epicurious.....part 2

As I am researching, reading, and eating New Orleans food, my interest about this topic becomes part of my ritual daily life. When I go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, I pretend to act like a chef or at least like a man who is taking care of a family. I prepare a list of what I will cook for that week, and that includes a wide range of different flavors. I also consider the right nutrients, the right tastes, and the right ingredients that would make a healthy and more importantly - a delicious meal. I pick the freshest vegetables in the vegetable section as well as the freshest meats in the meat section. After the one hour shopping at Wal-Mart, the first thing I do when I go home is to decide what I am going to cook that day. I think cooking is a social act that every family should do or every group of people living together should do. Cooking involves talking, laughing, moving, making, etcetera. It is a social activity that gathers people together, and therefore I think it has a really big value that you wouldn’t think it has.

Next, as part of my seminar class and my interest in this topic, I decide to interview people in New Orleans who have a strong knowledge about the food in this city. Since I eat my lunch at Frady’s almost everyday, I was able to know Mr. Kirk Frady. I was also able to get to interview him regard my topic.

My first question for him was, “Why is NOLA food delicious?” He answers, “Because it is a MELTING POT that contains different people and different flavor.” One shopper in the store, Clayton Kerth, over heard us talking. He jumps in and says, “This is because our food is BEST of the BEST of the BEST of the family recipe.” He continues with, “Those people might give you the recipe but not the secret ingredients. If you found it, it is like a treasure hunt.”

After that, I focus on the food in this restaurant. I learn that Frady’s serve both Soul and Cajun food. For example: red beans and rice (Soul), and jambalaya and po-boy (Cajun). I also find out that his famous dish is Bread Pudding that he learned from his father who learned from his father. Suddenly, the store gets packed with people. And so I decide to stop the interview with Kirk and continue some other time.

The second part of my research is to go to a lecture by Susan Lauderman on “Dollops of History in Every Bite: Two Culinary Heritage Projects to Preserve Creole Cookery in New Orleans”. In this lecture, she talks about the danger that we might face; we might lose one of our treasures and that is Creole Food. She addresses the factors that lead us to loose this culinary treasure.

Some of these factors are:

• Our Creole restaurants are not able to reopen after Katrina
• Increase in the number of non-Creole restaurants
• The mother doesn’t pass to her kids the culinary of Creole cooking
• The schools are feeding the students fast food

Susan Lauderman’s mission is to keep our Creole heritage. She is trying to preserve this type of food in this city. She says, “There is French, Spanish, and African every where in the world, but none create a unique food as of New Orleans.”

After interviewing Mr. Frady and going to Ms. Lauderman’s lecture, I find out that I have never had this passion about food until now. This city is giving me a new perspective everyday that I can learn and collect: Today food and tomorrow …..