Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that? Will? All? Right?
Speaker 2: So you know how New Orleans is famous for being
Speaker 2: this kind of wild party town. I hope you've heard
Speaker 2: this before, right, like sort of the Vegas of the
Speaker 2: Gulf Coast.
Speaker 1: I like that, the Vegas of the Gulf Coast. I
Speaker 1: actually just went to New Orleans for the first time
Speaker 1: this year, and I loved it, but I was kind
Speaker 1: of thrown off by the fact that you can just
Speaker 1: drink on the streets there. It's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2: Well, actually, what's weird about that is technically it's only
Speaker 2: in the French Quarter that you're allowed to do that,
Speaker 2: you know, as long as your drink is in a
Speaker 2: glass or a metal container. But you know, if you
Speaker 2: go into other areas that are pretty close by, it's
Speaker 2: not a law that really gets enforced that often, as
Speaker 2: I think you probably saw when you were there. And
Speaker 2: this is a city where the official motto is let
Speaker 2: the good times roll A pop quiz for you? Do
Speaker 2: you know how to say that in French? Mango?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I do not, okay me either. I think it's something
Speaker 2: like lesse Les bon temp Roulet. Maybe I just butchered
Speaker 2: it completely, Like I can't even imagine for all those
Speaker 2: who speak French, and for even for those who don't,
Speaker 2: they just know that I butchered it.
Speaker 1: I feel like you were just saying, like the line
Speaker 1: from that Lady Lady Palm song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or maybe from the Little Mermaid, one of these.
Speaker 2: I just stole the line.
Speaker 1: But you know, it is kind of amazing that like
Speaker 1: New Orleans, it's such a good times town. But I'm
Speaker 1: curious that, like, are you just telling me that like
Speaker 1: New Orleans likes to drink? Is that? Is that what
Speaker 1: it is all about? Now?
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure the drinking is common knowledge at this point.
Speaker 2: It was you know, the thing that caught my attention
Speaker 2: when we were talking to Gabe about the research for
Speaker 2: this week was that it's really more like what the
Speaker 2: residents used to treat the hangover that comes after all
Speaker 2: the drinking. And that's a big steamy bowl of yaka
Speaker 2: Maine soup, as you know, also known as old Sober.
Speaker 2: It's a soy sauce flavored broth with noodles, beef, chicken, shrimp,
Speaker 2: hard boiled eggs, and chopped onions. It actually sounds that's
Speaker 2: pretty good, isn't it. And the amazing thing that sets
Speaker 2: this hangover cure apart from all the others is that
Speaker 2: it actually works. So there were some researchers that looked
Speaker 2: into this from the American Chemical Society, and what they's
Speaker 2: found is that the traditional soup contains all the right
Speaker 2: ingredients to help the body recover from a hangover. So
Speaker 2: the hard boiled eggs have this compound that helps expel
Speaker 2: toxic substances, the salty broth helps replenish sodium and potassium,
Speaker 2: and the beef and shrimp helps slow down the absorption
Speaker 2: of alcohol. So it's like a one stop shop for
Speaker 2: this hangover cure.
Speaker 1: So how did a dish called yakamane with all this
Speaker 1: soy sauce flavor. How'd that ended up becoming a signature
Speaker 1: dish here? Like it doesn't sound super southern, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: And actually, according to local legend, the dish came to
Speaker 2: the Big Easy by way of local soldiers that had
Speaker 2: been stationed in Korea. This was back during the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: and so when the war was over, they brought this soup,
Speaker 2: this yakamine soup back home with them and it's been
Speaker 2: the city's surefire hangover cure ever since.
Speaker 1: That's pretty neat. I've definitely heard before that New Orleans
Speaker 1: is one of the most culturally diverse cities in America,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of fun to see how it extends
Speaker 1: into food as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely true, and it's always been this huge
Speaker 2: cultural melting pod, going all the way back to the
Speaker 2: beginning of that highly unusual three hundred year old history
Speaker 2: and all of those years mingling cultures. It's really turned
Speaker 2: New Orleans into this super fun and very unique American city.
Speaker 2: And that's why I thought we should focus on this today,
Speaker 2: like this, all of these one of a kind customs
Speaker 2: and traditions that make the city unlike any other out there.
Speaker 2: So with three centuries of stories to pull from, there's
Speaker 2: obviously a lot to talk about, So let's dive in. Hey,
Speaker 2: their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 2: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
Speaker 2: mangesh Hot Ticketer. And then the other side of the
Speaker 2: soundproof glass, dressed to impress as always, that is our
Speaker 2: friend and producer lol Berlanti. Now he's picked up this
Speaker 2: mantle from where Tristan left off, of course, and he's
Speaker 2: wearing a shirt with a crawfish on it. He's really
Speaker 2: stepping up his game to try to keep up with Tristan.
Speaker 2: And for some reason, the crawfish has one claw in
Speaker 2: the air and he's asking where you at? You know,
Speaker 2: it's why apostrophe at. I'm not sure what that means, but.
Speaker 1: That's what the shirt said, So I do think the
Speaker 1: crawfish is probably self explanatory. But that phrase where we're
Speaker 1: at is actually something I was reading about this week.
Speaker 1: Apparently it's a pretty common greeting in New Orleans, kind
Speaker 1: of a how are you doing? Of the region. But
Speaker 1: one of the best things about the region has to
Speaker 1: be the way that people talk. It's kind of this
Speaker 1: hodgepodge of different languages and dialects, and you can go
Speaker 1: into any given neighborhood and you're half a dozen different
Speaker 1: accents and idioms depending on who you're talking to and
Speaker 1: where you are in the city. And then there's the pronunciation,
Speaker 1: like according to the official New Orleans website quote, we
Speaker 1: say the street name Burgundy, not Burgundy, just because that's
Speaker 1: the way it is. As for Calliope, say Calliope and
Speaker 1: you'll pass for a local. So they're giving all this
Speaker 1: advice on the site. And you know, this happens everywhere,
Speaker 1: right Like in Chicago people call Gotha goth Ye Street,
Speaker 1: and in New York Houston Street it is called Houston.
Speaker 1: But you know what's interesting about New Orleans is how
Speaker 1: so many little French idioms wound up kind of endearingly mistranslated.
Speaker 1: For instance, in New Orleans, they don't say I gotta
Speaker 1: go grocery shopping. They say I gotta make groceries, which
Speaker 1: actually comes from the French expression for a grocery shopping.
Speaker 1: It's fair la marche. I guess the verb fair can
Speaker 1: I either mean to do or to make, and you
Speaker 1: wouldn't include that in your translation normally unless you're in
Speaker 1: New Orleans. And another fun pull from the French language
Speaker 1: is lanyap, which I guess basically means a little something extra.
Speaker 1: So maybe you go out to eat and the waiter
Speaker 1: brings you a free dessert, or maybe the hotel you're
Speaker 1: staying at upgrades you to a riverfront view, and in
Speaker 1: either case you were given a lannap, which is an
Speaker 1: old New Orleans way to foster friendship. And maybe some
Speaker 1: return business as well.
Speaker 2: Actually, you know, since we're talking about the way French
Speaker 2: has woven into the language and the culture of the city,
Speaker 2: I do feel like we should talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about how that influence got there in the very first place. So,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned upfront that New Orleans has a three
Speaker 2: hundred year history, and that's true. The city was founded
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighteen by the French governor of Louisiana, a
Speaker 2: guy named Jean Baptiste Bienville, and it was named for
Speaker 2: the French head of state at the time, this was
Speaker 2: Philippe de Orleans. But of course, and I'm sure I'm
Speaker 2: saying all of these words wrong, but that's what it says.
Speaker 2: But the reality is that the French settlers were far
Speaker 2: from the first people to live there. So Native American
Speaker 2: communities called the place home at least six hundred years
Speaker 2: before being got there, and many of them are said
Speaker 2: to have lived right where the French quarter sits today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny that that word I mentioned a minute ago,
Speaker 1: which I probably also mispronounced land yapp It's technically considered
Speaker 1: Louisiana French, but it's actually barred from the Spanish language,
Speaker 1: which had taken it from Quetchua, which is spoken by
Speaker 1: Native South Americans. So I feel like that's exactly the
Speaker 1: kind of like dense cultural overlap that you find in
Speaker 1: almost every aspect of New Orleans. They are all these
Speaker 1: different ethnic groups that have called the city home over
Speaker 1: its long history, and every one of them left its
Speaker 1: mark in ways that you can still see today. That's right.
Speaker 2: And they don't call it the most haunted city in
Speaker 2: America for nothing, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's not exactly what I meant. But you know, after
Speaker 1: reading up on New Orleans history this week, I could
Speaker 1: definitely see how the city got such a spooky reputation.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it was a pretty rough place to
Speaker 1: live in during the colonial era.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, Banvilla and his men certainly had their
Speaker 2: work cut out for him, and France had claimed that
Speaker 2: Louisiana territory in sixteen ninety nine, but then didn't do
Speaker 2: that much with it for at least a decade or so.
Speaker 2: So you had the War of the Spanish Secession, which
Speaker 2: began just a couple of years after the French colony
Speaker 2: was established, and the fighting kept most of the country's
Speaker 2: resources tied up for I guess it was the next
Speaker 2: thirteen years or so, and so by the time the
Speaker 2: war finally ended, France's outposts in Louisiana were pretty much
Speaker 2: empty by that point.
Speaker 1: What was the mood like in France during all of this?
Speaker 1: Were they so cash strapped after the war that they
Speaker 1: couldn't fund their own colony?
Speaker 2: I mean, they sort of were. Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 2: turns out that thirteen years of war can be quite
Speaker 2: a drain on the old treasury. And you know, when
Speaker 2: you also lose that thirteen year war, it's even worse.
Speaker 2: That tends to drain the morale, of course, and that's
Speaker 2: exactly the problem France was facing back in seventeen fourteen.
Speaker 2: And then, of course, to make matters worse, there was
Speaker 2: this stretch of bad weather that led to food shortages
Speaker 2: and it sent many of the rural residents there scrambling
Speaker 2: the cities in order to try to find work. And
Speaker 2: as a result of this, Paris was flooded with desperate people,
Speaker 2: so the country's capital city, it really became this kind
Speaker 2: of den of crime and poverty at the time.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like things are pretty dire in France.
Speaker 1: The Louisiana colony is kind of a wash, So how
Speaker 1: does the monarchy end up turning all of this around?
Speaker 2: Right? So the French king looked at everything going on
Speaker 2: and he realized a couple of things. For one, the
Speaker 2: colony in Louisiana could and should be making him more
Speaker 2: money than it was. After all, Spain was rolling in
Speaker 2: the dough thanks to its colonies in Mexico, so he thought,
Speaker 2: why not France. But the biggest obstacle at that point
Speaker 2: was that barely anyone was left in the Louisiana colony,
Speaker 2: and very few people were lining up to live there,
Speaker 2: no matter how much gold or how much land they
Speaker 2: were promised. So second, he noticed that the prisons were
Speaker 2: getting pretty full at the time, and this was thanks
Speaker 2: to all the homeless citizens and petty criminals and some
Speaker 2: prostitutes that had been just rounded up there in Paris.
Speaker 2: And that's when the king hit upon what he hoped
Speaker 2: would be the solution to both of his problems. He
Speaker 2: would just force the prisoners to go and settle the
Speaker 2: land in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is kind of taking a page from England, right, Like,
Speaker 1: isn't that what they did in Australia?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this was actually a good seventy years or
Speaker 2: so before England had turned Australia into a prison colony,
Speaker 2: so if anything, they were the ones copying the French.
Speaker 2: So at any rate, this is ultimately how New Orleans
Speaker 2: was founded. It was a punishment for prisoners. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so in January of seventeen nineteen, the king issued a
Speaker 2: royal policy to the effect saying, we believe that we
Speaker 2: can do nothing better for the good of our state
Speaker 2: than to condemn convicts to the punishment of being transported
Speaker 2: to our colonies.
Speaker 1: Which is not exactly a ringing endorsement for Louisiana.
Speaker 2: No, I think they've changed the motto at this point,
Speaker 2: and the word had gotten around about how grueling it
Speaker 2: was to live in such an inhospitable region. It was
Speaker 2: surrounded by these swamps and these marshes that we sometimes
Speaker 2: think of with the region, and stories of the heat
Speaker 2: and the stench and the threat of all this disease.
Speaker 2: You know, it made it so like this trip was
Speaker 2: a death sentence, and it sort of was, since most
Speaker 2: of the people sent there didn't live past the age
Speaker 2: of forty. But it's not like these people had a
Speaker 2: choice in the matter. So they were forced onto ships
Speaker 2: and sent over a few hundred at a time, And
Speaker 2: it wasn't until months later that someone realized they had
Speaker 2: only been sending over male prisoners, which obviously wasn't the
Speaker 2: ideal way to establish a thriving colony.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but to be fair, like, no part of this
Speaker 1: sounds ideal. It isn't just not having women there.
Speaker 2: It does not sound ideal in any way. But as
Speaker 2: bad as things were, they only got worse from there.
Speaker 2: So pretty soon France started sending shiploads of orphans and
Speaker 2: female convicts to Louisiana, with many of them forced to
Speaker 2: marry male convicts in these mass wedding ceremonies.
Speaker 1: It sounds so weird, that's horrible. So how long did
Speaker 1: this forced immigration go on for?
Speaker 2: Till seventeen twenty two, so about three years total. And meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the Louisiana governor, that Binville guy that we talked about before,
Speaker 2: is trying to keep this experiment from flying completely off
Speaker 2: the rails. But he's obviously having a tough time keeping
Speaker 2: a city of convicts and check and he's not exactly
Speaker 2: thrilled about the kind of settlers that France is sending him.
Speaker 2: In fact, there's a good quote from his journals. That
Speaker 2: really shows how frustrating it was even for those at
Speaker 2: the top. So Bienvil writes, it is most disagreeable for
Speaker 2: an officer in charge of a colony to have nothing
Speaker 2: more for its defense than a bunch of deserters, contrabands,
Speaker 2: salt dealers, and rogues who were always ready not only
Speaker 2: to desert you, but also to turn against you.
Speaker 1: Both. Like having people who are ready to desert you
Speaker 1: and turn against you sounds pretty awful. But I'm guessing
Speaker 1: most of those people stayed right. Well, yeah, they didn't
Speaker 1: really have much of a choice. I mean, these were
Speaker 1: convicted criminals, they were broke, they were stranded in the
Speaker 1: middle of a swamp and unknown country. It's hard to
Speaker 1: even imagine, so leaving wasn't a real option. So most
Speaker 1: people just tried to make the best of staying, and
Speaker 1: being a stranger in a new world did have some advantages.
Speaker 1: So for example, nobody knew their names there, which meant
Speaker 1: settlers were free to reinvent themselves in whatever way they
Speaker 1: wanted to, and some people made up complex family histories
Speaker 1: for themselves or added flourishes to their names to make
Speaker 1: themselves seem maybe higher class. I guess, and there was
Speaker 1: no way to prove or disprove any of this. So
Speaker 1: these false personas just stuck and kind of became the
Speaker 1: new reality for these people, which is kind of strangely
Speaker 1: fitting when you think about some of the things that
Speaker 1: have gone on to characterize New Orleans.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Like, I was actually skimming a book this week. It's
Speaker 1: called The Accidental City, Improving New Orleans, and there's one
Speaker 1: part where the author, who's a native, is talking about
Speaker 1: what a fresh start this experience was for so many settlers,
Speaker 1: and this is what he writes, quote, we were a
Speaker 1: city of impostors in a way. That's why Marty Graft
Speaker 1: fits so well with our identity. We could always put
Speaker 1: on new masks.
Speaker 2: That's pretty interesting. I actually hadn't really made that connection before.
Speaker 2: All Right, well, we're just scratching the surface of New
Speaker 2: Orleans long storied history, so I feel like we should
Speaker 2: take a quick break and then we'll jump right back in.
Speaker 2: You're listening to part Time Genius, and we're talking about
Speaker 2: the chain of events that turned a French penal colony
Speaker 2: into one of the most amazing cities in America. All Right, Mengo,
Speaker 2: So what's the next piece of New Orleans history you
Speaker 2: want to touch on.
Speaker 1: So we've talked a lot so far about the French
Speaker 1: influence on the city, but there's one part of the
Speaker 1: city they really can't claim credit for, and strangely enough,
Speaker 1: it's the French Quarter. So despite what the name suggests,
Speaker 1: most of the buildings in the famous neighborhood were actually
Speaker 1: influenced by Spanish architecture, not French.
Speaker 2: So you're saying that the French Quarter didn't exist when
Speaker 2: Bienville founded the city.
Speaker 1: It did, but it wasn't called that at the time,
Speaker 1: and it also looked a whole lot different. So as
Speaker 1: the city took shape under French rule, it gradually organized
Speaker 1: around the highest patch of dry land in the area,
Speaker 1: which was still only about ten to fifteen feet above
Speaker 1: sea level. But what I'd kind of forgotten was the
Speaker 1: sway that Spain had over New Orleans. So following the
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War, France actually gave the Louisiana territory to Spain,
Speaker 1: mostly as a way to keep England from taking control
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, it's kind of a long story,
Speaker 1: but you can look up the Treaty of Fountain Blue
Speaker 1: if you're interested. But you know, Spain took possession of
Speaker 1: New Orleans in seventeen sixty two, and they held onto
Speaker 1: it for just under fifty years, and then in eighteen
Speaker 1: oh one a different treaty placed Louisiana back under French
Speaker 1: rule until two years later when Napoleon sold the whole
Speaker 1: thing to the US as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
Speaker 2: All Right, so you're saying New Orleans has changed hands
Speaker 2: a lot over the years, and it definitely tracks with
Speaker 2: the cultural mishmash, and you know that you kind of
Speaker 2: think about when you think of the characterization of the city.
Speaker 2: But what it does in do Mango is explain how
Speaker 2: the French quarter got so Spanish Like? Could we get
Speaker 2: to that part?
Speaker 1: Basically, nearly all of the original French colonial buildings in
Speaker 1: New Orleans were destroyed during Spain's rule in the late
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds. They weren't knocked down on purpose, though. Basically
Speaker 1: there were these two massive fires that laid waste to
Speaker 1: the city. And the first fire took place in seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, and it actually might not have been that
Speaker 1: bad except that it happened to occur on Good Friday,
Speaker 1: and because of that, the city's priests wouldn't allow the
Speaker 1: church bells to be rung as fire alarms, which made
Speaker 1: it nearly impossible to organize, like, you know, help during
Speaker 1: all the chaos. So the fire burned unchecked, and within
Speaker 1: five hours it had consumed eighty percent of the city.
Speaker 1: Good Lord, and you're saying the same thing happened just
Speaker 1: a few years later. Yeah, I mean, it didn't happen
Speaker 1: during Good Friday this time. But after six years of rebuilding,
Speaker 1: they had another fire and it was extinguished a little
Speaker 1: bit faster, but it still took out I guess two
Speaker 1: hundred buildings. I don't know. It's still a terrible thing,
Speaker 1: but not as bad as the first one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's tough luck for Spain there. And it sounds
Speaker 2: like their entire rain in Louisiana was just fires and reconstruction.
Speaker 2: It was like burn, build and repeat.
Speaker 1: But you know, span left a deep impression on New
Speaker 1: Orleans in the little time it took over. So after
Speaker 1: that second fire, the Spanish government started handing out loans
Speaker 1: for his citizens to rebuild their houses. But the only
Speaker 1: catch was in order to get the money, you had
Speaker 1: to agree to build according to the government's newly developed guidelines.
Speaker 1: And so this was really smart. The idea was to
Speaker 1: make the city a little more fireproof, including the switch
Speaker 1: to brick and plaster town homes instead of those wooden cottages.
Speaker 1: And as you probably guessed, this is when the French
Speaker 1: Quarter started to look a little more Spanish, you know,
Speaker 1: even if the streets were still named for French royalty
Speaker 1: and nobility. And the transformation proved to be a real
Speaker 1: turning point in New Orleans history. And that's something this
Speaker 1: author Lyle Sason touches on in his book Fabulous New Orleans.
Speaker 1: As he puts it, quote, the city that fell before
Speaker 1: the flames was a congested French community of wooden houses,
Speaker 1: badly arranged and irregular. A stately Spanish city rose in
Speaker 1: its stead. Large fan shaped windows looked down into courtyards
Speaker 1: which held banana trees and oleanders, and balconies railed with
Speaker 1: delicately wrought iron overhung the street.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting because I actually never really noticed
Speaker 2: how non French the French Quarter is, But when you
Speaker 2: break it all down, it's like, yeah, of course these
Speaker 2: are all Spanish architectural features, I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that Spanish style wasn't only limited to where
Speaker 1: people lived. It also influenced how the city's dead were
Speaker 1: laid to rest. So when settlers first came to the region,
Speaker 1: they had a tough time getting their dead to stay put.
Speaker 1: Because the water table in the area is so high,
Speaker 1: all the burial plots had to be dug shallow, otherwise
Speaker 1: the grave would fill with water and the coffin would
Speaker 1: just pop out of the ground. And they tried everything
Speaker 1: to keep the coffins in place right, like they would
Speaker 1: bore these holes into the lids to make them less buoyant.
Speaker 1: It was a huge problem. They didn't like, tried weighing
Speaker 1: down the lids with heavy stones. But you know, if
Speaker 1: a rainstorm was bad enough in the area, which if
Speaker 1: you know the area, they have terrible rainstorms, the coffins
Speaker 1: would still float right out of the graves. So all
Speaker 1: of that changed during the Spanish period when the city's
Speaker 1: current system of these burial chambers was introduced. So you know,
Speaker 1: New Orleans starts stacking their vaults and using these more
Speaker 1: ornate tombs and crypts for I guess the wealthier families.
Speaker 1: But when taken all together, the new cemeteries kind of
Speaker 1: looked more like miniature cities, and they were complete with
Speaker 1: these like houselike tombs and almost like avenues or streets
Speaker 1: for pathways. And while it might seem a little macabre
Speaker 1: to have so many reminders of death and plain view
Speaker 1: like that, these so called cities of the dead were
Speaker 1: so much better than you know, stepping outside in a
Speaker 1: storm and having to walk over your your late grandfather's
Speaker 1: coffin or whatever it was floating down the street, so.
Speaker 2: Morbid. So these fire codes and graveyards, you know, they
Speaker 2: definitely improved under Spanish rain, but I mean, from everything
Speaker 2: I've read, the space and sanitation issues were still pretty
Speaker 2: major concerns, because you know, you got to keep in mind,
Speaker 2: like the entire city was still pretty much confined to
Speaker 2: the French Quarter at that point, and everything beyond that
Speaker 2: was seen as uninhabitable, like swamp and marshlands, and so
Speaker 2: to make the land usable, the city would need to
Speaker 2: build these levees and canals and pumps to drain the
Speaker 2: water and the soil beneath all of that. And so
Speaker 2: that really took more than a century to get this
Speaker 2: system up and running properly. So in the meantime, all
Speaker 2: the residents of New Orleans just had to squeeze together
Speaker 2: on this only patch of upraised terrain that they had, yeah,
Speaker 2: which is all surrounded by a horrible swamp. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: that later proved a problem in itself. So the city's
Speaker 2: poor sanitation and lack of running water proved to be
Speaker 2: this perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, who quickly developed a
Speaker 2: taste for human blood. And so it wasn't long after
Speaker 2: that horrific yellow fever epidemic broke out and the city
Speaker 2: claiming the lives of more than forty one thousand residents.
Speaker 2: And this happened between eighteen seventeen and nineteen oh five.
Speaker 2: So yeah, not a lot of love lost between those
Speaker 2: living in New Orleans and the local wetlands in those days.
Speaker 2: And in fact, I came across this amazing quote that
Speaker 2: one observer made about the region. This was back in
Speaker 2: eighteen fifteen, and I sort of think it captures the
Speaker 2: spirit of what most residents would have thought of the
Speaker 2: place during its first two centuries or so. So he says,
Speaker 2: the boiling Fountain of Death is one of the most dismal,
Speaker 2: low and harrid places on which the light of sun
Speaker 2: ever shone, and yet they're under it lies the influence
Speaker 2: of a tropical heat belching up its poison and malaria.
Speaker 2: The dregs of the seven vials of wrath covered with
Speaker 2: a yellow, greenish scum. How bad is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? It makes me think spring Break, New Orleans exactly.
Speaker 1: It does make you wonder, like, how did the Native
Speaker 1: Americans mag live there so long if the conditions were
Speaker 1: as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. But if you
Speaker 2: stop and think about it, their lifestyle was a little
Speaker 2: more flexible than that of the European colonists, so when
Speaker 2: the floods came, a tribe could simply move to higher
Speaker 2: ground or maybe build a couple dams to keep the
Speaker 2: village dry. And things got a little bit more complicated, though,
Speaker 2: like when you start trying to establish a permanent city
Speaker 2: for tens of thousands of former prisoners. So life in
Speaker 2: the swamp was exceptionally hard for settlers, but that's largely
Speaker 2: because they were asking more of the region than anyone
Speaker 2: before them had, so the civilization they wanted it It
Speaker 2: did come together, little by little, but it took a
Speaker 2: lot of time and a lot of trial and error
Speaker 2: just to get there.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, now we have the history, but I
Speaker 1: feel like we should cover some more of the only
Speaker 1: in New Orleans things, So why don't we do that?
Speaker 1: For first to quick break and.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to part time genius. All right, Mago, So
Speaker 2: before the break we talked about why New Orleans is
Speaker 2: a terrible place to be a grave digger. So I
Speaker 2: didn't know that before. It's water table is so high
Speaker 2: that above ground and tournament is really the only safe option.
Speaker 2: And you know, as you might guess, that kind of
Speaker 2: concern extends beyond the cemetery, so forends, you'd be hard
Speaker 2: pressed to find an underground basement in New Orleans for
Speaker 2: very much the same reason, like it would flood anytime
Speaker 2: it rained. But again, just like with the above ground tombs,
Speaker 2: residents solve the dilemma by getting pretty creative. So in
Speaker 2: the early twentieth century, these new raised basement houses started
Speaker 2: appearing throughout the city. So these homes consisted of these
Speaker 2: low ceiling basements built at ground level and a higher
Speaker 2: ceiling living space on top of those. So if you've
Speaker 2: ever seen a house in New Orleans with an unusually
Speaker 2: long staircase leading up to the front door, that's probably
Speaker 2: what's going on there, like these stairs go straight to
Speaker 2: the second floor because the first floor is actually just
Speaker 2: the basement.
Speaker 1: You know, it's neat to see all the different workarounds
Speaker 1: residents have come up with over the years, like that
Speaker 1: first floor basement setup. That works great for a private home,
Speaker 1: but it's a little less practical for a shop in
Speaker 1: the city, right, So customers need to be able to
Speaker 1: pop in easily without having to climb a steep set
Speaker 1: of stairs or navigate through the storre's basements. And that's
Speaker 1: why if you look look up some of the older
Speaker 1: row homes in New Orleans, the ground floor is taken
Speaker 1: up by a retail space and the basement is actually.
Speaker 2: In the ceiling. Wait, isn't that just an attic?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it sounds like it the way I
Speaker 1: put it, but actually that's not the case. So it's
Speaker 1: actually more like a crawl space between the first floor
Speaker 1: and the second story. So you'd open a trap door
Speaker 1: in the floor, and rather than climbing up into the
Speaker 1: ceiling like you would in an attic, you'd actually like
Speaker 1: sneak down into the space between the store and your
Speaker 1: first floor of a home. And it's a pretty clever
Speaker 1: way to sneak some extra storage space into a rowhouse
Speaker 1: without having to go all the way up to an attic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's true. So if you ask me,
Speaker 2: the real historical must have for your New Orleans home
Speaker 2: is a floor level mirror. So apparently a lot of
Speaker 2: the plantation homes in and around the city at the
Speaker 2: time featured these long mirrors, and they were mounted flush
Speaker 2: with the floor, and that was so that women could
Speaker 2: check the links of their dresses to make sure that
Speaker 2: their ankles weren't showing. Because mego, if you know this, like,
Speaker 2: the ankle is the gateway to all impure thoughts and deeds,
Speaker 2: I think, So.
Speaker 1: It does seem strange that people actually freaked out about
Speaker 1: seeing an ankle in public, considering that, like the summers
Speaker 1: in New Orleans are so hot, it is.
Speaker 2: Tough to imagine like how unbearable that would be. And
Speaker 2: in addition to ankle coverings, folks in the region had
Speaker 2: another way to prevent scandals. They would use this architectural
Speaker 2: quirk called the Romeo catcher. So if you've ever spent
Speaker 2: time in the French Quarter or seen pictures of it,
Speaker 2: you're likely familiar with the second and third floor balconies.
Speaker 2: They're called galleries when you're in New Orleans, and these
Speaker 2: things line the historic streets when you go visit there,
Speaker 2: and along these balconies you'll also see lots of ornate
Speaker 2: rod and cast iron railings, as well as some metal
Speaker 2: support columns connecting the balconies to the streets below. Now,
Speaker 2: on some of these buildings, if you're near the top
Speaker 2: of the columns, you'll see what looks like a ring
Speaker 2: of spikes or barbed wire going all the way around
Speaker 2: the post. And on somehouses, the spikes might look like
Speaker 2: nails sticking out in all directions, while other houses might
Speaker 2: have spikes that look like coat hooks or thorns or
Speaker 2: something like that. But you know, in either case, the
Speaker 2: purpose of the spikes was the same. It was to
Speaker 2: deter these would be Romeos from climbing up to Juliette's
Speaker 2: balcony late at night.
Speaker 1: And I'm guessing those still come in pretty handy during
Speaker 1: Mardi Gras, right, Like, if someone has too much to drink,
Speaker 1: they'd probably think twice about climbing that balcony once they
Speaker 1: see those spikes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And that's actually where this story takes a
Speaker 2: little bit of a dark turn, which seems like what
Speaker 2: we've been doing a lot of in this episode. But
Speaker 2: because the Romeo catchers weren't really meant to catch the
Speaker 2: late night boyfriends on the way up, the hope was
Speaker 2: that the side of the spikes would scare the boy off,
Speaker 2: but realistically, if he wanted to get around the spikes
Speaker 2: badly enough, it wouldn't be too much of a problem
Speaker 2: as long as he was sober. The true danger of
Speaker 2: these spikes was on the way back down, because even
Speaker 2: if a suitor did make it up to the balcony,
Speaker 2: there was still a strong chance that the girl his
Speaker 2: father would hear the commotion come charging in with a
Speaker 2: loaded shotgun. And at that point the boy would usually
Speaker 2: make for a break for the railing and trying to
Speaker 2: scramble down. And this was happening so quickly, and in
Speaker 2: his panic, the Romeo might forget about all the spikes,
Speaker 2: waiting to snag whichever parts it might be able to.
Speaker 1: And you're saying these Romeo spikes are still there today though.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean they're all over the French Quarter
Speaker 2: and a lot of people never notice them though, So
Speaker 2: they're like these little remnants of the city's history. Sort
Speaker 2: of hidden in plain sight. It's something worth looking for
Speaker 2: when you're there. And it's funny. Before the show, I
Speaker 2: was thinking about the crowds on Bourbon Street and thinking
Speaker 2: it's not a city for everyone. But the more we
Speaker 2: talk about it, it's really more the opposite, Like there's
Speaker 2: so many things going on in New Orleans, both culturally historically,
Speaker 2: that there really is something for everybody. Like you can
Speaker 2: look and do basically any aspect of the city and
Speaker 2: come away with some colorful bit of history that ties
Speaker 2: together these five different cultures, from.
Speaker 1: Food to music to whenever. There's actually so much I
Speaker 1: feel like we should do a follow up episode that's
Speaker 1: all joyful instead of just disaster stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's true. It isn't the case with all American cities.
Speaker 1: Like that level of historical scope and kind of the
Speaker 1: variety that is in New Orleans is something we almost
Speaker 1: exclusively attribute to like cities in Europe where like the
Speaker 1: old and newer kind of intermingled and you can see
Speaker 1: the different phases of civilization all at once. You know,
Speaker 1: New Orleans is kind of an exception in that way
Speaker 1: in America. It's an American city that's been shaped by
Speaker 1: so many different hands over the years, and it's impossible
Speaker 1: to pin down if it's strictly Southern or French or
Speaker 1: Spanish or Haitian or Creole. It's like all of that
Speaker 1: all at once.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I appreciate how innately weird. The result of
Speaker 2: that mashup is, like you read about those efforts to
Speaker 2: keep Portland weird or keep Austin weird, But you're never
Speaker 2: really going to need a public campaign like that in
Speaker 2: New Orleans, Like there's no other option. The city can't
Speaker 2: help but be itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think that's a good place to leave
Speaker 1: things right now. But since we've been talking about the
Speaker 1: Crescent City, it's only fitting that we end by offering
Speaker 1: a little lan yaff of our own. So why don't
Speaker 1: we do the fact off?
Speaker 2: All right? I'll start us off. So New Orleans is
Speaker 2: the birthplace of a few unexpected inventions, I think you'd say,
Speaker 2: and this includes the game of craps, the modern version
Speaker 2: of poker, and randomly enough, dental floss. But one thing
Speaker 2: that New Orleans can't actually claim credit for is the
Speaker 2: Marti Gras Festival. And that's because, believe it or not,
Speaker 2: the oldest Fat Tuesday celebration in America dates back to
Speaker 2: seventeen oh three, and it took place not in New
Speaker 2: Orleans but in my own Mobile, Alabama. I guess I
Speaker 2: really can't say my own. I'm from Birmingham, you know,
Speaker 2: it's in Alabama. So the Gulf coast of Alabama saw
Speaker 2: its share of French explorers and the seventeen hundreds, just
Speaker 2: like Louisiana did, and the more free spirited among them
Speaker 2: started holding marti gross celebrations just they had back home.
Speaker 1: So I've got another bit of fun. Uh New Orleans
Speaker 1: lingo for you, and the words are neutral ground, and
Speaker 1: that's the term the locals use for that grassy strip
Speaker 1: of brown do you find between two roads. We normally
Speaker 1: refer to them as medians, but in New Orleans they're
Speaker 1: called neutral ground. And the term apparently dates back to
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds when there were these cultural and
Speaker 1: political tensions and it was kind of an all time
Speaker 1: high in the city. At that point. Things got so
Speaker 1: bad that New Orleans was actually split into separate municipalities.
Speaker 1: Like the French speaking Creoles and the supporters were on
Speaker 1: one side, the Anglo English speaking populations were on the other,
Speaker 1: but the dividing line for these groups was Canal Street,
Speaker 1: which had a wide, grassy median running right down the middle,
Speaker 1: and residents kind of half jokingly started calling the median
Speaker 1: neutral ground, and before long the nickname was applied to
Speaker 1: all the medians in the city.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, speaking of ways to keep the peace
Speaker 2: in New Orleans, I have to tell you about the
Speaker 2: peacemaker sandwich, which is basically the precursor to the city's
Speaker 2: famous boy. So according to newspaper reports from the late
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, the peacemaker, also known as the oyster loaf,
Speaker 2: was pretty much a French loaf stuffed with these hot
Speaker 2: fried oysters. But this wasn't a lunchtime staple like the
Speaker 2: Poe boy would eventually be, and instead, the peacemaker was
Speaker 2: a sandwich for a very specific occasion. So as the
Speaker 2: name suggests, peacemakers were usually purchased by husbands as a
Speaker 2: way to preemptively smooth things over with their wives after
Speaker 2: coming home late from a bar or wherever else. And
Speaker 2: this was common and a pretty well known practice in
Speaker 2: New Orleans that was actually reported about in a San
Speaker 2: Francisco newspaper way back in eighteen ninety three. But the
Speaker 2: description of how the whole exchange plays out is too
Speaker 2: good not to share, So I'm just going to read
Speaker 2: out this excerpt that I pulled from it. When the
Speaker 2: sandwich has been wrapped in paper, the buyer flees as
Speaker 2: a bird to his home. The little difficulty with the
Speaker 2: keyhole overcome, he steps into the awful presence undismayed. There
Speaker 2: she stands, grim as but without an apologetic word. The
Speaker 2: airing one climbs slowly up the stair and holds forth
Speaker 2: the peacemaker. She takes it, puts down the lamp, and
Speaker 2: removes the cover. The deliciously flavored theme ascends like sweet
Speaker 2: incense until it reaches her rigid nockles, and then her
Speaker 2: features relax into something like a smile. When her lord
Speaker 2: is banging his shoes and depositing his hat carefully in
Speaker 2: the wash basin, she sits on one side of the bed,
Speaker 2: eating the spoils of domestic war.
Speaker 1: That is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: It's very ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine working in my house. But here's another
Speaker 1: food related fact. There's a legendary restaurant in New Orleans
Speaker 1: called Dookie Chase's Restaurant, and the long running executive chef
Speaker 1: there actually served as the inspiration for the Tiana character
Speaker 1: in The Princess and the Frog. So when the production
Speaker 1: team for that movie came to New Orleans on a
Speaker 1: research trip, they met with the chef at a restaurant
Speaker 1: and knew right away that she'd be the basis for
Speaker 1: the main character. Now, the chef's name is not Tiana,
Speaker 1: it's Lea Chase, and after reading about her this week,
Speaker 1: she's kind of my new hero. She and her husband's
Speaker 1: restaurant served as a crucial gathering place during the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement in the sixties. In fact, Mlka and the
Speaker 1: Freedom writers frequently met there to discuss strategies in her
Speaker 1: upstairs meeting rooms. And we don't have time to go
Speaker 1: through her whole life, but it's a really lovely story
Speaker 1: about a woman who came from nothing and became this
Speaker 1: source of hope and pride for a community. She passed
Speaker 1: away in June of this year, but right up until
Speaker 1: the end, she was still hard at work in the
Speaker 1: kitchen of Doukie Chase, doing what she loved most.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't feel like I can top the
Speaker 2: sweetness of that fact, So I think I'm going to
Speaker 2: go the strange path instead. All right, So, during the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, three of the first nine Super Bowls were
Speaker 2: played at Tulane University in the stadium there it was
Speaker 2: in New Orleans, and each of those games was attended
Speaker 2: by two ancient Egyptian mummies who had lived around nine
Speaker 2: hundred BC.
Speaker 1: So that is not where I expected that sentence. But
Speaker 1: how did two ancient Egyptian mummies go to the Super Bowl?
Speaker 2: That's pretty easy, Maga. They took the sarcopha bus. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever heard this one.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a terrible joke you stole from
Speaker 1: your song.
Speaker 2: No, I totally stole that joke.
Speaker 1: Quick.
Speaker 2: But here's the real fact. Two ancient Egyptian mummies were
Speaker 2: donated to Tulane University in eighteen fifty and so for
Speaker 2: the next one hundred years they were passed from one
Speaker 2: museum exhibit to another until they ultimately made it back
Speaker 2: to the school's math department. I don't know why, but
Speaker 2: that's where they ended up. Then, in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: the mummies were put in a storage room beneath the
Speaker 2: bleachers of Tulane Stadium, and that's where they stayed until
Speaker 2: the mid seventies, when the stadium was torn down. So,
Speaker 2: according to an article in the Tulane University magazine Quote,
Speaker 2: the Mummies attended every two lane home game from nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty five until the last wave appearance in Tulane Stadium
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy four. They were presented all three Super
Speaker 2: Bowls and does of New Orleans Saints games waged on
Speaker 2: two lane turf, and they never once complained about their
Speaker 2: lousy seats.
Speaker 1: You know, I like that football loving mummies story, but
Speaker 1: I really love the peacemaker sandwich story, which I think
Speaker 1: earns you the victory of this STrenD.
Speaker 2: Oh well, thanks for that, and from Gabe, Lil Mango
Speaker 2: and me, thanks so much for listening. We'll be back
Speaker 2: soon with another episode. Part Time Genius is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.