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Speaker 1: This is not the American South. This is the northernmost

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Speaker 1: point in the Caribean And if you begin to turn

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Speaker 1: your head to that, it all fits in. Hello, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to Savor. I'm Anny Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum.

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Speaker 1: And today we're talking about New Orleans. Yeah, a little

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Speaker 1: old city called New Orleans. You probably haven't heard of it,

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Speaker 1: so okay, Yeah. A couple of months ago we spent

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Speaker 1: five days in New Orleans collecting audio from all kinds

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Speaker 1: of folks, authors, historians, chefs, restaurant managers, bartenders, pastry chefs,

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Speaker 1: about eighteen different interviews, and you'll be hearing pieces of

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Speaker 1: those over a series of episodes coming out of the

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Speaker 1: next few weeks, looking at things like gumbo, kincake. No

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Speaker 1: shortage of topics, No, not at all, not at all.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it's going to be difficult to choose the topics.

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Speaker 1: I would say, oh, yeah, that's a problem for future, Yeah, futurist.

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Speaker 1: But it was a rowand of a trip. And this

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Speaker 1: also happened to be the week before Thanksgiving, and all

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Speaker 1: of us forgot about We totally forgot about Thanksgiving. And

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Speaker 1: for those of you familiar with American Thanksgiving, you might

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Speaker 1: realize that's not the best time to ask people who

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Speaker 1: work in the food industry or anyone. Yeah, but especially

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Speaker 1: food industry to come talk to you. Yes, no one's

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Speaker 1: going to be around or want to do that. So

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Speaker 1: that was that was a bit of a thing that happened.

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Speaker 1: And I was coming from vacation in Florida, so I

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Speaker 1: wasn't home for like three weeks because we went to

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Speaker 1: New York immediately from Yeah, we flew. Yeah, you had

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Speaker 1: this one backpack that was bafflingly filled with everything you

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Speaker 1: needed for three weeks away from home and Florida, New

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Speaker 1: Orleans and New York in the middle of the winter. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I call it my my Sisterhood of traveling backpack, even

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Speaker 1: though it doesn't really make sense, but it's been with

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Speaker 1: me on many trips and it can fit an amazing

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Speaker 1: amount of things in there. But I will say I

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Speaker 1: didn't pack very well for this trip. I packed as

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Speaker 1: if I was going to Antarctica, but no warm clothes

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Speaker 1: because it was really warm in Florida at the time anyway.

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Speaker 1: But yes, New Orleans was a great choice for our

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Speaker 1: second Saver City mini series Extravaganza are first being on Asheville.

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Speaker 1: We tried all the food are we we tried to

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Speaker 1: and all of the drinks we tried to um and

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Speaker 1: we went out to not one but two festivals. Oh yes,

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Speaker 1: it was quite the undertaking. As you might be aware,

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Speaker 1: New Orleans has like a little bit of a food

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Speaker 1: and drink scene, just a little bit. It's not intimidating

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Speaker 1: at all to try to tackle it, not at all.

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Speaker 1: This was both of our second times in New Orleans

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Speaker 1: and super producer Dylan's first time. Right, Lauren, you've been before, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: And this is also another on with Pronunciation episode. We

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Speaker 1: should really do a super cut of all the ways

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Speaker 1: we heard New Orleans pronounced while we were there. I

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Speaker 1: think the way that I say it changed over the

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Speaker 1: course of the trip. Oh yes, I don't think I

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Speaker 1: have a consistent way of saying it. Oh no, apologies

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Speaker 1: for that. In advance thanks to the spectacular film Scooby

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Speaker 1: Doo on Zombie Island with a soundtrack by Third Eye Blind.

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Speaker 1: By the way, I used to think I had the

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Speaker 1: best New Orleans accent. I would show it off to

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Speaker 1: people at school, But sadly I do not think this

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Speaker 1: was the case. I still remember the line, though and

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Speaker 1: I'm not above embarrassing myself for podcast entertain Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: well will you do it for us? All right? All right?

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Speaker 1: I wasn't exaggerating when I says these were the hottest

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Speaker 1: peppers and Luisiana. That was spectacular. Actually, I'm very sorry

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Speaker 1: to everyone from New Orleans. But if we can find

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Speaker 1: the quote from the original movie, I was doing that

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Speaker 1: bad accent from the movie very well. I wasn't exaggerating

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Speaker 1: when I said they was the hottest peppers in Louisiana.

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Speaker 1: But I digress. Let's ask our question New Orleans. What

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Speaker 1: is it? Well? New Orleans is a city located in

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Speaker 1: the southeastern corner of Louisiana, which is in the southeastern

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Speaker 1: corner of the United States. It's a port town just

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Speaker 1: off the Gulf of Mexico with water access to the Gulf,

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Speaker 1: and it's a snuggled up next to the Mississippi River.

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Speaker 1: A total of nearly one point three million people live

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Speaker 1: in the metro area, but the actual city houses just

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Speaker 1: under four hundred thousand. Again smaller than I thought, but

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Speaker 1: it is a huge tourist town, over a million people

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Speaker 1: lying the streets during Mardi Gras. Not have mentioned the

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Speaker 1: seemingly endless events like jazz Fest are the two we

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Speaker 1: went to Budan Bourbon and Beer and po Boy Fest.

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Speaker 1: Hospitality and tourism make up a major part of the economy,

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Speaker 1: and that means food and drink depending on who you ask.

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Speaker 1: New Orleans hosted between ten and seventeen million visitors in

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Speaker 1: seventeen who collectively spent between seven and eight billion dollars.

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Speaker 1: And Okay, every city is unique, but New Orleans is

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Speaker 1: like real unique. It's over three hundred years old. It

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Speaker 1: just had its three hundred anniversary last year, actually, which

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Speaker 1: I know folks from lots of other regions of the

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Speaker 1: world will think, like, that's real cute, But no, that's

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Speaker 1: quite old for the United States. And it's geography and

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Speaker 1: sport access have meant that it's been a place of

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Speaker 1: interest to all of the cultures that have come together

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Speaker 1: or been brought together, um to make up American culture.

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Speaker 1: But New Orleans wrote its recipe a little bit differently.

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Speaker 1: That quote that you heard at the top was from

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Speaker 1: Dr Jessica Harris, who's a journalist, podcaster, and the author

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Speaker 1: of several books exploring African and Caribbean food ways. That quote,

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Speaker 1: the South is north from here fundamentally changed how we

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Speaker 1: thought about New Orleans. She wasn't the only one who

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Speaker 1: said it either. We heard it echoed from Dr Howard Conyers,

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Speaker 1: who is both a barbecue pitmaster and an actual rocket scientist.

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Speaker 1: I would say New Orleans is very much a different

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Speaker 1: city from the rest of the South. It's really a

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Speaker 1: different city from the rest of the international city. I

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Speaker 1: will say it's definitely the northern most Caribbean city. You

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Speaker 1: gotas start thinking about the Haitian Revolution and who owned

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Speaker 1: the territories at certain time before New Orleans became part

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Speaker 1: of the United States, and the food experiences I've been

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Speaker 1: been a part of. I don't think I'll do it

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Speaker 1: anywhere else. The folks we spoke with might be a

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Speaker 1: little biased, but if you go there, you feel it,

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Speaker 1: and everyone talked about it. Here's Katie Casparian, co owner

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Speaker 1: of Our Nose, a restaurant that celebrated its hundredth birthday

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Speaker 1: last year. People sell it rate a Monday like it's

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Speaker 1: you know, not happening again the next week. And that's

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Speaker 1: what I say. That people have a uat of view

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Speaker 1: here that's unmatched, and you know, it doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: be anything really crazy going on that people have just

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Speaker 1: out one have a good time. And this from the

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Speaker 1: general manager, Christopher Horner, over at the Bombay Club, a

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Speaker 1: cocktail bar in the heart of the French Quarter. New

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Speaker 1: Orleans is like New Orthers city I've ever been in.

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Speaker 1: It has a great feel all the time. It's comfortable.

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Speaker 1: Um it's it's not perfect, and uh, that's that's that's

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Speaker 1: New Orleans. And here's Rebecca Chapman, the general manager at Brossard's,

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Speaker 1: another one of the city's oldest restaurants. There's no other

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Speaker 1: place like it. There's nowhere else that you can walk

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Speaker 1: and feel the history but also feel engaged with your

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Speaker 1: food and your senses. And this the vibrancy, and there's

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Speaker 1: it's just a feeling, you know. It's the people, it's

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Speaker 1: the environment, it's the history, it's the culture. It's how

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Speaker 1: we continue to on in the past but really want

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Speaker 1: to push forward. As author William Faulkner once wrote, the

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Speaker 1: past isn't dead in New Orleans. That was also echoed

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Speaker 1: by a tourist leader that I on my first time

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Speaker 1: in New Orleans. It's a ghost tour and he said,

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Speaker 1: he said it this way, the dead don't stay dead

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Speaker 1: in New Orleans. Um, that's something we experienced while we

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Speaker 1: were there, coming the dead people part. But well, well,

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Speaker 1: coming from Atlanta, where things over ten years old or

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Speaker 1: torn down, we all felt this history in the air.

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Speaker 1: Restaurants are bars made of old stone above ground cemeteries.

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Speaker 1: Not to mention ghost tour upon ghost tour and ghost

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Speaker 1: story upon ghost story. We missed our scheduled ghost tour

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Speaker 1: and I'm still so mad about it, but our interviewees

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Speaker 1: made up for it. Um. Anyway, Yeah, especially doing a

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Speaker 1: show about food, the history of New Orleans is is

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Speaker 1: very present. You can tell the whole story of the

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Speaker 1: city through food and drink. So a quick history, lesson

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Speaker 1: brief because New Orleans is, as we mentioned, an intimidating

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Speaker 1: city to tackle. Oh yeah, we've probably left things out.

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Speaker 1: We're sorry. We're trying to not become a like forty

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Speaker 1: New Orleans podcast. I wouldn't be opposed, per se, No,

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Speaker 1: it would be a shift in direction. In explore Rene,

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Speaker 1: Robeto Cavalier Soda la Salle claimed the Mississippi and its

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Speaker 1: entire basin for France, naming the region for his King

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Speaker 1: Louis the Fourth. Prior to that, The Spanish had explored

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Speaker 1: the area a bit, but not really done anything with

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Speaker 1: it um other than leave behind a few diseases that

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Speaker 1: would you know, reak havoc on the indigenous peoples who

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Speaker 1: had been there for at least six thousand years. These

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Speaker 1: were primarily d Macha, who foraged, cultivated, and hunted all

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Speaker 1: sorts of foods pecans sassafras, which was ground to make

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Speaker 1: a feel which is a thickener for soups and stews.

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Speaker 1: They had corns and beans and squash and tomatoes, crawfish

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Speaker 1: and oysters, and alligator and ducks and deer and bison. Um.

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Speaker 1: But yes. The French Nouvelle Orleans was founded by Jean Baptiste,

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Speaker 1: the Moyen de Bienville, who came from New France a

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Speaker 1: Canada in seventeen eighteen. It was named for French regent Philippe,

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Speaker 1: the second Duke Lands. The city expanded from the view

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Speaker 1: Kre or the Old Square, which later evolved into what

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Speaker 1: we call the French Quarter, and starting around seventeen twenty three,

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Speaker 1: the city built up on this sort of crescent shaped

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Speaker 1: high ground around a sharp bend of the Mississippi River,

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Speaker 1: hence the nickname Crescent City. I've always wondered. Since it

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Speaker 1: was a port city, it quickly became an important trading

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Speaker 1: town in the capital of the French colony. The conditions

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Speaker 1: were kind of miserable, though, a muggy, mosquito filled swamp.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of the first people sent to Louisiana

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Speaker 1: were criminals, the only ones that France could get to go.

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Speaker 1: Historians like to describe it as the impossible but inevitable city.

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Speaker 1: A story we heard while we were there is the

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Speaker 1: colony requested France send boatloads of women. Can't very well

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Speaker 1: have a colony without women. But imagine you're a French lady.

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Speaker 1: You get on a boat and you arrive at this

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Speaker 1: swampful of criminals and mosquitoes. They weren't happy, No, they

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Speaker 1: wanted to eat away their sorrows with bread. I can relate,

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Speaker 1: but we didn't grow well in Louisiana. So they went

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Speaker 1: up to the Governor's house banging on pots and pants,

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Speaker 1: demanding high quality bread. Beyond the next ship in Garden, France,

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Speaker 1: are they well out of there? But instead Madame Linguis,

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Speaker 1: a family friend of Governor Bienville, taught the women how

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Speaker 1: to make cornbread that is how the story goes. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the settlers made a lot of these culinary adaptations, partially

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Speaker 1: because the governor had collaborated with the native people's up

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Speaker 1: in New France to feed the colonists there, and it

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Speaker 1: really shaped what New Orleans cuisine would become. Here's Liz Williams,

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Speaker 1: the founder and director of the Southern Food and Beverage

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Speaker 1: Museum in New Orleans. But I think that the reason

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Speaker 1: there is a cuisine in Louisiana is because we actually

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Speaker 1: had a French background as opposed to what so much

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Speaker 1: of America knew America had, which was English. So if

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Speaker 1: you were an English columnist, you wanted to maintain your

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Speaker 1: identity as an English person, so you wanted to eat

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Speaker 1: like an English person. And there were actually settlements in

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Speaker 1: the early days in America where people starved to death,

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Speaker 1: and not because there wasn't food, but the us they

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Speaker 1: felt of the food of the savages was not the

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Speaker 1: food that they would eat because they were too English.

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Speaker 1: Whereas since we were French, we didn't have that attitude.

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Speaker 1: And our attitude was if it's here, it's French, because

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Speaker 1: this is as much France as France. So if we

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Speaker 1: have to eat an alligator. It's okay because it's a

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Speaker 1: French alligator. It was around the time of this supposed

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Speaker 1: Cornbread Revolution, the middle of the seventeen hundreds that we

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Speaker 1: start to see Cajun communities form. We also talked to

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Speaker 1: Amanda mcfillan, the associate director of museum Programs at the

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Speaker 1: Historic New Orleans Collective, which is a museum research center

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Speaker 1: and publisher located in the French Quarter. Amanda, who is

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Speaker 1: Cajun herself, spoke a bit about this along with Jessica.

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Speaker 1: I guess that the history of the Cajun, as they

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Speaker 1: are originally called the Acadians. There a group of French

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Speaker 1: settlers that originally from the Nova Scotia and East Coast

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Speaker 1: area of Canada in the mid eighteenth century. Around seventeen

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Speaker 1: fifty five, the British took over that area of Canada

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Speaker 1: and actually forcefully expelled all about twelve thousand Acadians from

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Speaker 1: that region, meaning they loaded them onto boats. They shipped

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Speaker 1: them up and down the East Coast, breaking up communities,

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Speaker 1: breaking up I mean friends never saw each other again.

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Speaker 1: Thousands of people died of disease and of drowning when

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Speaker 1: some of the ships sank. It was horrific. And some

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Speaker 1: of them did settle in other parts of Canada. UM.

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Speaker 1: Some settled along the East coast. But the largest group

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Speaker 1: of these, actually, over about twenty year period, came down

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Speaker 1: to Louisiana because at that point it was of Spanish territory,

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Speaker 1: and Spain and France were on good relations at that point,

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Speaker 1: and they needed good Roman Catholics to who knew how

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Speaker 1: to work the land to come into Louisiana and go

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Speaker 1: out from New Orleans into the rest of Louisiana and

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Speaker 1: settle that land. And so they did, and they've so

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Speaker 1: they've been here since the seventeen sixties. Um. And they

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Speaker 1: wherever they kind of landed, whether it be along the

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Speaker 1: water or kind of in the prairie parts of the state,

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Speaker 1: they made homes there. Made Kimmy, I'm just going to

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Speaker 1: add two things. Is certainly that expulsion from Nova Scotia

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Speaker 1: was the kind of trail of tears. If you were

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Speaker 1: the same thing as you know what happened. Um. But

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Speaker 1: we all sort of know it because in high school

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Speaker 1: or junior high school or whatever, somebody made you read Evangeline.

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Speaker 1: This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the

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Speaker 1: hemlocks bearded with mosson and garment. The Cajun diaspora, that's

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Speaker 1: what Evangeline is about. As the Acadians built up these

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Speaker 1: rural settlements and and mingled with other folks in the area,

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Speaker 1: Cajun culture developed a specific dialect of French, their own cuisine,

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Speaker 1: their own style of music. Meanwhile, as Amanda said, it

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Speaker 1: was also in the seventeen sixties that Spain takes over

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Speaker 1: the Louisiana territory for what would be thirty seven very

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Speaker 1: formative years. Influenced by the Muslim, Arabs and Africans of

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Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula, the Spanish brought a taste for heavier

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Speaker 1: spices and also created greater opportunity for communities of free

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Speaker 1: people of color to thrive in the city. Two huge

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Speaker 1: fires in the late seventeen hundreds destroyed most of the

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Speaker 1: French architecture in the city and made way for a

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Speaker 1: lot of Spanish stuff that's still around today. And of course,

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Speaker 1: New Orleans remained during this time an important trading post

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Speaker 1: both for goods and culture. Nearby colonies in Haiti and

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Speaker 1: Cuba gave New Orleans their distinctive red beans, a trade

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Speaker 1: through Central and South America, brought in coffee and bananas

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Speaker 1: and a taste for hot peppers. This is also when

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Speaker 1: part of the drinking culture of New Orleans was born.

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Speaker 1: Here's Liz Williams again in the early days. In the

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Speaker 1: early days, the city of New Orleans, whether it was

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Speaker 1: French or Spanish governing, made the money that was made

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Speaker 1: by selling tavern licenses, which were auctioned to the highest bidder,

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Speaker 1: and the taxes on the sale of liquor were what

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Speaker 1: funded the city of New Orleans. The government of the

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Speaker 1: city rolling. So obviously the more dream that you did,

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Speaker 1: the better it was for the city. Another cultural note,

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Speaker 1: and the history is a little difficult to pin down here,

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Speaker 1: but by the seventeen thirties, Carnival and Marty Grass celebrations

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Speaker 1: were woven into the culture. They dipped out a bit

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Speaker 1: during Spanish control, but blossomed once again when the city

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Speaker 1: came under US ownership. The parades got started in the

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Speaker 1: mid eighteen fifties. A mysterious society of businessmen dubbed the

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Speaker 1: Mystic Crew of Comus organized a parade outfitted with torches,

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Speaker 1: marching bands, and floats in eighty seven, cementing the tradition. Oh,

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Speaker 1: in case you're like me and you didn't know Crew

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Speaker 1: k R E w E. These are sort of these

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Speaker 1: themed groups that marched together in the parades. Oh. One

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Speaker 1: of our not interview subjects, but the marketing director at

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Speaker 1: Brennan's talked to us about her Crew Baca, her crew

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Speaker 1: called Crew Bacco, which is Star Wars themed. Yes, that

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Speaker 1: was still Eifel. She shared pictures. It was fantastic. Also,

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Speaker 1: they kind of vaguely invited us to their Marty Grass celebrations.

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Speaker 1: And I hope you're serious because bags are getting packed. Yes. Um.

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Speaker 1: Back in the timeline, as the colony expanded, Europeans were

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Speaker 1: also bringing more and more enslaved Africans into the region

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Speaker 1: and that's where Louisiana got rice from, and the use

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Speaker 1: of okra as a soup thickener and the tradition of

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Speaker 1: frying foods like chicken. France reclaimed ownership of New Orleans

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Speaker 1: in eighteen hundred, but only three years later, in eighteen

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Speaker 1: o three, Napoleon sold it to the United States as

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Speaker 1: part of the fifteen million dollar Louisiana purchase. However, the

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Speaker 1: city remained pretty French until eighteen thirty. Most people living

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Speaker 1: in Louisiana spoke French. The Louisiana purchased did bring a

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Speaker 1: lot of new folks into the area, though Americans with

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Speaker 1: ancestry and traditions from elsewhere in Europe, and just one

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Speaker 1: year after the Louisiana purchase, the Haitian Revolution concluded. During

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Speaker 1: this uprising of enslaved people of color against the French,

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Speaker 1: a lot of white plantation owners fled to South Louisiana

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Speaker 1: and brought their slaves with them. Some free people of

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Speaker 1: color came as well, and this melded in an even

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Speaker 1: deeper Afro Caribbean influence into the dishes of the area

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Speaker 1: your Gumbo and it Toufe and Jampalaya. In eighteen twelve,

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Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson garnered national attention for his leadership during the

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Speaker 1: War of eighteen twelves Battle of New Orleans, which deterred

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Speaker 1: seven thousand, five hundred British soldiers with a coalition of pirates,

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Speaker 1: free people of color, and Tennessee volunteers. Chef Isaac TUFs,

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Speaker 1: co founder of tubes Metery, which is delicious. I ate

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Speaker 1: there my first time in New Orleans while my best

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Speaker 1: friend and travel buddy cried over her ex boyfriend, and

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Speaker 1: I was like, I'm awkwardly eat this meat and trying

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Speaker 1: to console you. Okay um. He's also the author of

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Speaker 1: several books, three time James Beard Best Chef of the South,

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Speaker 1: Semifinalists and Finalists, and Yes, Top Chef Contestant. He offered

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Speaker 1: up the song version of these events mid interview in

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Speaker 1: eighteen four. Team we took a little trip along with

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Speaker 1: Colonel Jackson down the Mighty Missisship. We took a little bacon,

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Speaker 1: and we took a little beans, bought the bloody British

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Speaker 1: and that kind of New Orleans. Oh, it was great.

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Speaker 1: Did you put in this cultural note about the War

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Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve just to have him sing about it?

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Speaker 1: Not us to have him sing, but that was definitely

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Speaker 1: a plus. Yeah. Also interesting side note. By the time

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Speaker 1: the Battle of New Orleans took place, the Treaty to

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Speaker 1: end the War of eighteen twelve had already been signed.

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Speaker 1: It just took a while to get word out to

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Speaker 1: New Orleans. By this point, New Orleans was a rich city.

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Speaker 1: In the mid nineteenth century, you could find the largest

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Speaker 1: concentration of millionaires between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Due

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Speaker 1: to things like the slave trade and sugar plantations. The

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Speaker 1: Civil War changed this deeply. New Orleans went from an

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Speaker 1: area of wealth to one of poverty and racial tension.

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Speaker 1: Free people of color and emancipated slaves entered local politics

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Speaker 1: and then were forced out in the eighteen seventies as

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Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan rose to power. To cover the

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Speaker 1: labor shortage, plantation owners brought immigrants from the Philippines, China,

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Speaker 1: and Sicily, and eventually a lot of Italians came over

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Speaker 1: due to political strife in that whole area. The Chinese

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Speaker 1: mostly kept their traditional foods and for decades they were

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Speaker 1: distinct Chinatown areas and restaurants in New Orleans, but the

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Speaker 1: Filipinos and Italians had a pretty deep influence on Creole cuisine,

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Speaker 1: Creole cuisine being the cuisine of the city. We spoke

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Speaker 1: with Amy sins, the founder of Lang Law Culinary Entertainment Company.

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Speaker 1: As she describes it, a traveling food show named after

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Speaker 1: the aforementioned Madame Lingua. New Orleans is I think one

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Speaker 1: of the few places where when you go to get

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Speaker 1: a Snickers bar or your Ese's peanut butter cups at

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Speaker 1: the grocery store, right next to it is a little

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Speaker 1: bag of dried shrimp. And that is thanks to the

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Speaker 1: Manila min who taught us that you can take the

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Speaker 1: sweet Lake shrimp dry them in the sun. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to eat them as a snack, you can. But

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Speaker 1: if you are making a seafood gumbo and your stock

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Speaker 1: just needs a little more fortification, you throw the shrimp in.

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Speaker 1: That's you know, the Philipino community introduced us to that,

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Speaker 1: but they don't get full credit for why our seafood

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Speaker 1: gumbo can be so delicious. Around the eighteen fifties is

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Speaker 1: when the Sicilian started to move in and mass and

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Speaker 1: they introduced New Orleans to the canned tomato. They canned

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Speaker 1: tomato single handedly transformed every New Orleans dish. So it

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Speaker 1: kind of turned into Cajun was rustic country, Creole was

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Speaker 1: fancy city. And then it was like does it have

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Speaker 1: a tomato or does it not have a tomato. We'll

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Speaker 1: talk more about the interplay between Cajun and Creole in

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Speaker 1: a bit, but so at the same time, the post

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Speaker 1: war period produced a lot of art museums, electrified street cards,

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Speaker 1: and music, yes, jazz. By the late nineteenth century, New

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Speaker 1: Orleans was developing jazz as we know it. We spoke

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Speaker 1: with Eric Seifert, a historian with the aforementioned New Orleans

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Speaker 1: Historic Collective, about well about a lot of jazz history,

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Speaker 1: but of particular interest might be the history of the

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Speaker 1: iconic Second Line. If you didn't know, second lines are

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Speaker 1: parades descended from jazz funerals. Nowadays they're popular. Is something

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Speaker 1: you might do for your wedding or like a Tuesday, Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 1: It is a celebratory event that invites participation. You and

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Speaker 1: superproducer Dylan were invited to join the second line while

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Speaker 1: we were there. Oh yeah, one was passing by us

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00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 1: and it almost swept us up. It was a great

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Speaker 1: experience for me because I was on the phone trying

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Speaker 1: to speak to someone and I learned New Orleans is

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Speaker 1: not a great city for trying to hear someone on

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Speaker 1: the phone. And this participation, that's where the name comes from,

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Speaker 1: at least in part. The folks hosting and organizing the parade,

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Speaker 1: which in a funeral this would be the family of

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Speaker 1: the deceased is the first line, and those that follow

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Speaker 1: behind them, often dancing and singing, they are the second line.

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Speaker 1: To this day, they are a huge part of the

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Speaker 1: atmosphere of the French Quarter, and they grew out of

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Speaker 1: that poverty and that racial tension that I mentioned a

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Speaker 1: minute ago, the need for people to support each other

403
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 1: when the government or businesses were refusing to support them.

404
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 1: Here's eric you really see the rise in socialating pleasure

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Speaker 1: clubs are mutual and Benevolent associations around the eighteen eighties

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Speaker 1: and nineties, and essentially these are there their community based

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00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: organizations that exist outside of church that are often for

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Speaker 1: the purpose of not only building community, but supporting community members.

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Speaker 1: So you might you know, you pay your dues to

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00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: get into the group and they might help you out

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00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,480
Speaker 1: if you need some kind of assistance. They might help

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Speaker 1: you out with your funeral. As some as their functions,

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Speaker 1: these groups churches, UM, Social aiting pleasure clubs and Mutual

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Speaker 1: and Benevolent Association sponsor UM club parades where the clubs

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Speaker 1: will raise money and put on a parade. The club

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Speaker 1: will hire bands to go with them on the parade

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Speaker 1: to have music, and UM usually dress in some pretty

418
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 1: sharp clothes that you know, kind of announced who they are.

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00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: Are usually quite colorful and loud, and of course there's

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Speaker 1: a sense of claiming space within the city, both visually

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Speaker 1: and um through the volume of the music that you get. Again,

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Speaker 1: these are largely marginalized groups, right. Uh, So this is

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Speaker 1: an opportunity where you can say, this is our city.

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Speaker 1: You have to hear us, you have to see us.

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Speaker 1: Here we are, this is our space. We don't have

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Speaker 1: to play this this game that we play typically of

427
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: fitting in, and then people would form a second line

428
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 1: to join it, you know, and and to dance and

429
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: to enjoy the music. You know, some some members might

430
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 1: be paid us in a couple of groups. UM. And

431
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 1: if you do, they will come out for your funeral

432
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: and make sure that you have an appropriate funeral. This

433
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: includes um, the performance of a hymn on the way

434
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: to the church, UM, a service at the church, a dirge.

435
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: As as the procession leaves the church and goes to

436
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: the cemetery, you march really slowly, UM, and there's a

437
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: real sense of of grief and the music. You eventually

438
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: cut the body loose at burial UM, which is when

439
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: the soul is then free to assent right from its

440
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: earthly troubles. At that point you would play popular music

441
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: and it's usually jazz at this point, right, But it's

442
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: it's popular music of the style of the band and

443
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 1: they lead the group away from the cemetery um and

444
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:09,439
Speaker 1: that's when you'll see people dancing and forming a second

445
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: line as well. This tradition really, you know by it

446
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: really is strong up in through the forties and into

447
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:21,439
Speaker 1: the fifties. The creativity and improvisation of jazz is something

448
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: that is so vital and so parallel to the cocktail

449
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 1: culture and cuisine, and more than one interview that came up,

450
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: and food and drinks were often part of any experience

451
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:35,199
Speaker 1: you would have with jazz at funerals or picnics are

452
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:39,719
Speaker 1: in clubs. The late eighteen hundreds is also when cocktails

453
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 1: started coming up in American culture in general, but certainly

454
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 1: in New Orleans and New Orleans cocktail culture is definitely

455
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 1: its own episode or several because the city was a

456
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: perfect storm for mixed drinks at the time, carbonation technology

457
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: was advancing, the flavoring industry was getting big. Improved shipping

458
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: speeds brought more fresh and preserved produce, and and most

459
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: importantly for New Orleans, being an international port that was

460
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:09,359
Speaker 1: also on the Mississippi River meant that bartenders had both

461
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:12,640
Speaker 1: whiskey from Kentucky and all kinds of booze from Europe

462
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: and the Caribbean to play with. And because New Orleans

463
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 1: had always been a drinking town. When prohibition came in

464
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,199
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, it didn't quite hit New Orleans

465
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: the same way it hit the rest of America. You know,

466
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: we have the reputation for being the wettest city in

467
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: America during Prohibition. If you read anything about Prohibition, or

468
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: you watched documentaries or whatever, they're always about Chicago and

469
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: New York. And that's because those were the two most

470
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: violent places, whereas other places you had good citizens who

471
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: decided not to sell alcohol anymore because it was against

472
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: the law. Whereas in New Orleans, the people who were

473
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: selling an alcohol before continued to sell alcohol afterwards because

474
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: nobody really took it serious it and there was not

475
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: a city ordinance that made it against the law to

476
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: sell alcohol, so the police didn't have to arrest you.

477
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: And Heale Long was the governor, and he decided that

478
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: we didn't need a state law about only it was

479
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: only against the federal law. And uh, and so you

480
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: could need it a fit to arrest you. Easie Einstein

481
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 1: was a fit and it was his job as a

482
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 1: federal agent um enforcing the law to go from city

483
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: to city and see how long it would take to

484
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: get a drink in a chicking the town, and then

485
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: they would know how many agents to send and all

486
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. He had a protocol, and it

487
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: was that when he got into the taxi from wherever

488
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: he was to go to his hotel, he would begin

489
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: the kind of the timing. So he got into the

490
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: taxi in New Orleans, he gave the taxi drive a

491
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: tax drive the name of his hotel, and then he

492
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 1: started the clock, and he said to the taxi driver

493
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: to know where a man can get a drink in

494
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: this town. And the taxi driver reached under a seat

495
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 1: fed glass tested over his shoulder, and he said five

496
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: dollars please. So in less than a minute, busy had

497
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 1: a drink and so and this is not an app

498
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: for full story. This really happened, and you could read

499
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: about it in the National Archives and all of that.

500
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: After the jazz Age came periods of fluctuating population and

501
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: economic uncertainty, some of which led to the development of

502
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: other iconic dishes like the Poor Boy. And of course,

503
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 1: in two thousand five we see the devastation of Hurricane

504
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: Katrina of the city was flooded. This event radically impacted

505
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: the city and caused it to double down to protect

506
00:30:56,000 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: its culture, including the food and drink. Another huge environmental

507
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: impact was the oil spill of But Yeah, interestingly, these

508
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: disasters really helped cement all that stuff that makes New

509
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: Orleans special. And this about brings us to what the

510
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: food scene is like today. But first it brings us

511
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: to a quick break for word from our sponsors, and

512
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So this multitude,

513
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: this legion of cultural influences developed into two perhaps primary

514
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: cuisines of the greater New Orleans area. Let's talk about

515
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: Creole and Cajun foods. Let's we've already said that Cajun

516
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: is country and Creole is city, but the exact definitions

517
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: and differences are complicated. We could do a supercut of

518
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: the variety of answers we got to this question. Well,

519
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: are a few with you, Starting with Amy, I feel like, um,

520
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: we as Louisianians, have probably done a little bit of

521
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: a disservice and creating further confusion for people about the

522
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:17,479
Speaker 1: difference between Cajun and Creole. And they're very distinctively different.

523
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 1: So if we look at our agents, they came from

524
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: French Nova Scotia La Cadi, but they were country people.

525
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: They settled outside of the city. They were hunters, farmers, trappers.

526
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 1: So the food was going to be a one pot meal,

527
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: and as other folks settled in the area, what might

528
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 1: be added to that pot changed. Here's Liz Williams and

529
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: Isaac Toops. It's really the simplest way to think about it,

530
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: although totally not with all the nuances, is that the

531
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: three continents came together to form the basis for the cuisine,

532
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: and our foods really reflect all of that. For example,

533
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: our gumbo, we have three basic thickeners for gumbo. You

534
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: have Oprah, which is African, you have file A, which

535
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:09,479
Speaker 1: is American, and you have which is European. Now you

536
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:11,960
Speaker 1: can use the ball or you rum mbo, or you

537
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: use them separately as that as traditionally they were separate

538
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: um and you would use them when this was in

539
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: season or that was in season. Everybody, everybody besides the

540
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: Native Americans, were immigrants coming to South Louisiana. And what

541
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:28,959
Speaker 1: Cajun food is and what it was is still going

542
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: to be a collaboration of different genres in different areas

543
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 1: of Atlanta location. And it still is today. And so

544
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: when I say I do New Cage and while I'm

545
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: doing New Cajun now, but it's going to continue to

546
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: evolve because we continue to accept help and inspiration for

547
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: everyone that wants to be down here. And all all

548
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: of our cooking traditions are rooted in what was necessity.

549
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: So I mean everything from the comfeing of chicken and

550
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: comfing of sausage that people would have to bury under

551
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: their house for preservation. We put rice in buddin because

552
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: there were poor community and we need the extended to

553
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: make a meal. We put sassafras or rue as a

554
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: thickener in our gumbos and stows because we had to

555
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: stretch those gravies and stretch those meals out. Then, running

556
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 1: parallel to that, you've got the development of creole cultures.

557
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: Because New Orleans is a city with a strong emphasis

558
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: on the importance of neighborhoods and generational families, Creole is

559
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 1: perhaps a more faceted thing. Jessica spoke about that definition

560
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: of what it is to be creole kind of changes

561
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 1: every block in New Orleans. There are people who say

562
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,719
Speaker 1: to be Creole means to be a direct descendant of

563
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:45,760
Speaker 1: the original white settlers. That's one definition. There are people

564
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: who say to be Creole is to be of African descent,

565
00:34:53,840 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: but born in this place, there were Creole. There are

566
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: Creole tomatoes. You can't grow a Creole tomato anywhere but

567
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 1: in this place. Um. There are people who say to

568
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: be Creoles is to be of mixed blood. There are

569
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,959
Speaker 1: people who say to be Creoles is to be from

570
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,879
Speaker 1: New Orleans. Uh, you've got a whole thing. I did

571
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: a book called Beyond Gumbo, Creole Fusion Food from the

572
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: Atlantic Rim. It's got about three pages of definition of creole.

573
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: It is not a simple thing, by any stretch of

574
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 1: the imagination. It is not not at all. In the

575
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: book she mentioned, she describes Creole cuisine as the original

576
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 1: fusion food, a cuisine that allows for blending and the

577
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,880
Speaker 1: coming together of diverse elements. In those three pages, she

578
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: identifies cooking techniques and culinary themes present and creolized food

579
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: what she calls a quote trans hemispheric web of culture.

580
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 1: The book also traces the origin of the word itself

581
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: creole all the way back to the Portuguese word cre are,

582
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 1: which means to create. She goes into a lot more

583
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: detail and nuance in her books, so we definitely suggest

584
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: checking that out if you're interested, if you wanted to simplify,

585
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 1: and you might not amy summarized it this way. If

586
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: you were here in New Orleans, you're considered creole originally,

587
00:36:16,680 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: and it was kind of the sophisticated French food from

588
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 1: our first French settlers. But being a port city, we're

589
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,680
Speaker 1: starting to kind of become this melting pot where all

590
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: these flavors are coming in. So there's you know, the

591
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:35,919
Speaker 1: Native Americans who are here, French, West African, German, Spanish,

592
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: but creole really means one of the colony. However, as

593
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: tourism became more important and New Orleans increasingly marketed its cultures,

594
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: the two could get a little bit muddled, and so

595
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 1: we start to get some confusion for people and that uh,

596
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 1: you know, you can watch a commercial about New Orleans

597
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:02,399
Speaker 1: and here Zeteko cage in music and then it's called

598
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: creole seasoning. We also got to interview one Dickie Brennan.

599
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: Brennan is a big name in New Orleans. Together the

600
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 1: family owns and operates thirteen restaurants. On our first night,

601
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: we ate at the eponymous Brennan's and uh, indulge me

602
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: first second here and allow me to tell the story.

603
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we got in touch with him. So I

604
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 1: literally just went on the website for Bourbon House, one

605
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:31,760
Speaker 1: of Brennan's restaurants, to the contact me page and wrote

606
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 1: something along the lines of, hey, I'd like to speak

607
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: to someone about the Bourbon Milk Punch, which is there

608
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 1: claim to fame. And they were like, sure, you want

609
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: to talk to Dickie Brennan. Yeah that sounds good. Yeah.

610
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: We were like, yes, yes, yes, please may we We

611
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,720
Speaker 1: would love to. The whole thing was delightful. We told

612
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 1: the story of us meeting Dickie Brennan um when we

613
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:56,839
Speaker 1: first got back from our trip in the studio with

614
00:37:56,920 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: producer Dylan and then we arrived and it's kind of raining,

615
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 1: kind of chili and we can't get in to the

616
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: restaurant where we were told to me like you were

617
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: outside with a notepad. Yeah, it's right here, it's right

618
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: here in my notebook. I I like wrote this like

619
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: we have an appointment, like holding it up to the

620
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: window and like making sad faces. At the at the

621
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,879
Speaker 1: hostesses and side who were like, we open at eleven, Yes,

622
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you? And so we went around to

623
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: the other entrance because there was a second entrance that

624
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 1: was it was also in a hotel, so it's kind

625
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: of the hotel main entrance, and there was a bar

626
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: and we asked the bartender. We said, you know, we're

627
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: looking for Dickie Brennan and he said, in the most

628
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: like New Orleans way possible, I think, yeah, he's right there. Well,

629
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 1: he's right over there. Yeah, And he was right over

630
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: there at the table. A delicious plate of Poe Boys followed,

631
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: and a platter of fries and a lovely conversation. As

632
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 1: Dicky Britton explained, neither Creole nor Cajun cuisine developed in

633
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: a vacuum. It's hard for us to say this is

634
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: a Creole or Cajun dish because they've all, you know,

635
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: the regional seasonal products, you know, in both cuisines and

636
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: noww they're blended um. You know, which is exciting because

637
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 1: it's food is always um should evolve and it's just

638
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:29,239
Speaker 1: like us. I mean, I think my palate evolves over

639
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 1: the years, you know, whether it's food, wine, spirits I have.

640
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: You know, my pallete keeps changing, so it's nice to

641
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 1: see food evolving. Jessica spoke about that, blending to how

642
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 1: these foods are so rooted in New Orleans itself. So

643
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: the thing that's so fascinating for me personally about the

644
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 1: food of New Orleans, certainly Southern Louisianimar generally, is how

645
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,800
Speaker 1: rooted in place it is. It is about the place.

646
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 1: It is food that comes from here, you know, And

647
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 1: there used to be a saying, there ain't no place

648
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: quite like this place, so this must be the place.

649
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:11,919
Speaker 1: But this place is has spawned these incredible dishes, these

650
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,400
Speaker 1: incredible things that are a little bit Africa, a little

651
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 1: bit French, a little bit Acadia, a little bit all

652
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 1: sorts of things that now turn up in these white

653
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: tablecloth restaurants. You know, in the big food word today

654
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 1: is appropriation. But at that point it was all appropriation

655
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 1: because everybody was busily appropriating everybody else's and trying to

656
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: figure out what to have for dinner. Modernly, it's certainly

657
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:42,760
Speaker 1: true these dishes are constantly being remixed as new people's

658
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 1: join New Orleans culture, and in any given Best of

659
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: New Orleans list, you're going to see those century old

660
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 1: white tablecloth places twined in with corner stores. But there's

661
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: something else we have to talk about when it comes

662
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: to New Orleans, and that's drinking culture. First though, one

663
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:10,839
Speaker 1: more quick break for word from our sponsor, and we're back.

664
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. I would guess that

665
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: for a lot of you listeners, when you hear New Orleans,

666
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: you think drinking, whether that's Marty Gras related or in

667
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: general French quarter, very late night shenanigans. Yes, it's one

668
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 1: of the main reasons behind its tour straw, the fact

669
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: that you can walk around with drinks on the streets

670
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: or as they're called gos. We got to speak with

671
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Pierce, founder of Drink and Learn, which is a

672
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 1: walking tour that looks into the history of cocktails and

673
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,879
Speaker 1: cocktail culture. She also has a podcast also called Drink

674
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 1: and Learn that you should all check out. Here's Elizabeth.

675
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: You cannot understand New Orleans unless you understand it's drinking.

676
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: You're not required to participate in it, but you least

677
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: need to know what's going on. So I love this.

678
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: From the very early stays we were drinking, you know,

679
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: for the sick and the children right now. Um but

680
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:11,240
Speaker 1: but it's because we're in a swamp. Life was hard,

681
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: the government's ignoring you. Things are kind of crappy. Then,

682
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:17,000
Speaker 1: like you, you drink, right, This is what people do

683
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:21,760
Speaker 1: and people continue to do in difficult situations. Um but anyway,

684
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: So all of these like facets contribute to an identity

685
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 1: and that one of the pillars of that identity is

686
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 1: about cutting loose, and drinking is an integral part of that.

687
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: Drinking is different in New Orleans, or at least it

688
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: is among New Orleans. It's not something you do to

689
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,320
Speaker 1: get drunk, or at least most of the time generally,

690
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:54,759
Speaker 1: it's not that's amateur. Our children are exposed to responsible

691
00:42:54,840 --> 00:42:56,800
Speaker 1: drinking at a young age, the idea of a go

692
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: cup or a before dinner drink. We have a whole

693
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,359
Speaker 1: episode on New Orleans Cocktails and drinking culture planned. Oh yeah,

694
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, here's Elizabeth again describing the local

695
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 1: attitude towards drinking. It's very civilized and it isn't hasty.

696
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:16,319
Speaker 1: And if you have a drink in your hand, and

697
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: this is true for coffee too, but if you have

698
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: a beer, it'll kind of slow you down and makes

699
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: you pause, kind of look around, like, oh, I had

700
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: noticed that house in my neighborhood before that balcony, stop

701
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: and listen to a musician, and like it alters the

702
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: way that you interact in public space. And the other

703
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 1: thing that I think it does, and this is stretching

704
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 1: it a little bit, but like go with me, Okay,

705
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:54,399
Speaker 1: when you are in a restaurant, we all were all

706
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,359
Speaker 1: at a table and if someone came and joined us,

707
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 1: we would look askance at them. Is weird because this

708
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 1: is like our area and it's like we planted a flag, right.

709
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: But if you're at a bar, people sit next to

710
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: you and they will talk to you, and you do

711
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: not think there is anything amiss with that. Now, you

712
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 1: may not talk back to them, or they may be

713
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:27,360
Speaker 1: creepy or whatever, but the the interaction is publicly sanctioned

714
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:34,399
Speaker 1: and it often leads to some really delightful encounters unexpected.

715
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,399
Speaker 1: You know, you meet people in a bar you don't

716
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 1: meet in a restaurant in the same way. And so

717
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 1: I believe that the walking with the drink, you carry

718
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 1: the spirit of the bar with you, that it makes

719
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: you just a little more open to the chance encounter

720
00:44:56,200 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: the possibility, um yeah two engage with the world around you.

721
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: It's difficult to capture in audio and like a forty

722
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,400
Speaker 1: minute to an hour episode, everything that New Orleans is

723
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 1: the experience of being there, but it is heavy and joyous.

724
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 1: It's the culmination of all of these cultures and all

725
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: of this history. Super producer Dylan summed up his first

726
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: experience this way in studio when we got back from

727
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 1: our trip. I've never been anywhere, at least on that scale,

728
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 1: because you can walk through New York and you can

729
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: see all these different cultures coming together, but at that scale,

730
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:45,439
Speaker 1: I've never been anywhere that had such strong influence from

731
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 1: such different cultures that was coming together and that they

732
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 1: were so determined to preserve and to promote, and just

733
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: the way that things come together where you can eat

734
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,560
Speaker 1: like four different places in the world in one bowl.

735
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 1: It's amazing. This has has French influence, that has Caribbean influences,

736
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 1: has Italian influence, this has like the Creole occasun influence.

737
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 1: It's just I loved it. I love being able to

738
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 1: experience that through food because I don't know if I've

739
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:19,399
Speaker 1: ever been anywhere where I ate a dish and experienced

740
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:22,759
Speaker 1: so much of the world in one dish, so that

741
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 1: was really really cool. And Dickie Brennan told this story

742
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:33,320
Speaker 1: of a famous journalist listening to Brennan's family's complaints about

743
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: New Orleans. He says, anywhere else, I trial, certainly in America,

744
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:40,360
Speaker 1: there's only one other place that I can say the

745
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:44,799
Speaker 1: local people live life. He says, it's New Orleans. Y'all

746
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 1: live life. This says, get over all this stuff not working.

747
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 1: So here, I'm the next generation and I've already said

748
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 1: I want my city to be great. You know, I

749
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: want to be perfectly clean and everything working and all

750
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:59,919
Speaker 1: that stuff. But when I think of that, it held

751
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: to me get over my love hate relationship where I'm

752
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 1: like disappointed we're not doing something better. Because Matt was right.

753
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 1: I mean, we really connect with each other all day long,

754
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: and uh, when we live life. So we come to

755
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 1: the conclusion of the first of our New Orleans miniseries.

756
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: We'll have new episodes on Wednesdays, and old school traditional

757
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 1: episodes that are tangentially related on Fridays, and some bonus

758
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:39,240
Speaker 1: content every now and then on Saturdays. So tune in. Yeah.

759
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: You can contact as a via email at hello at

760
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 1: saber pod dot com. Tell us where we should go next?

761
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,320
Speaker 1: Right now, I gotta say San Francisco and in general,

762
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 1: California is leading. Okay. You can also find us on

763
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: social media. We are on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at

764
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,359
Speaker 1: saber Pod. Thank you so much to our superproducers Dylan

765
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: Fagin and Andrew Howard, and our executive producer Christopher Hassiotis.

766
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: Also thank you to all of our interviewees and in

767
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 1: many cases the kind marketing folks who helped us get

768
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:11,319
Speaker 1: in touch with them. Thanks to you for listening, and

769
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 1: we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.

770
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:24,239
Speaker 1: You guys, you landed earlier than I did, and you

771
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: made an immediate stop. Well, so I'm sorry, No, no,

772
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: I I am glad someone got to go. Okay. So

773
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 1: our airbnb that we were staying at was right down

774
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,000
Speaker 1: the street from Willie May's. Oh it's it's Willie May's

775
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,839
Speaker 1: Scotch Scotch House. Yes, from Willie May's Scotch House, which

776
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: is this famous fried chicken place in New Orleans. It's

777
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: in this tiny house. Yeah, it was a little it

778
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:56,800
Speaker 1: was a little house. It was it was cram quarters,

779
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 1: but it was very cozy. Oh yeah, cozy is exactly

780
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 1: the word for it. Um and we gotta I think

781
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,439
Speaker 1: he got a chicken strips meal, yes, on a bed

782
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:10,320
Speaker 1: of okra, so much okra? Yes, fried okra, of course yes. Um.

783
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:13,439
Speaker 1: I got the three piece dark meat fried chicken meal.

784
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: There was mac and cheese. The mac and cheese came

785
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: with a side of peas that had been cooked in

786
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, just the best chicken

787
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:27,400
Speaker 1: broth that anyone has ever made. Oh my goodness, they were.

788
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: These peas were delicious. They gave us a lot of chicken.

789
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 1: It was a lot of ocra, dainty scoops of macaroni

790
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 1: and cheese. Do you know that they're very proud of

791
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:38,880
Speaker 1: that and then they have to rashtion it out because

792
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:42,239
Speaker 1: it's probably very popular. But it was very good. Oh

793
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 1: and the corn bread was good. Oh yes, it was

794
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 1: very nice. Actually, Annie was awful. And you're lucky you

795
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: didn't go. You know, spoilers. But on the last favorite

796
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:57,359
Speaker 1: trip they were leftovers and I had to throw them

797
00:49:57,360 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: away and it was one of the greatest hardships I

798
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,840
Speaker 1: faced on this trip. I stared at the Tago box.

799
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 1: Could I get it through the t s A. I

800
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 1: don't know. Can you questions well with the T S

801
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:13,720
Speaker 1: age would be like, oh that's what amays. Of course,

802
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 1: come on through to the front of the line. It's

803
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,919
Speaker 1: not a liquid. I mean I think you can take food.

804
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:21,480
Speaker 1: I think you're allowed to take as much food as

805
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:25,319
Speaker 1: you want. That is an episode we should do in

806
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 1: the future. What can you what food is acceptable through

807
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:35,400
Speaker 1: the T s A. But I am glad that you

808
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:38,760
Speaker 1: got to experience this. It sounds amazing.