in this instance) you will need as well as sieves, numerous bowls, spoons and knives. (I actually don’t have the space for this kind of production in my 10’ x 10’ kitchen….) Julia goes on: Sauté the lobster, simmer the lobster and remove the meat, simmer the rice, purée the rice and lobster meat, make shellfish butter, prepare a lobster garnish, and, finally, flavor the bisque and serve it. Now, on to the recipe for our local craw- fish bisque. I dug around in Mama’s old recipe box and found several, but the one that caught my eye listed the first ingre- dient as “2 buckets of live crawfish.” See,

we first have to go catch those freshwater crustaceans. To do this, we needed some chicken necks for bait, twine to secure the necks and nets to catch the crawfish as they nibbled on the necks. I don’t know what size bucket they used, but it probably took a few hours to fill them up. Upon returning to the house, the craw- fish had to be purged. We had a huge outdoor sink that was perfect for this procedure, but I know some friends who purged their crawfish in their bathtub — a fact that makes me love that outdoor sink even more! The next step was to blanch or scald the crawfish, then cool and peel them. The tails were set aside, and the bodies were gently cleaned since they were going to be stuffed with a mixture of finely ground tails, onions, bell peppers, celery and bread. Remember, this was before food proces- sors were invented, so this procedure was done with a hand-operated grinder that was attached to the kitchen table. Once the stuffing was made, it had to be stuffed into the crawfish bodies, which were then baked, and then set aside while the bisque (stew) was prepared. The final step was to add the stuffed heads to the bisque and let them simmer gently before serving. Whew! I’m exhausted just thinking about the labor involved, but when you’re finally sitting there eating that delectable bisque, it all seems worthwhile!

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I SPENT A WEEK AT THE INSTITUT PAUL BOCUSE NEAR LYON, FRANCE, where I observed the Institut’s chefs and students in their immaculate kitchens. On the first day, the chef made a cray- fish (it’s spelled with a “y” there) bisque. I was surprised to see that the crawfish were similar to ours, but the bisque in no way resembled what we have in South Louisiana. The chef explained that “a classic French bisque is made with the broth from shell- fish (crab, lobster, shrimp or crayfish), and originally thickened not with cream but with rice and the ground shells of the shellfish.” I was intrigued and did some research on my return to Louisiana. I found that the word “bisque” might have come from the geographical name Bay of Biscay, or possi- bly from the technique called bis cuites or “twice cooked.” The late great Julia Child, in her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking , explains that a “bisque is a rich, thick, highly seasoned soup of puréed shellfish. Undoubtedly the bisque came into being because it is an easy as well as an elegant way to eat small crustaceans with compli- cated constructions like crayfish and crabs, and it is a wonderful solution for the chests and legs of lobsters.” She also advised that this kind of recipe is best done with a group of friends who

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Corn &Crab Bisque Serves 4-6 bowls

HOW TO PREP Melt butter in a pan; add onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic, and sauté until tender. Add the flour and stir to make a white roux. Stir in tomato sauce. Strain the stock through a fine mesh strainer, and slowly add the stock to the roux and tomato sauce mixture, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 30 minutes until soupy consistency is reached. Fold in 1 pound crawfish tails. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add thyme and tarragon, and season with salt and pepper. In small batches, purée the soup in a food processor or blender until smooth. Return the soup back to the pot and stir in the cream. Simmer the soup on low; add remaining crawfish tails and enough stock until the soup reaches the desired thickness. Portion the bisque into soup bowls. Garnish each with a splash of sherry.

Strain the stock through a fine mesh strainer. Slowly add the stock to the roux, then reduce heat and let simmer for 30 minutes. Add heavy cream, green onion and parsley. Cook for 3 more minutes, then gently fold in crabmeat. Be care- ful to not break up the large chunks of crabmeat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Crawfish Bisque WHAT YOU WILL NEED 2 pounds crawfish tails ½ pound butter 1 cup red bell pepper, minced 2 tablespoons garlic, minced 1 cup flour ¼ cup tomato sauce 1 tablespoon thyme, chopped 1 tablespoon tarragon, chopped Salt and pepper to taste 2 quarts seafood stock (simmered in a pot for 30 minutes with the scraps of onion and celery) 1 pint heavy whipping cream Sherry for garnish 2 cups onion, minced 1 cup celery, minced

WHAT YOU WILL NEED 3 cups whole fresh corn, removed from cobs (save cobs and add them to seafood stock) 1 pound jumbo lump crabmeat 1 cup butter 1 cup white onion, diced 1 cup celery, diced ½ cup red bell pepper, diced ¼ cup garlic, minced 1 cup flour 2½ quarts seafood stock (simmered in a pot with the corn cobs, scraps of onion, celery, green onion and parsley for 30 minutes) 1 pint heavy whipping cream ½ cup green onion, thinly sliced ½ cup parsley, chopped Salt and white pepper, to taste HOW TO PREP Melt the butter in a pan. Add the corn, onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic, and sauté until tender. Whisk in the flour to make a white roux. Do not brown.

CHEF’S TIP If you’re peeling leftover

Louisiana crawfish for bisque, reserve the heads for stuffing and the shells for the soup (both need to be properly cleaned and readied). You can use the shells to make a stock or add them directly into the soup; you’ll need a potato masher for the latter. Start by sautéing your vegetables. Use the potato masher to crush the shells into them as they render. Make your roux and add your stock. Let it simmer for 20 minutes before adding the craw- fish tails. When the soup is done, blend or purée it, then strain it through a fine mesh strainer. This will ensure there are no bits of shell in the finished product.

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