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NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2020

New Orleans Kettle Style Chips made in Gramercy, Louisiana

PHOTO BY CHANNING CANDIES

Unfortunately, we have a lot of practice with disasters here on the Gulf Coast. If one doesn’t come this year, it will likely come the next. But there is never a thought of living somewhere else. This is home. This is where we belong. For most of us, the holidays will look a little different this year. Maybe it’s your first time being away from home because of Hurricane Laura, Sally or Delta. Maybe it’s your first time seeing your cousins, siblings, grandparents or grandbabies since March. Maybe the whole family can’t be together, except on Zoom. But in spite of that, some of us will still be cooking. Some of us will be delivering food to loved ones. And some old traditions may be put in dry dock for a season, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be new ones to take their place — or that we won’t revive the old ones when it’s safe to do so.

But the holidays are still the holidays. Even if the whole family can’t be together, even if you’re not in your house because of a hurricane, home’s still home .

However you celebrate this year, thank you for letting us be a part of it. - Donny Rouse, CEO, 3 rd Generation

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Cover photo by Romney Caruso / Cover recipe on page 50

Marketing & Advertising Director Tim Acosta

IN EVERY ISSUE

Creative Director & Editor Marcy Nathan

1 Letter from Donny Rouse

Art Director, Layout & Design Eliza Schulze

7 Letter from the Editor

DOWN HOME COOKING

45 Satsuma Rum Cake

Illustrator Kacie Galtier

8 Letter from Ali Rouse Royster

47 Cajun Meat 101

39 Turkey 101

Production Manager McNally Sislo

Crabmeat 101

40 Baked Turkey

Photographer Romney Caruso

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 14 Rouse In-House: Tastes Like Home by David W. Brown 16 It Starts With the Wright Recipe by Sarah Baird 20 One in a Mirliton by Sarah Baird 26 Okra Dokie by David W. Brown 28 The Pot Thickens by Ken Wells

41 Leftover Turkey Pot Pie

HOME SWEET HOME 48 Better with Cheddar by Liz Thorpe

Copy Editor Patti Stallard

Green Bean Casserole

Contributing Chef ash taylor

Corn Pudding

Sweet Potato Casserole

Advertising Amanda Kennedy Harley Breaux Marketing Stephanie Hopkins Robert Barrilleaux

49 Perfect Pie Crust

42 Mr. Anthony Rouse’s Down Home Oyster Dressing Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Double Crust Apple Pie

Praline Pumpkin Pie

Nancy Besson Taryn Clement

50 Pecan Crunch Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie

Coca-Cola Ham Glaze

58 Piece, Love & Happiness by Sarah Baird

Mashed Potatoes

43 Chicken & Sausage Gumbo

59 Quiz: What Kind of Pie Am I? by Sarah Baird

Seafood & Okra Gumbo

36 We’ve Got Thanksgiving Pre-Paired by David W. Brown

Cornbread & Andouille Dressing

44 Okra & Tomatoes

57 Spread the Word by Liz Thorpe

Stuffed Mirlitons

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Contributors

SARAH BAIRD Sarah Baird is the author of multiple books including New Orleans Cocktails and Flask , which was released in summer 2019. A 2019 Knight Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Saveur, Eater, Food & Wine and The Guardian , among others. Previously, she served as restaurant critic for the New Orleans alt- weekly, Gambit Weekly , where she won Critic of the Year in 2015 for her dining reviews. DAVID W. BROWN David W. Brown is a freelance writer whose work appears in The Atlantic , The New York Times , Scientific American and The New Yorker . His next book, T he Mission: A True Story , is now available for preorder, and will be published by HarperCollins in January 2021. Brown lives in New Orleans. LIZ THORPE Liz Thorpe 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 , and author of The Book of Cheese: The Essential Guide to Discovering Cheeses You ’ ll Love and The Cheese Chronicles . KEN WELLS Ken grew up on the banks of Bayou Black deep in South Louisiana’s Cajun belt. He got his first newspaper job as a 19-year-old college dropout, covering car wrecks and gator sightings for The Courier , a Houma, Louisiana weekly, while still helping out in his family’s snake-collecting business. Wells' journalism career includes positions as senior writer and features editor for The Wall Street Journal ’s Page One. His latest book, Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou , is in stores now.

SMELLS LIKE HOME I like this time of year (grinding season) because of the smell of burning sugarcane when you’re driving down the bayou. That smells like home. When you get to Raceland and smell the sugarcane, you know you’re almost home. And seeing the cane trucks going up and down the road — that looks like home. – Tim Acosta, Director of Advertising & Marketing

FEELS LIKE HOME My parents took my sister and me to Indian Creek Campground in Independence, Louisiana every other weekend. It was our “home away from home,” and many of my favorite memories were made there. The smell of the burning campfire, the taste of my dad’s “kitchen sink” jambalaya and the sound of swamp pop on the radio always feel like home to me. – Kacie Galtier, Designer & Illustrator

SOUNDS LIKE HOME I was named after “Little Liza Jane,” sung by the Wild Tchoupitoulas at the first Festival International de Louisiane in 1987; I’ve missed maybe three Festivals since. To me, Festival sounds like home (the vibrant mix of music from around the world), feels like home (I know I’ll run into everyone I know), and tastes like home (we have a Rouses crawfish-eating tradition at Festival that’s been going strong for 10+ years). – Eliza Schulze, Art Director

NEW BOOK FROM OUR CONTRIBUTOR David W. Brown began contributing to Rouses

Magazine in 2018. He has produced a masterful, genre- defying narrative about modern space exploration, centered on the most ambitious science project ever conceived: NASA’s deep-space mission to Europa — the ocean moon of Jupiter, where the first known alien life in our solar system might swim. In the spirit of John McPhee and Tom Wolfe, The Mission

FEELS LIKE HOME Home for me was coming back from college in New York — as soon as I stepped off the plane into the jetway a blanket of humidity wrapped itself around me, comforting me. Then I’d devour three different kinds of stuffed beignets in the airport while waiting for my ride. – McNally Sislo, Production Manager

follows a motley yet brilliant team of obsessives and eccentrics who are pushing the furthest frontiers of human exploration.

The book comes out January 26, 2021. You can get it at your local independent bookseller or order it from Amazon.​

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PHOTO BY CHANNING CANDIES

Letter From the Editor By Marcy Nathan, Creative Director

The issue of Rouses magazine you’re holding is the first one we’ve printed in eight months. We put out three must-read digital versions — The Essential Issue, Beach Eats and The Breakfast Issue — that we shared on our website and social media, and that still live online (www.rouses.com), but we know nothing can replace the feel of printed paper in your hands. Producing this issue felt, appropriately, like coming home, albeit after a long, strange trip. We’ve been talking a lot about home these days, and what it sounds like, looks like, tastes like — you know, all the feels. It’s clear no matter who you are, or where you’re from, there’s no place like it. It took me years after losing my house to Katrina before I found a new one in Uptown New Orleans that felt like home. It’s 114 years old, and lately it’s been showing its age. Pandemic home remodeling is apparently a thing, and I’m right there with everyone else who is sick of their old kitchen or bathroom — and in my case, leaks, and a fridge that sometimes thinks it’s a freezer. There’s been a steady stream of workers at the house, and my 92-year-old neighbor, Mr. Tommy, aka the Mayor, provides a running commentary on them, as well as everyone who lives on the street. Uptown is one of the largest historic neighborhoods in the United States. The house next door was once a meat market; the one across the street a barbershop. I can practically see the giraffes at Audubon Zoo from my way-too-expensive new porch. Audubon Zoo, by the way, dates back to 1916. I am lucky; I have two of the greatest neighborhood restaurants in the city, maybe the world, just up the block and around the corner: Patois and Clancy’s. When the longtime maître d’ at Clancy’s died from the virus, our neighborhood mourned. When the restaurant reopened, we celebrated. But it’s not all panéed veal with crabmeat and lemon icebox pie around here. We also have an all-night Circle K nearby, which is

perfect when I’m feeling real, real snacky. I once tried to buy Mike & Ike candy there, but the clerk told me, “Nah, baby girl, you need to go to a corner store for Mike & Ike’s; we’re in the middle of the block.” I love my sliver by the river. It feels like home. I do wish it still sounded like it. Music is New Orleans. But aside from the occasional driveway concert and visit from Piano on a Truck, and the murder of crows who have taken up residence on the power lines outside, it’s been too quiet. Even the high school marching bands — a familiar sound in my neighborhood this time of year — aren’t practicing much. I don’t know whether my favorite bars and music clubs like Tipitina’s will be back with bands this year. Or if we will have Mardi Gras parades with marching bands next year. Or even Jazz Fest. I’m hopeful we will. I’ll certainly be ready for all the music when it comes back. But until then, I can’t help but wonder: Is it strange to feel homesick, even when you’re home? I’m supporting organizations like Feed the Second Line, which provides food and employment to the culture-bearers of New Orleans (www.feedthesecondline.org/#Send-Love); Tipitina’s (www. tipitinas.com/friend-indeed); and The Jazz & Heritage Music Relief Fund, which was created by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation to support Louisiana musicians who’ve been impacted by COVID-19 (www.jazzandheritage.org/contribute?donation). Contributing to funds that are important to you – even a small amount – will ensure that home still feels like home when things return to normal. #localshelpinglocals

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My family tree is a majestic oak. My mom’s family is, well, ginormous. Both her parents came from large, close-knit, Catholic Thibodaux families. Papa was one of 13, and Granny one of eight, so I have more people I call cousins than I can count. On my dad’s side, there wasn’t as much extended family, but his family was large all by itself. My Rouse grandparents had six children and 17 grandchildren, and we all got together for holidays, spaghetti nights, backyard boils, barbecues…. This made for some very large, fun holidays growing up, but I can see now that it maybe wasn’t so fun for my parents! Naturally, these gatherings have evolved. I’ve sadly lost all my beloved grandparents, and my cousins and I have added so many babies to the family tree that we’ve started doing more “just us” family gatherings. Because honestly, the logistics of babies in non-baby-proofed spaces are exhausting. Then there’s timing everything around naptime, setting up a good space to change a diaper, etc. I spent one Christmas Day just rocking my fussy, 4-month-old firstborn. And toddlers are independent, but you can’t let them out of your sight! I loved Christmas Eve as a young adult, having festive cocktails by the firepit and attending Midnight Mass. But now we get ready for Santa, so we do Christmas Eve Mass and enjoy leisurely Christmas mornings at home watching the kiddos’ eyes light up at the goodies St. Nick brought. Then we head to my parents’ or my in-laws’ for a feast. This is the season of life I’m in, and while it is certainly different from years past, I am loving it. I will also love getting back to larger gatherings, making sure my children know their extended family like I knew mine growing up. I thought 2020 might be the year that we started doing that — but it will have to wait a while. For now, I am savoring the slower, smaller nature of these family holidays, and I hope you and yours will, as well. Letter from Ali Rouse Royster By Ali Rouse Royster, 3 rd Generation

By David W. Brown

It was the first hurricane for Chad “The Beast” Seales. He had taken over as store director for the Moss Bluff location of Rouses Markets only two years earlier, and weather forecasters were converging on grim news: Hurricane Laura was headed straight for the Lake Charles area, which included Moss Bluff.

All Seales knew, really, was what locals told him not long after he arrived — and he asked everyone. He learned that after Hurricane Rita in 2005, wind damage left people without power for almost a month. No grocery stores were able to provide them with ice, water or the necessities of survival. Seales was determined that if Laura hit, his Rouses would be ready. “If things went bad,” said Seales, “we were going to help this community by being stocked, being clean, and being organized every day — and we were going to open the day after the storm.” For the people of Moss Bluff and the surrounding area, things did indeed go bad. The storm hit like a freight train, and overnight, lives, fortunes, businesses and families were displaced, upended, ruined and lost. Seales’ wife, Jennifer, and his children left town the next day for safety. “Home to me is my family. We have a saying above our bed: ‘Home is where you lay your head." He was determined to help other homes and families get through this thing. Laura came through on a Thursday morning. That night, his Rouses crew cleaned up and sealed leaks as best they could. Friday morning, Rouses was selling ice and water in the parking lot. That evening, every register was back open.

“We are locals helping locals,” Seales said. “That’s what we do. It’s not just a gimmick and it’s not about making money. We want to help you. If there’s no power and you’re living out of an ice chest, you need ice, and we made sure we had it.” Though power was down for weeks, they never once ran out. Seales says he’s never seen a company as prepared for hurricanes as Rouses. Employees from across Louisiana joined the Moss Bluff team to help relieve the local workers who had their own problems to deal with. The company rented out entire floors of hotels to give displaced workers a safe place to sleep, and the company provided meals for the devastated team. “I’ve never seen another company do something like that for its workers,” said Seales, “and I’ll work at Rouses for the rest of my life because of that.” It’s just what families do. When Delta hit weeks later, Seales’ family was still out of town, and he decided to sleep in his store with a couple of volunteers. Rouses, again, was going to help the community find its legs after another devastating strike. “This is the longest I’ve been without my family, but our house had a lot of damage,” said Seales. It’s been hard, and he is looking forward to being reunited. The house can be fixed. And he’s looking forward to it being a home once more.

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A house is only brick and mortar. A home is where families come together — that’s what brings that brick and mortar to life. Home is where families and friends share all the events of life, the smiles and laughter, the accomplishments. It’s where we usher in new generations with strong foundations. Family, friends, food, fun…some of the most important things. – Calvin Kramer, Store Director, Thibodaux, LA

When I think about home, I think of my family and friends spending time together, caring for each other. My parents instilled values in me and my sibling that I carry with me to this day; now I pass those values down to my kids, nieces and nephews. I loved celebrating the holidays, when all my friends were welcome to gather at my parents’ home. – Stanley Duplessis, Store Director, New Orleans, LA

A true home is one of the most sacred places in the midst of the world. Home is a kingdom of its own. It’s the place where you can be yourself, kick your shoes off, get away from world stress, to do the things that you really love doing and to spend time with your family. It’s the place where you find true peace. – Michael Cooper, Store Director, Daphne, AL

When I think of home, I think about showing my family how much I love them through my cooking. I grew up in a family where my aunts and maw-maw would cook our family favorites for every event. We may not have had money or material things, but we always had love and good food to eat. What I wouldn’t give to walk in my maw-maw’s kitchen one more time and smell her famous gumbo simmering on the stove. – Donna Madere-Dickerson, Store Director, Baton Rouge, LA

Home is a place where you create a paradise, say in your backyard. Whether it’s hot, cold or warm, it feels just right. Home is where you can sit back, enjoy a breath of fresh air and admire God’s creation. When I was growing up all the social events and family gatherings were at our house. It was great waking up to the holiday smell of turkey cooking each year — and my grandmother’s blackberry dumplings. Now I’ve started hosting some of the holiday gatherings; my sister is cooking my grandmother’s famous blackberry dumplings; my mother whips up the rice dressing — all keeping the family traditions alive. – Brian J. Naquin, Store Director, Houma, LA

When I think of home, many things come to mind. First and foremost, my family. The love my wife, our boys and I share makes our home complete. Home is where I can set my worries aside and relax. Then there are the daily chores around the house: mowing the lawn, minor house repairs and even “honey dos.” Things others view as an obligation, I view as accomplishments. Home is my happy place; it’s where I always look forward to being at the end of the day. – Gary Watts, Store Director, Saraland, AL

Our house was clean when I was a kid but it always had toys on the living room floor. My daughter Sheena has two children. She keeps her three-year-old Rowan’s little slide and trampoline in the living room. She says after a long day at work, she enjoys watching Rowan jump and slide in the living room — just like I did with my kids. ( Her husband Bradley had to learn to accept toys in the living room — ha ha.) Life is too short not to enjoy the little things. Stop and play with the kids. The chores are not going anywhere, but your kids will grow up way too fast. – Belinda Long, Store Director, New Iberia, LA

We have two kids: one’s in college and one’s married and gave us a grandchild. They all come over for the holidays, one of the few times of the year we’re all together. Home to me is family. My wife decorates for each season starting with fall; it’s nice to come home to. The best part is relaxing with the family and just us all spending time together, usually followed by a special meal. – Robert Strahan, Store Director, Gulfport, MS

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By David W. Brown

With Thanksgiving comes that usual Big November Argument, and this year it might be more heated than usual because of the two choices available. Everyone’s opinions are set firmly, which means persuasion is out the window, and all that’s left are acrimony and indignation. We’ve been apart for so long, our opinions on the thing have been solidi- fied on social media, and add in the absurdly high levels of stress we’ve experienced this year…well, dinner conversation is going to be ugly. I’m talking, of course, about whether it’s called “dressing” or “stuffing.”

Let the debate end before it begins. What is it called? The answer is: It depends — and not on what you expect. As it turns out (contrary to longtime thinking on the subject) a dressing that is stuffed and baked inside of a turkey is not called a stuffing. Similarly, a stuffing baked in a casserole dish is not a dressing. I’m not sure how to break this to you, but the words are interchangeable, and dependent entirely on where you are from. People in the North call it “stuffing.” People in the South call it “dressing.” It’s like soda versus pop versus Coke. Knowing the terminology, if your in-laws are from out of town and you want to keep the peace, just nod at their weird Northernism. If you like a little friction with your turkey, when they say, “Wow, this stuffing is great!” smile and nod and say, “Yes, this dressing certainly is,” and everyone can take a long sip of wine in silence. Here’s the good news: The dressing (I mean that’s what it should be called) can be neutral ground. Because unlike Karen’s green bean casserole, Rouses will prepare your dressing for you, making it one fewer item to manage in the chaos of a Thanksgiving kitchen. “We offer three basic varieties,” says Mike Westbrook, the deli director for Rouses Markets. “Cornbread dressing; a shrimp and mirliton dressing; and an oysters Bienville dressing. The latter two are classic New Orleans Thanksgiving dinner dishes. Rouses means local, and the dressings are no different. “For the shrimp and mirliton dressing, we use locally grown mirlitons and Gulf shrimp,” he says. It is tossed in Creole seasonings and prepared with French bread crumbs. The oysters Bienville, meanwhile, is made with Gulf oysters. It is simmered in sweet butter with the holy trinity — onion, celery and bell pepper — and with a kick of Creole seasoning. The cornbread dressing is made with the sautéed trinity, plus garlic and butter, all tossed with Cajun spices and mixed with sweet cornbread crumbles. The dressings are longtime staples of Rouses going back well over a decade. They only appear in Rouses delis during the holidays — November throughNewYear’s, and occasionally at Easter. (Mike says that during the Lenten season, Rouses also offers a crawfish dressing.) The dressings are part of a broader selection of Thanksgiving Dinner options. That’s right: Rouses can do everything except eat the food for you — unless you invite us over. (Please invite me over.) “You can buy a basic dinner and a larger, deluxe dinner,” says Mike. “Everything is also sold à la carte , for customers who might want to roast their own turkey, for example, but come to the deli to get the

sides, taking some of the pressure off of the family.” The sides are sold by the pound, offered in individual sizes all the way up to two pounds. (Two pounds of oysters Bienville will feed a family of six, unless they are really hungry.) All of the dressings are old Rouse Family recipes — and the Rouse family takes food very seriously. Every year before the big rollout begins, Donny Rouse, the third-generation CEO of Rouses Markets, sits down with the store chefs and other family members, and they taste each recipe, and together in the kitchen they hone the flavors to meet the standards laid down by Anthony Rouse, the founder of Rouses Markets. “Every year we try them to make sure the flavor profiles of the dishes haven’t changed,” says Mike. Not every crop or creature of the sea tastes the same from year to year, and spices and ratios have to be altered to accommodate for such variations. “This is something where the family tries the product and everybody has to sign off, saying this is the holiday product that we are proud to serve to our customers.” The Rouses chain of supermarkets is more than 60 stores strong across the Gulf Coast, stretching from Orange Beach, Alabama all the way to Southwest Louisiana. That’s great news if you are traveling to see family one or two states over: Rouses delis strive to ensure that every order of dressing tastes exactly as it is supposed to, whether you order it in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Diamondhead, Mississippi; or West Mobile, Alabama. In other words, if you are in charge of the oysters Bienville dressing this year, don’t worry about it defrosting in the car. The dressings come refrigerated in the deli section, prepackaged as grab-and-go items. To make sure there’s still some left when you get to the store, you can order ahead and pick it up when you get there — wherever there is. The dressings come fully prepared but need to be reheated, which is a breeze. First, preheat your oven to 350°F. Transfer the dressing to an oven-safe dish and bake for 30 minutes. Then use an oven thermometer to check the internal temperature; the magic number is 155°F. If it’s still a little low, let the dressing bake for another 10 minutes, then check and repeat until you’re there. This will put a nice crust on top of each of the dressings. (You can also microwave them — they even come in a microwaveable container — but beware: no conventional oven, no crispy goodness.) Look, you need to be careful when doing all this, because when it’s ready and you pull the dish from the oven, it’s going to be hot. The

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most important step is to take the empty Rouses dressing container and throw it in the outside trash can, so that you can take full credit for preparing the dish without worrying about anyone discovering your clever ruse. “What I find interesting about the holiday dinner table in the southern part of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast is that there is a lot more seafood on the dinner menu than you would traditionally find elsewhere,” Mike says. The shrimp and mirliton and oysters Bienville dressings can intimidate home cooks who might otherwise prepare them from scratch. Ordering them premade by Rouses allows families the chance to try something a little more daring and a lot more local, with less fright from an already fraught kitchen holiday. Mike explains that the shrimp and mirliton, with its local ingredients from local farms and fisheries, is a wonderful side. Meanwhile, the oysters Bienville is a particular treat for out-of-towners who don’t necessarily know what Louisiana cuisine is all about. It is brimming with local oysters and flavored with lots of oyster liquor. In other words, if you want something a little bit different, and with a Louisiana flair, it’s the perfect item. “These dressings are holiday classics,” says Mike. “They are some of our best-selling products in the deli. We sell out of shrimp and mirliton and oysters Bienville every year — they are two of our most requested items.” Every year the deli prepares more and more dressing to keep up with demand, and every year, he says, they sell more than the year before. “We expect to double the sales of shrimp and mirliton this year. And you know, it just continues growing a bigger and bigger fan base.” Maybe this is the year your family becomes a fan. Even if some people insist on calling it “stuffing.”

Prefer to make your own? Flip to our Holiday 101 Cooking Guide, starting on page 34, for these delicious holiday recipes! For even more recipes, head to www.rouses.com.

Mr. Anthony Rouse’s Down Home Oyster Dressing, page 42

Stuffed Mirlitons, page 44

Cornbread & Andouille Dressing, page 43

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16 NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2020

By Sarah Baird

When it comes to dishes that were popular in the mid-20th century, it’s safe to say that most didn’t quite have the staying power to carry them through the ages. Crack open any community cookbook compiled in the 1950s or ’60s, and you’ll find some pretty oddball creations that were considered fairly normal at the time. “Mystery Salad” from the Junior League of Lafayette’s Talk About Good! , for instance, is a combination of raspberry gelatin, stewed tomatoes and hot sauce dolloped with a sour cream, sugar and horseradish mixture. A few pages later, we’re introduced to the “Carrot Ring,” which bakes eggs, mashed carrots and grated cheese in a bundt pan, then serves it up with creamed English peas in the center like a volcano. (Jiggly dishes were really a thing.) Even the restaurant favorites of the era never found their way back into popular taste despite the rise of interest in mid-century aesthetics a few years ago, thanks to a little show called Mad Men . Everyone might’ve been sipping Stinger cocktails next to their well-stocked bar carts and furiously searching for Eames chairs, but the likes of Chicken Kiev and Veal Cordon Bleu never reached revival-level status on menus. And even if some of us (myself included) have eaten a few of these headscratcher dips and casseroles from the past at our grandmothers’ tables, it takes a truly special and inviting dish created in this partic- ular era to not just survive — but thrive — as the decades have passed on. For many families across the Gulf South, there’s no better example of a deeply beloved, mid-century community cookbook favorite than Spinach Madeleine. In many ways, Spinach Madeleine shares a lot of fundamental similarities with other creations of the day. Thanks to the post-World War II rise of “high-tech” shelf-stable and processed foods, flash freezing and then-novel kitchen gadgets, a whole lot of experimenta- tion was going on in kitchens across America. “By the early 1960s, shelf-stable foods lined the colorful aisles of supermarkets. Widespread refrigeration was still only a few decades old, and there were plenty of home cooks who remembered the necessity of shopping daily for meat, vegetables, and dairy products in the 1920s and ’30s,” writes Sarah Archer in her 2019 book, The Midcentury Kitchen . “The food technology developed during World

War II changed the way Americans ate, and how they planned and shopped for food. In her 2015 book, Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the US Military Shapes the Way You Eat , Anastacia Marx de Salcedo sums it up this way: ‘In the universe of processed food, World War II was the Big Bang.’” SpinachMadeleine is, without a doubt, a shining star from that bang. A combination of spinach (frozen, then drained—with liquid reserved), sautéed onion and Kraft Jalapeño Cheese Roll (which was, at the time, newfangled) all creamed up with butter, flour, evaporated milk and spices, Spinach Madeleine was created by St. Francisville, Louisiana-native Madeline Wright in 1956. Gooey and ever versatile, the dish can be served warm as a sort of extravagant dip or topped with buttered bread crumbs and baked off in casserole form if you’re taking it to a friend’s house. (Either way, you’re going to end up eating many, many helpings.) And while the story goes that its creation was something of an accident, its immediate popularity — and wide- ranging influence — is the stuff of kitchen lore. “I didn’t know what I was doing really,” Wright explained to The Advocate in 2017. “I had bought this (Kraft) jalapeño cheese roll at the grocery store and put it in the freezer…I was in a two-table bridge club and it was my time to host. I was trying to figure out what to serve my friends. My mother-in-law had a really good creamed spinach recipe, and I decided to fix that. On a whim, I put the jalapeño cheese into the creamed spinach. I was so surprised the girls were so amazed by the dish. They really liked it.” Just like that, old methods met new ingredients, and a legacy was born. Then, in 1959, Spinach Madeleine was approved for inclusion in the Junior League of Baton Rouge’s River Road Recipes (after being properly tested by the cookbook committee, naturally), where it was given a little bit of extra-French flair when the creator’s name, Madeline, became “Madeleine” in the recipe’s name. (Why a recipe that prominently features jalapeños needed a Parisian touch is a mid-century mystery we may never fully unlock.) Almost overnight, Spinach Madeleine went from the local bridge club to just about everywhere in the region, as the spicy, cheesy creation quickly became a much-talked-about (and eaten) standout dish from the book, helping propel sales of River Road ’s first edition to over 1.4 million copies since its original release date in September 1959. And while it is assuredly a dish defined by its mid-century roots in many ways (frozen spinach! cheese log!), the meteoric rise in popularity of Spinach Madeleine and its staying power have shown that there’s something deeper than just its delicious, comfort food appeal. Spinach Madeleine’s preparation is straightforward enough that even young kids can help in the cooking process, and plenty of families have spent the holidays in the kitchen introducing their next generation to the dish. It freezes easily and can be double — or triple! — batched without a second thought, meaning that feeding a

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Spinach Madeleine Serves 5-6

bigger-than-anticipated Thanksgiving crowd comes easy. And it’s a dish that feels, well, personal: There’s a local woman behind the recipe who shared it with the world so that your family could share it together. It’s a heartfelt meal that turns the simple into the extraor- dinary. (Plus, it’s a great way to get youngsters to eat vegetables.) The beloved spinach creation is so entwined in Louisiana food culture that not even the discontinuation of a key ingredients in 1999 — Kraft’s Jalapeño Cheese Roll — could stop the recipe’s omnipres- ence at potlucks and celebratory dinners. Instead (after calling the Kraft helpline to lodge their complaints, of course) people just got creative with re-creating the flavor and texture of the beloved roll in other ways, tweaking different balances of heat and meltiness to try to reach the perfect formula. By 2000 — sensing that a low-grade panic had gripped Spinach Madeleine devotees — the folks behind River Road Recipes released an “officially” updated recipe that replaced the jalapeño cheese roll with regular Kraft Velveeta cheese and a couple of tablespoons of chopped jalapeños, allowing those less interested in recipe tinkering to have a go-to preparation method. Today, cooking Spinach Madeleine in novel, outside-the-box styles reflects how, as much as the dish is a staple in its classic form, like any good piece of culture, it’s also keeping up with the times. There are vegan versions that use coconut cream and nutri- tional yeast for thickening, and iterations that now err on the side of pepper jack for the cheese component. Even fine dining chefs have gotten in on the act, with John Folse suggesting that, for extra holiday festivity, chopped red bell peppers could be added in with the sautéed onions. And whether you’re eating it the traditional way or trying a new approach, there’s something uniquely fulfilling about understanding where a dish originated and how it’s impacted lives for over 70 years. Ms. Wright passed away just a few short months ago, and I’d like to think that the best way to honor her memory — and the memory of everyone who gives a little piece of themselves through sharing recipes — would be by whipping up a Spinach Madeleine this year.

This spicy spinach dish is one of the most famous recipes in the River Road Recipes cookbook series. It was invented by St. Francisville, Louisiana, native Madeline Wright in 1956 and published three years later in the first edition of the cookbook. After Kraft’s jalapeño cheese roll — the key ingredient of the dish — was discontinued — the Junior League’s River Road Recipes committee came up with a feasible substitution: Kraft Velveeta® cheese and chopped jalapeño peppers.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED: 2 packages frozen chopped spinach

4 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 2 tablespoons chopped onion ½ cup evaporated milk ½ cup vegetable liquor (the water from the spinach) 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce ½ teaspoon black pepper ¾ teaspoon celery salt ¾ teaspoon garlic salt Salt to taste 6 ounces Kraft Velveeta cheese, cut into small pieces 2 tablespoons chopped jalapeño peppers Red pepper to taste

“Spinach Madeleine is a new item that Rouses is offering this year. It is a classical, traditional South Louisiana dish that people make at holiday times. It’s a sautéed spinach with sweet onions, similar to creamed spinach. Locally, we usually add a lot of garlic and pepper jack cheese to it, and hit it with a touch of seafood seasoning. When we prepare it at Rouses, we even garnish it with extra shredded mozzarella on top, so that when customers get home it’s melted down and even creamier. This is our first time offering it as a holiday side, and we will start selling it in mid-November through New Year’s.” — Mike Westbrook, deli director for Rouses Markets HOW TO PREP: Cook spinach according to directions on package. Drain and reserve liquor. Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Add flour, stirring until blended and smooth, but not brown. Add onion and cook until soft but not brown. Add all liquids slowly, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Cook until smooth and thick; continue stirring. Add seasonings and pieces of cheese. Add jalapeños. Stir until cheese is melted. Combine with cooked spinach. This may be served immediately or put into a casserole and topped with buttered bread crumbs. The flavor is improved if the latter is done and it’s kept in the refrigerator overnight. This may also be frozen.

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By Sarah Baird

With its rigid-to-knobby, fluorescent-green skin and thick, pear-shaped body, the mirliton has wrapped itself around the hearts of South Louisianians for generations as deftly as it wraps its vines along chain- link fencerows and backyard arbors, becoming the de facto favorite local squash simply by, well, always hanging around on the vine.

“Mirliton is a pedestrian vegetable,” laughs Dr. Lance Hill, founder of the Mirliton.org project, which supports education and research about Louisiana’s heirloom mirlitons as well as (among other things) the “mirliton classifieds,” where growers can swap mirliton seeds, seedlings and full-grown plants. It’s more commonly known as “chayote” across Mexico and Central America; using the term “mirliton” is unique to mostly South Louisiana and Haiti. Spotting mirliton hanging willy-nilly everywhere around town has become significantly less common over the past couple of decades, due in large part to environmental challenges (Hurricane Katrina practically wiped out New Orleans’ crop in 2005) and the drum of development (mirlitons don’t grow as well in fill dirt). But with major efforts to bring back local varietals, neighborhood festivals that have the vegetable as their theme (like the over 25-year run of the Bywater Mirliton Festival), and chefs, including John Folse, embracing the ingredient with open arms, the mirliton is now poised to be revered as the kind of ingredient that’s versatile, considerate of other ingredients, and equally adept in high-end cuisine or home cooking. “Mirliton has had a kind of hapless life up until now,” says Hill. “In France, there’s actually a cartoon figure from 40 or 50 years ago called Mr. Mirliton, who’s a real doofus. In Brazil, to call someone a “chocho” [ shu-shu ], which is their word for mirliton, means you’re insipid, flavorless. That’s a bad rap for the mirliton, because

Hill notes that, both inside and outside of traditional Creole and Cajun preparations, mirliton is often treated as an extender ingredient thanks to its inherent starchiness: meant to make a dish heartier, thicker or meatier (without, obviously, adding the meat). But it doesn’t have to only be that way. Finding fresh ways to cook with unique, local-favorite ingredients provides an avenue toward greater kitchen exploration and — maybe through a little trial and error — some really delicious discoveries. Using the funky, underrated mirliton as an example, here are a few ways to approach cooking with a fruit or vegetable you might not be all that familiar with or one you’d like to know more about — just in time for your discoveries to hit the holiday table. GET BASIC In order to really cook intuitively with a piece of produce, you have to know the nitty-gritty about it: how to choose a quality version, how to clean it, how to peel it (or if you even need to peel it), how to slice it, what parts are edible and what parts aren’t (never discount roots or leaves!) and, of course, how it tastes. In her book Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table , Sara Roahen describes the flavor of the mirliton elegantly: “A raw mirliton crunches like a potato; it tastes like very green cucumber, and a little like zucchini. Sautéed, it tastes like starchy apples; boiled and fried, its translucent green flesh suggests what a honeydew melon would look, feel, and taste like if honeydew melon were a vegetable.” Intimacy with the foundational details of how to treat a fruit or vegetable will go a long way towards inspiring confidence and will, hopefully, produce better dishes. When it comes to mirlitons, they’re not very fussy. When selecting your produce, look for firm, small mirlitons that have no discoloration or residue on them, and if they have a spiny layer, peel that off prior to cooking if possible. They can be prepared pretty much every which way — baked, fried, sautéed, pickled,

it’s not true. First of all, it’s not flavorless. If it’s flavorless, then you’re going to have to say, ‘Cucumbers have

no flavor.’ Mirlitons have plenty of flavor; most dishes just don’t tap into it.”

puréed, diced up raw in salads like jicama, you name it — either with the tough skin on or off. If you’re peeling it raw, do so under running water, or wash your hands immediately after: They secrete a sticky substance that might aggravate your skin. And if you’re thinking about cooking with your own freshly grown crop of backyard mirlitons, Hill advises to wait a little while and use store-bought ones until the plants are better established. “I have to say right now, with every mirliton we grow, I tell people don’t eat them because they’re babies. You need to plant them and get them growing, but most

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LEARN ITS COMPATIBILITIES Every piece of produce has a wide variety of spices, herbs, grains — and even other types of produce— that help to make it shine. Satsumas, for example, balance beautifully against vanilla in sweeter creations like shortbreads and parfaits, but can just as easily team up with a little bit of coriander and ginger as the perfect glaze to cut through the richness of duck. Treating an ingredient as a one-trick (or one-flavor) pony is a surefire way to miss out on its exquisite range. Pretty much any piece of produce has the ability to play nicely with dozens of other unexpected ingredients and build flavorful complexity — if you only give it a chance. “An essential aspect of great cooking is harnessing compatible flavors, which involves knowing which...flavorings best accentuate particular ingredients,” writes Karen Page in the kitchen must-have, The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs , which offers some of the strongest charts, explainers and reference points out there for how to pair ingredients and flavors based on all of the senses. “A process of trial-and-error over the centuries resulted in…timeless combinations of beloved flavor pairings — for example, basil with tomatoes [and] rosemary with lamb. However, today it’s possible to use scientific techniques to analyze similar molecular structures to come up with new, compatible pairing possibilities, as odd as some might sound — jasmine with pork liver [or] parsley with banana.” When it comes to mirliton — with its apple-meets-cucumber clean taste — Hill discovered that cornmeal is (somewhat surprisingly) an ideal counterpart for the squash, and mirliton corn muffins soon became a hit at his house. “When I was initially trying to make my mirliton muffins, there were recipes that used mirlitons and wheat flour, and it always turned out horribly, because mirlitons have a lot of moisture and they discharge it while baking, so you get a soggy product,” Hill explains. “I discovered that cornmeal absorbs moisture, and that any moisture mirlitons can put out is absorbed into the muffin, so the resulting muffin is not only light and moist, but it’s this wonderful flavor that’s the essence of Mexican cuisine.” (If you’d like to try your hand at a batch of these for Thanksgiving, the recipe is on mirliton.org.) Mirlitons also have the unique ability to serve as the star of a sweet dish as much as a savory creation. Hill has been working for a while

people don’t have enough patience to wait and grow more,” he explains, understanding that his advice might not be taken to heart by many. “People want to eat the mirlitons that their grandma made, though, so I think most of them get consumed.” START WITH THE CLASSICS Speaking of grandmothers, the next step in learning how to really work with a piece of produce in the most creative number of ways is by starting with the classics. For mirliton, that means two things: stuffed mirliton and mirliton dressing. Ask 100 people in South Louisiana how to make stuffed mirlitons and mirliton dressing and you’re going to get 100 different answers — every family has their own, quasi-secret recipes passed down throughout the generations that they’ll swear by. There’s stuffed mirliton with sausage that’s the standard-to-beat for some, then it’s a trio of seafood stuffing ingredients — crabmeat, shrimp and crawfish — that’s the gold standard for others. You include a garden’s worth of vegetables in your stuffed mirliton, or you think that the meat-meets- mirliton flavor should shine through. You’re a spice-it-up devotee, or you believe salt and pepper (and maybe a little bit of hot sauce) can make it sing. Whatever your chosen path, mirliton is a vegetable simply begging to be stuffed, baked and devoured thanks to its naturally hollowed-out middle (once the seed is removed). With mirliton dressing, there’s the same ability to play around with family preference and personal taste until you find just the right combination to hit that delicious-meets-nostalgia sweet spot. Shrimp and mirliton with day-old French bread remains the classic, but adding crabmeat or sausage, or replacing the French bread with cornbread, are also stellar moves. “My introduction to mirlitons was backyard growing and traditional New Orleans recipes decades ago. My neighbor shows up one day with this Schwegmann’s bag full of these things, and said, ‘Do you want mirlitons?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, what do you do with them?’” Hill chuckles. “He goes, ‘I’ll send Gladys over with some recipes.’ I got stuffed mirlitons, mirliton casserole and mirliton pie. Mirliton pie has kind of fallen out of favor, but my sons request that for their birthday. It’s not at all a pie, it’s more like a banana bread. It has a such a unique flavor.”

ROUSES

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Recipe on page 44

PHOTO BY ROMNEY CARUSO

on a marmalade recipe with mirliton featuring Jamaican-inspired flavors like lime, allspice and clove. “I’m not a chef, but I do know from my own experiments that mirlitons not only blend well with other foods, they complement other foods,” explains Hill. “People don’t generally think of that.” SWAP IT IN Understanding what sort of family tree a vegetable has — its direct relatives, its weirdo cousins, its texture equivalent — will lead to a

an extremely rich range of options to search through while exploring mirliton’s range. (The mirliton.org website alone offers links to over 500 global recipes.) And if you’re thinking of mixing up the Thanksgiving menu this year, a Honduran preparation of mirliton might make the perfect morning-after breakfast. “[Mirlitons] grow very big in Honduras. There’s a dish where they put locally made queso in the center, then dip it in an egg batter and fry it in a pan with a tomato sauce to cook

Mirliton is part of the gourd family (pumpkins, cantaloupe, butternut squash — the list goes on and on) which means if there’s a squash recipe you love, go ahead and try it out with mirliton.

it down. So, it’s basically a kind of overgrown omelet,” says Hill. “It’s wonderful because that’s actually three fairly milder flavors — mirliton, cheese, egg — with a sauce that just pulls it all together.” On the boozier side of things, if anyone’s wondering: Yes, you can make a wine out of it. “Mirliton wine is a traditional alcoholic drink in Jamaica, and I talked to a vintner about that one time. They said, ‘Yeah, we would make some, but we need about 40 gallons of mirliton juice,’” laughs Hill. “But then I talked to a woman who said that her husband used to make [mirliton wine] out in Metairie. Well, then I finally found a recipe for it. It was innovation.” When it comes to an unfamiliar piece of produce, the inspiration is there to start experimenting if your ideas are bold enough. And mirliton is there, waiting with bated breath, for you to show it a little bit of innovation.

lot of chances to use familiar preparations with a new ingredient. You might not love potatoes, but mashed turnips will give you the same beautiful consistency and starch with just a little bit more earthy bite. Not an eggplant person or allergic to nightshades? Zucchini can act in a lot of the same ways as eggplant without sacrificing taste or mouthfeel. Mirliton is part of the gourd family (pumpkins, cantaloupe, butternut squash — the list goes on and on) which means if there’s a squash recipe you love, go ahead and try it out with mirliton. The results might surprise you — and might be even tastier than the original version. GO ABROAD Mirliton is — if nothing else — a completely global vegetable. Around the world it’s called everything from Iskush in Nepal, to Choko in Australia, to Fo shou gua in China, ensuring that there’s

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