Prepare a Tureen of Turtle Soup Tonite

Turtle Soup is not a dish one sees everyday. Difficult to find outside the New Orleans and Louisiana Coast, most know the dish, potage a la tortue, from the 1988 movie Babette's Feast. In Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook, a recipe for Turtle Soup can be found on page 136.

While supplies of fresh water turtles, the only kind lawfully sold as food, are abundant in the New Orleans area to make Turtle Soup, in other parts of the country, the dish is illegal. According to Wikipedia, many turtle species are listed as "threatened" or "endangered" and their hunting and capture is illegal. The loss of an adult turtle can seriously harm populations of the amphibian as breeding adults are difficult to replace. Fortunately for those who don't live in New Orleans, turtle meat can be bought from specialty markets or by mail order. Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook has a four-page section that focuses on hard-to-find ingredients ranging from durum flour to seafood starting on page 424. Ordering the meat also solves the problem of dressing a live, snapping turtle.

Soups have a long history. In a piece by Andrew F. Smith at cheftalk.com, he states that boiling foods gained steam when reliable water- and heat-proof containers were developed around 3,000 BCE. Boiling was a huge innovation in cooking technique. Boiling cooked a submersed food completely and evenly unlike open air fires where our ancestors had to regularly turn their food in order to cook it. Also, previously discarded animal parts like the bones suddenly became edible, with boiling techniques able to extract the nutritional value of the discards, making broths.

In 1794, Jean Baptiste Gilbert Payplat dis Julien opened a restaurant in Boston that specialized in soups. Nicknamed "The Prince of Soups," gourmands of the era flocked to Julien's establishment including French foodie Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a politician and gastronome who visited American during the height of the French Revolution. While Julien created Julien Soup, his specialty was the making of Turtle Soup.

Turtle soup entered the American mainstream at the very top. The dish had become popular with the upper classes. With turtle so expensive to import, only the wealthiest could afford real Turtle Soup. Over time, a mock turtle soup was developed that used veal that could be enjoyed by the middle class. Janet Clarkson of kitchenproject.com states that the soup was a regular item on the menu of the Lord Mayors banquet in London while The Old Foodie recounts that turtle soup was part of the menu for the Corporation of the City of London's banquet for the Allied Sovereigns: the English Prince Regent and future King George IV, Tsar Alexander I of Russia and the King of Prussia,Friedrich Wilhelm III. President Taft so loved the dish that he brought a special chef with him to the White House in order to make it.

The dish was so popular that writer Lewis Carroll praised it in his book, Alice in Wonderland. Gui Alinat of Tampabay.com uses the verse to open his article about Turtle Soup:

"Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?"

In "A Seafood Cook's Companion" on page 44, Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook discusses the possible scarcity of finding turtle and suggests that some home cooks rely on oxtail or veal as substitutes.

Wikipedia: "Turtle Soup" 04/01/08
ChefTalk.com: "History of Soup"
Kitchen Project: "Turtle Soup and Mock Turtle Soup" 03/01
The Old Foodie: "Turtle Season" 06/18/07
Tampabay.com: "Home Cooks, Please Don't Mock Turtle Soup" 04/27/05

photo courtesy of qmnonic, used under this Creative Commons license

Cobb Salad: A California Import Given a Creole Twist

Cobb Salad was created at the Brown Derby by the manager Bob Cole. On page 153 of Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook is Crab and Shrimp Cobb Salad with Remoulade Sauce. Unlike the traditional Cobb salad that is dressed with chicken and cheese and a special Cobb salad dressing, Ralph Brennan's offering is presented with shrimp, crab and a corn relish with remoulade sauce.

Salad has had a roller-coaster ride throughout culinary history, at some points a desirable and practical dish and at others a suspicious and even potentially dangerous one. Lynn Olver's Food Timeline records that the ancient Greeks and Romans would dine on raw vegetables with a dressing of oil, vinegar and herbs. Greek physicians Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460 BCE-c. 370 BCE) and Galen of Pergamon (c. 129 CE-c. 210 CE) both recommended a diet of fresh vegetables as it was easy to digest. Further they recommended that salad should be the first course of a meal because salad wouldn't create obstructions for the latter courses. Foodies of the era argued that salad should be the last course as the vinegar dressing conflicted with the taste of wine.

Salad is a corruption of a vulgar Roman phrase herba salata meaning "salted herb." The dish fell into decline after the fall of Rome, though western Europeans continued dining on raw vegetables on fast days or for medical purposes. The Byzantine Empire continued the practice of salad and later reintroduced it to Medieval Europe via Italy and Spain, though vegetables would be picked or cooked.

During the Renaissance, the consumption of fresh vegetables simply was not done. It was feared that uncooked vegetables led to illness so vegetables were well-cooked, deriving the plant material of its nutrients. According to Salad-Recipe.net, Delmonico's Restaurant in New York began to offer salads to their high-end clients, making the dish a "wealthy" one in popular perception.

Arthur Schwartz of thefoodmaven.com retells the story of the creation of the Cobb Salad as originally told by the Brown Derby itself:

"One night in 1937, Bob Cobb, then owner of The Brown Derby, prowled hungrily in his restaurant's kitchen for a snack. Opening the huge refrigerator, he pulled out this and that: a head of lettuce, an avocado, some romaine, watercress, tomatoes, some cold breast of chicken, a hard-boiled egg, chives, cheese and some old-fashioned French dressing. He started chopping. Added some crisp bacon -- swiped from a busy chef. The Cobb salad was born."

And it has proved popular indeed. According to the Brown Derby Restaurant Group, more than four million of the salads have been sold since 1937.

While not labor intensive to prepare, Cobb salad can be time consuming in order to get the correct taste. Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook advises preparing the lettuce three days in advance, the remoulade dressing two days in advance in order to permit the flavors to fully develop, and the remainder of the ingredients the day before serving.

The Food Timeline: "Salads" 03/22/08
Salad-recipe.net: "The Story of Salad's Success"
The Food Maven: "Original Cobb Salad"
photo courtesy of CP, used under this Creative Commons license

Flaming Finish to a Fine Meal

After a fine meal of Pecan-Crusted Speckled Trout with Rum-Butter Sauce (pg. 204) followed with Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie (pg. 287), what could be better than a well-prepared cup of coffee to accompany that dessert? Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook offers a Cafe Brulot Diabolique on page 408. This coffee offers the diner a dramatic finish when the clove-studded lemon and orange peels are set aflame. When preparing this recipe, it's stated that "Because the flames from the burning alcohol typically rise at least 2 to 3 feet, this recipe should not be prepared on a stove with a low hood, nor in a kitchen with a ceiling lower than 8 feet from the floor."

Ian McNulty at FrenchQuarter.com writes:

"It ends up tasting like very thick, sweet coffee with the deep citrus and clove flavors mellowing the sweetness. . . It is especially popular as a finale to a big holiday meal, such as the New Orleans reveillon feast. . . It is also one of the most memorable ways to cap off a glorious New Orleans meal."

Coffee has a long history beginning around 850 CE when a goatherd named Kaldi noticed how lively his goats became after eating berries coming from a certain shrub in Ethiopia, according to koffeekorner.com. Cultivation of coffee trees dates to around 1100 CE on the Arabian Peninsula. Arabs making the beverage referred to it as "qahwa" meaning a beverage made from plants. The first cafe opened in Constantinople in 1475. English coffeehouses became the birth place of tipping the staff. In order to speed one's order or improve one's seating, a cup was prominently placed with an accompanying sign that said, "To Insure Prompt Service."

Surprisingly, Lloyd's of London was born of a coffeehouse. Edward Lloyd opened a coffeehouse in London on Tower Street in 1688. According to Wikipedia's history of Lloyd's, the coffeehouse was frequented by merchants, shipowners and sailors who would discuss insurance deals among themselves. Later members of the insurance arrangement formed a committee called The Society of Lloyd's and moved to the Royal Exchange in 1774.

The first coffee plants were brought over from Europe in 1723 by a French naval officer by the name of Gabriel de Clieu who smuggled a seedling that he planted on the island of Martinique. By 1777 it had become a major crop for Martinique, where it would have been easily transported to New Orleans.

The Louisiana State Museum states that New Orleans is the number one coffee port in the U. S with it's 241,000 tons coming from 31 countries. In 1995, coffee shipped from New Orleans accounted more than a quarter of all coffee imported to the United States. As a commodity, it's second only to oil and more than 400 billion cups are drunk annually.

Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook states that flaming coffees came via French cooks and waiters in the early 1800s. This is a recipe that produces 10 - 12 1/4-cup servings. According to the cookbook, "If you have a large kitchen, your guests can gather 'round to enjoy seeing you recreate the loveliest of all Creole dining rituals."

FrenchQuarter.com: "Light My Fire: The Spectacle and Tradition of Café Brûlot" 2006
KoffeeKorner: "Coffee History" 03/30/00
Wikipedia: "Lloyd's of London" 03/30/08
Louisiana State Museum: "New Orleans and Coffee" 2002
photo courtesy of Kaleid, used under this Creative Commons license

The Sweet Potato Vs. The Yam

Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook isn't afraid of a little controversy. On page 305, the issue of the sweet potato as opposed to the yam is tackled in the introduction to the recipe "Fluffy Sweet-Potato Pie." While yams are common to Africa and South America, the sweet potato ". . . has been a staple of Southern pantries for generations."

At plantanswers.tamu.edu, the two plants are stacked in a side by side comparison of characteristics. The sweet potato had taken root during Neolithic times while the yam entered the scene at around 50,000 BC. Another major difference is in the health benefits each plant provides. While yams are very low in Vitamin A, the orange varieties of sweet potatoes are quite high. In fact, a 3 1/2 ounce serving of baked sweet potato has 8,800 IU of vitamin A with 141 calories, making the root an excellent choice for those watching their weight.

Peggy Trowbridge Filippone at About.com notes that the sweet potato is grown in the Southern United States while yams are primarily cultivated in Africa, parts of Asia and the Caribbean. The first recorded instance of the word "yam" dates to 1676 and is a corruption of African words njam, nyami and djambi meaning "to eat."

Wikipedia.com states that the sweet potato is native to the tropical parts of the Americas and became domesticated about 5,000 years ago. In 2007, Louisiana contributed 15.9% of the American crop of sweet potatoes, making it third in production behind North Carolina and California. Wiki also recounts this story:

The Frenchmen who established the first settlement at Opelousas in 1760 discovered the native Attakapas, Alabama, Choctaw, and Opelousas Indian Tribes eating sweet potatoes. The sweet potato became a favorite food item of the French and Spanish settlers and thus continued a long history of cultivation in Louisiana.

The Wikipedia entry for yams comments that the tuber can grow to lengths of 2.5 meters or over 8 feet in length. It began to see cultivation around 8,000 BCE in Africa and Asia. They are particularly valued for their storage in West Africa and New Guinea, up to six months without refrigeration, which is important during the annual food scarcity at the start of the rainy season. Surprisingly, yams of African origin cannot be eaten raw due to the natural substances in the tuber that can cause illness. As well, skin irritation from handling raw yams can occur, although a simple bath of cold water can relieve it.

The Library of Congress explains the confusion over terminology neatly:

In the United States, firm varieties of sweet potatoes were produced before soft varieties. When soft varieties were first grown commercially, there was a need to differentiate between the two. African slaves had already been calling the ‘soft’ sweet potatoes ‘yams’ because they resembled the yams in Africa. Thus, ‘soft’ sweet potatoes were referred to as ‘yams’ to distinguish them from the ‘firm’ varieties.

Whether a person calls it a yam or a sweet-potato, it makes for delicious food. Fluffy Sweet-Potato Pie is correctly identified as a "delicious comfort food" in Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook.

Plant Answers: "What is the Difference Between a Sweet Potato and a Yam?"
About.com: "Sweet Potato and Yam Differences" 2008
Wikipedia: "Sweet Potato" 04/29/08
Wikipedia: "Yam (Vegetable)" 04/25/08
Library of Congress: "Question: What is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?" 03/01/07
photo courtesy of Carl E. Lewis, used under this Creative Commons license

Oysters Rockefeller

With the abundance of oysters available to the New Orleans chef, it's no surprise that Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook features more than 10 recipes starring this fruit of the sea. Among the most famous of oyster dishes is Oysters Rockefeller, which is featured on page 80.

Oysters Rockefeller was created in 1899 by a New Orleans chef named Jules Alciatore. His great grandson, Roy F. Guste, Jr., writes at foodreference.com that his ancestor created the dish after having difficulty procuring the necessary European snails for cooking. Being unable to get the desired snails, Alciatore decided to look closer to home for a more reliable supply of product, choosing gulf oysters as his substitute. He created a rich sauce that was green in color and in naming the dish, chose the name Rockefeller as an exemplar of "rich." At the time the dish was created, John D. Rockefeller was the famous robber baron of Standard Oil Company and at the height of his fame as a capitalist and philanthropist.

Rockefeller came from humble beginnings, first getting his start in business acting as an assistant bookkeeper for Hewitt and Tuttle, produce shippers and commission merchants in 1855. The Rockefeller Archive's biography tells us that Rockefeller became involved in oil refinery in 1863 with partners Maurice Clark and Samuel Andrews. In 1870, Rockefeller and assorted partners created Standard Oil Company with the company being organized into a trust in 1882. By the 1890s, it's estimated that Standard Oil owned 75% of the petroleum business in America. According to trivia-library.com's study of the richest people in history, when Rockefeller retired from active leadership of Standard Oil in 1896, its estimated his fortune was worth around $200 million.

His tendency to philanthropy was there from his earliest days in business when he would tithe 10% of his paycheck to the church. Wikipedia.com lists his many philanthropic enterprises. He favored educational and public health causes as well as basic sciences and the arts. While he gave money to recognized institutions such as Harvard, Columbia, Vassar and Yale, he also helped small colleges become major institutions such as the University of Chicago which started life as a small baptist college and became a world-class university by 1900 with Rockefeller's help.

While a northerner, his programs had great impact in the South. In 1884, he was the major financial backer for an Atlanta college for African-American women that became Spelman College. In 1902, he created the General Education Board. Designed to help education at all levels across the country, its biggest impact was in the pioneering schools for African-Americans in the South. His 1909 Rockefeller Sanitary Commission was a key component in wiping out hookworm disease in the South.

While he gave huge donations throughout his life, totalling about $550 million dollars, he was noted for his more playful habit of giving out dimes to children though he switched to nickels during the Great Depression. Cheekily, he even passed dimes to President Herbert Hoover and fellow mogul Harvey Firestone.

While some recipes call for a puree of green vegetables to create the green-colored sauce, Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook uses spinach to give the dish its signature color.

foodreference.com: "The Real Oysters Rockefeller"
The Rockefeller Archive: "John D. Rockefeller" 09/97
Trivia-Library.com: "Richest People in History: John D. Rockefeller"
Wikipedia: "John D. Rockefeller" 04/28/08
photo courtesy of zzzack, used under this Creative Commons license

It's Friday! Who Wants Pizza?

If there is one dish nearly everyone can agree on enjoying, it's pizza. And Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook is ready to please with a Crawfish Pizza with Pancetta and Roasted Garlic on page 249. In the introduction, it's stated that "cooks in South Louisiana never seem to run out of ways to cook crawfish, so the appearance of a crawfish pizza was probably inevitable." Inevitable indeed, as pizza and it's variations have been prepared since Neolithic times.

According to Linda Stradley's whatscookingamerica.net, the dish has been prepared since the Stone Age and was baked beneath the stones of the fire. Having the toppings on top of the bread permitted people to enjoy the dish without the need of plates or utensils. In Virgil's The Aeneid, one stanza refers to the devouring of cakes of flour:

Their homely fare dispatch’d, the hungry band

Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,
To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.
Ascanius this observ’d, and smiling said:
“See, we devour the plates on which we fed.”

Pizza as we know it today, with its rich tomato sauce, developed after tomatoes were brought back from South America. At pizzajoe.co.uk, it's stated that tomatoes, initially viewed as poisonous by Europeans, began to be eaten in the late 1600s. Peasants in Naples, Italy, began to use tomatoes on their herbed bread about this time. Queen Maria Carolina (1752-1814), wife of Ferdinando IV, King of Naples, enjoyed pizza so much that she arranged to have a pizza oven installed at their summer palace at Capodimonte.

According to a history written by Cliff Lowe at inmamaskitchen.com, pizza became the break-out food of 1889 when Queen Margherita, wife of Umberto I, became curious about the flat-bread dish the peasants dined on. She horrified members of her decorous court when she became a fan of the peasant dish, though the common people embraced her for it. She ordered a local pizza chef, Rafaelle Esposito, to the palace to bake a selection of pizzas for her dining pleasure. In her honor, he created the Pizza Margherita that commemorated the Italian flag with its colors of red (tomato sauce), white (mozzarella cheese) and green (basil), which is still a popular dish to this day.

The dish came to America in the late 1800s with the arrival of Italian immigrants. It remained a dish associated with the Italian community until the end of WWII, though pizzerias opened in New York City and Chicago prior to the war. American servicemen became fans of the dish while stationed in Italy and sought it out after the war ended.

Today, the pizza is entrenched in our culinary culture with 23 pounds consumed annually by the average American and its own holiday, International Pizza Day on February 9. The Guinness Book of World Records credits a 100-feet and one inch diameter pizza made in Havana, Florida, as the largest pizza made and consumed.

With New Orleans chefs' tendency to put its own spin on recipes, it's only natural that an enterprising chef jumped at a chance to put local seafood on pizza.

whatscookingamerica.net: "History & Legends of Pizza" 2004
PizzaJoe.co.uk: "Pizza Facts and History" 2003
inmamaskitchen.com: "Pizza History"
photo courtesy of bucklava, used under this Creative Commons license

Use That Stale Bread

Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook features a recipe that uses stale ingredients -- bread, in this case -- to make a Praline Bread Pudding with Praline Creme Anglaise and Caramel Sauce. The recipe, on page 282 in the "Desserts and Dessert Sauces" chapter, uses a water bath for the baking of it and calls for a nine- or ten-inch piece of day-old French bread. The praline creme anglaise sauce can be prepared with praline liqueur -- or not, as the home chef desires.

The Food Timeline site by Lynn Olver has an extensive history of pudding. Most likely developed as a way to use stale bread and extend food resources, it has gradually evolved from the Middle Ages into the desserts of today. An excerpt from the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink by John F. Mariani suggests a Roman origin to the dish:

"The word seems to derive from the Old French boudin, (sausage), and, ultimately, from the Latin botelinus, for many puddings were a form of encased meat or innards. The earliest examples of this word in English refer to such dishes. Dr. Johnson's Dictionary (1755) defines the word as a "kind of food very variously compounded, but generally made of meal, milk, and eggs."

Mark R. Vogel of ReluctantGourmet.com dates the creation of bread puddings to the 13th Century. Bread was soaked in water or milk and was seasoned with sugar and suet with fruits or spices adding flavor then baked. Sometimes these ingredients would be placed in the center of a hollowed out piece of bread called a "sop." French variations called for the bread to be prepared with milk, eggs, raisins, rum and oranges. Today's bread puddings are made by pouring custard over cubed bread and baking.

Stephanie Jaworski's Joyofbaking.com includes in its history of bread pudding a discussion of the use of water baths in its preparation. It's necessary in order to protect more delicate recipes from burning, drying out or curdling (where a milk or egg mixture breaks down into its liquid and solid parts.)

Ian McNulty of FrenchQuarter.com has this to say about bread pudding:

"When most bread goes stale it gets tossed in the trash or fed to the birds. But for some lucky loaves, going stale is just the beginning of a transformation into bread pudding - the ambrosial dessert that is a mainstay finale at Creole restaurants across New Orleans."

He credits bread pudding's popularity to the bread itself. The bread soaks up any sauce it is presented with, infusing the dish with further flavor, and its softer texture makes a nice contrast to the pecans, raisins or walnuts that often top the dish. Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook's version of the recipe is topped with a pecan and brown sugar crumble.

The Food Timeline: "Puddings" 06/10/07
Reluctant Gourmet: "How to Make a Delicious Bread Pudding"
Joy of Baking: "Bread Pudding"
FrenchQuarter.com: "Proof in the Bread Pudding--
Chefs Add Variety to New Orleans' Classic Dessert" 2006

photo courtesy of FotoDawg, used under this Creative Commons license

Potatoes Pontalba

With New Orleans chefs' tendency to commemorate great events and important personages, it's not surprising that the Baroness Micaela Almonester Pontalba numbers among those so remembered. On page 341 of Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook in the "Accompaniments, Etc." chapter, the Baroness receives her due. Potatoes Pontalba is a homey, comfort-food dish made with cubed potatoes, onion, garlic and tasso (a spicy, dry-cured ham traditional in Cajun cooking) and makes a wonderful side dish to the main courses featured in the cookbook.

At FrenchQuarter.com, it's stated that Micaela Almonester, born in 1795, was the daughter of a genteelly poor Creole mother and Spanish-born father by the name of Andres Almonestera y Roxas. Roxas established a large fortune in New Orleans during the late 1700s and contributed large sums of money to establish today's St. Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo and the Presbytere. He also left his daughter the land bordering Jackson Square where Micaela built the Pontalba buildings during the later 1840s. The buildings were a sensation, both for their beauty and utility as well as being built by a woman at the center of a notorious scandal.

At the age of 15, Micaela married a French cousin by the name of Clestin de Pontalba and moved to France. A New York Times article written August 31, 1997, by Angeline Goreau tells the tale of a troubled marriage complete with meddling in-laws, greed and violence. Her in-laws' constant maneuvering to take control of her finances finally exploded into violence and scandal October 19, 1834:

". . . on the morning of Oct. 19, the 80-year-old Baron de Pontalba, dueling pistols in hand, burst into the sleeping quarters of his 40-year-old daughter-in-law (the future Baroness de Pontalba) and fired three shots into her chest. Perceiving that she was wounded but not yet dead, he pursued her through several rooms of their country estate, repeatedly shooting - but missing. Finally, he gave up, rewrote his will in favor of a military school and killed himself."

The murder attempt eventually led to the Baroness' separation and she returned to New Orleans. Bill Thayer's website has an article from the Louisiana Historical Quarterly by Henry Renshaw that details the Baroness' quest to build the Pontalba buildings on the land inherited from her father. Emphasizing her family's ties to Jackson Square is the fact that the Battle of New Orleans was fought on her uncle Ignace Delino de Chalmette's plantation.

After completing the buildings, she returned to France and (eventually) her husband, dying at the age of 78 in 1874.

FrenchQuarter.com: "Micaela Almonester Pontalba: The Baroness of Extremes " 2006
New York Times: "A Spectacular Mess of a Marriage" 08/31/97
Bill Thayer's Website: "Jackson Square by Henry Renshaw"
photo courtesy of David Paul Ohmer, used under this Creative Commons license

On Today's Menu: Sauteed Frog Legs

If the home chef is feeling adventurous, Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook is able to take one on an unforgettable culinary cruise. Sauteed frog legs with wilted baby spinach and creamer potatoes, on page 263, is one of the more unique recipes in the cookbook. In the notes, it's suggested that the best quality legs are domestic frogs, most of which are from Florida. If using frozen legs, it's best that the meat is used as soon as it is thawed as this meat has a short shelf-life of a day or two.

The modern history of this dish begins in the 1880s. At Exploratorium.edu, a short history of Rayne, LA, is presented by Amy Snyder about the city known as the "Frog Capitol of the World." A gourmet chef called Donat Pucheu began to ship bullfrogs to restaurants in New Orleans. As time went on French businessmen, the Brothers Weill, arranged to export the delicacy to restaurants around the world including Sardi's in New York City.

In the cookbook, it's stated that Chef Georges-Auguste Escoffier (The Chef of Kings and the King of Chefs) introduced the dish to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales in the early 1900s while running the Carlton Hotel's kitchens. In order to slip the dish onto the menu, Escoffier renamed it as the more appealing "cuisses de nymphes aurore" or "thighs of the dawn nymphs," rather than frog thighs.

By the mid 1900s, Rayne has stopped the exportation of bullfrogs. According to foodreference.com, Bangladesh became a major exporter of frogs for a time but later banned exporting frogs because the heavy cultivation of frogs led to an increase of the fly population. Insecticides proved to be too costly to be practical so the frog population was kept at home, catching flies.

While the modern diner views frog legs as a delicacy, an archaeological dig in the Czech Republic revealed the remains of 893 frog bones, most of them the bones of thighs, the meatiest part of the frog. Salvador Bailon, a leading expert of frogs in history, revealed in an abc.net article by Rossella Lorenzi that, "Everything seems to confirm that frog consumption was merely an opportunistic choice at that time." Neolithic Czechs tended to hunt frogs in the months of March or April:

Those months see the height of mating activity, when frogs tend to gather in great numbers and can be easily captured. "The frogs could have been simply gathered directly from the pond, or ... other more specialised methods could have been used, such as ground traps during their migration or by fishing on a line and hook," writes Rene Kysely, an archaeologist of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The mild and pleasant flavor of the frog, comparable to other white meats, makes this unconventional dish an elegant surprise. Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook suggests serving this with a soup or salad to make a complete meal.

Exploratorium: "Frog City: Rayne, LA"
Food Reference Website: "Frogs & Frog Legs"
ABC: "Stone Age Europeans Ate Frogs' Legs" 06/27/07
photo courtesy of mbloore, used under this Creative Commons license

Take Off With Pompano en Papillotes

New Orleans has long been known as a capitol of fine dining, where all the senses are shamelessly indulged with the aromatic food attractively presented among background music of fine silver ringing against even finer china. Showy presentation in the finer dining establishments of the city still reign supreme and Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook can help the home chef make a showy presentation as well. On page 176 is a recipe for Pompano en Papillotes with crab butter sauce.

Preparation en papillotes means preparing and serving a dish in a paper case. During the cooking process, the paper case puffs up from the steam, making a delightful surprise for the diner to discover upon opening. The traditional sauce, made with a white wine base, has been updated to a savory crab butter sauce. This particular recipe was created in the early 1900s to honor Brazilian-born aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont.

Wikipedia has an excellent history of the aero-pioneer. Santos-Dumont was born the sixth of eight children to a coffee plantation owner, a French-born engineer who created various labor-saving devices on his plantation. After his father fell ill in 1891, the family relocated to France where 18-year old Santos-Dumont went to Paris in order to continue his studies in physics, chemistry, mechanics and electricity.

In the late 1890s, Santos-Dumont became interested in flight, taking balloon rides and moving on to learning how to pilot the balloons themselves. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics recounts his flight career in great detail. While his first balloon, the Brazil was successful, achieving flight with a payload of about 114 pounds in 1898. His second balloon, the America, won first prize from the Aero Club of Paris study of atmospheric currents and stayed afloat for 22 hours. He went on to design and fly dirigibles and planes. He retired from flying in 1910 after a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and later committed suicide in 1932 in his native Brazil.

His flying exploits made Santos-Dumont a celebrity. To this day, debate rages over whether Santos-Dumont or the Wright brothers were the first to fly an airplane. He delighted Parisians by dropping into Paris by way of his flying machines to have a coffee or greet state officials. He is also credited as being the inspiration for the male wristwatch. During a celebratory dinner after a successful flight in 1904, Santos-Dumont complained to his friend, Louis Cartier about the difficulty of timing his flights using the traditional pocket watch during flight. Cartier responded with the creation of a watch mounted on a leather band and fastened by a metal buckle, which Santos-Dumont wore on all his future flights.

Santos-Dumont was passionate about the future of flight. He felt that advances in air travel heralded a new era of prosperity for mankind. Acting on his convictions, he released his plans for the Demoiselle monoplane to the general public for free. It was published in America by the magazine Popular Mechanics in June 1910.

In a New York Times article (pdf) published April 11, 1902, celebrating his arrival in America, it's stated that, "He wants no patents, cares not who imitates his machine, invites competition, and is willing to spend his money, but will not consent to display his achievements without influential backing."

The airy Pampano en Papillotes are a perfect tribute to this innovator of flight who delighted the hearts of New Orleanians.

Wikipedia: "Alberto Santos-Dumont" 04/14/08
AIAA: "Alberto Santos-Dumont" 2008
New York Times: "Santos-Dumont Arrives" 04/11/1902
photo courtesy of Brianfit, used under this Creative Commons license

The Devilishly Divine Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake is a southern recipe dating to 1902 and is usually frosted with butter roux icing or cream cheese buttercream icing. Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook has a Creole version of red velvet cake on page 308. Rather than a traditional flat-cake presentation, this sponge cake is rolled up into a spiral with a layer of white chocolate mousse inside and drizzled with a cafe-brulot inspired creme anglaise that is simply delicious to contemplate.

While most research shows that the dessert is most likely of southern origin, its been strongly associated with the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City due to urban legend. According to whatcookingamerica.net, the legend has it that a lady asked for the cake recipe from the hotel and was charged $100 for it. In revenge, she in turn handed out free copies of the recipe to her friends and acquaintances. But a search of restaurant archives produced no records whatsoever proving that the restaurant developed this cake.

This myth was probably reinforced by the media printing articles referring to it. At The Big Apple website by foodie Barry Popik, a full history of the cake along with reprints of articles featuring the cake is available. Many versions of the recipe dated from the 1950s are identified as Waldorf red cake. An article published in the Hillsboro, OH Press-Gazette in May 1959 had this to say about the cake:

This is a $300.00 recipe! Yes, that price was actually paid for it, and you are getting it free! It seems that two young ladies were served this cake when eating at a Chicago hotel one day, and since it was a bit unusual they asked if they might have the recipe. The hotel obliged, and asked them to write down their names and addresses. A short time later they received a bill for $300 and after going to court about it, the verdict was made that they were obligated to pay the bill.

At Wikipedia, it's said that earlier versions of this cake needed no additional color because the reaction of vinegar and buttermilk tends to naturally turn cocoa a reddish-brown color. Before the introduction of a more alkaline dutch-processed cocoa, this color would have been more intense and pronounced. During WWII, rationing of food stores was common and clever bakers would use boiled beats in order to enhance the red color when making this dessert.

While this cake reached the heights of popularity across the country in the 1950s, Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook presents this old Southern favorite with a contemporary twist making an elegant and tasty conclusion to any dinner party.

SOURCE: "History of Devil's Food Cake"
SOURCE: "Red Velvet Cake" 02/14/07
SOURCE: "Red Velvet Cake" 04/12/08
photo courtesy of Darwin Bell, used under this Creative Commons license

The Versatile Beignet

Beignets are a dish closely associated with the city of New Orleans and were in fact declared the official state doughnut in 1986. In an article by Linda Stradley at whatscookingamerica.net, the etymology of beignet stems from the Celtic word bigne, meaning "to raise." Coincidentally, the word bigne also means "fritter" in French. The pastry was brought to New Orleans in the 18th Century, with Stradley crediting the Ursuline Nuns of France who came to the city in 1727. The 1902 Picayune Creole Cookbook had this to say about the dish's origins and popularity:

"The ancient French colonist brought the custom of serving sweet entrements and eatres, such as Beignets, Compotes, Souffles, Gelees, etc., from the old mother country to Louisiana. . . The custom of serving these sweet entrements spread from New Orleans to other portions of the United States, till now no fastidious chef would think of keeping a fashionable hotel or restaurant with including some of these in the daily bill of fare."

According to Wikipedia, the beignet is a type of choux pastry which is made of butter, flour, water and eggs, but unlike most choux pastries, the beignet is fried rather than baked. The high moisture content acts as the raising agent of the pastry, puffing it out during cooking. Wikipedia also correctly notes that the pastry, though usually served with a coating of confectioner's sugar, can be served as a savory dish as well with the addition of crawfish or shrimp.

Houmatoday.com, the online edition of The Courier of Houma, Louisiana, has an article by Laura McKnight dated November 16, 2007. In the article, McKnight reports a number of southern Louisiana family traditions related to the beignet. Windell Curole of South Lafourche remembers that the pastry was named from the French baigner, meaning "to swim" or "to bathe." Curole said, "The lump of dough 'swam' or 'bathed' in the hot oil to become a beignet."

Charlene Breaux of Raceland recounts this story told to her by her grandmother:

"In the very early days, the Cajun women would make their own bread each day. A small portion of the bread would be pulled and stretched thin, then deep fried for a quick breakfast. This could be given to the men as they left for the field to begin their day’s labor."

Breaux added that the beignet would be served plain, with cane syrup or with fig preserves.

Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook offers a savory beignet recipe stuffed with crawfish with a tomato-tarragon tartar sauce on page 324. According to the book, this recipe can also be made with shrimp, lobster or a mixture of crab and smoked, flaked redfish.

SOURCE: "History of Beignets" 2004
SOURCE: "Beignet" 04/03/08
SOURCE: "Choux Pastry" 03/26/08
SOURCE: "Beignets: More Than Just a Doughnut" 11/16/07
photo couresy of elizabethtrittpo, used under this Creative Commons license

Jazzy Jambalaya

Jambalaya is yet another characteristic dish of New Orleans. Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook features a creole version of the dish made with andouille sausage, pickled pork or ham and shrimp on page 266. The book states that Jambalaya is one of the oldest of creole recipes. The dish seems to share origins between paellas, which are of Spanish origin, and traditional African rice dishes. Etymologically, the word Jambalaya is a combination of French and African Bantu terms. The French jambon means "ham", while the Bantu word "ya-ya" means rice.

Creole Jambalaya, as opposed to the Cajun version which does not feature tomatoes, originated in New Orleans' French Quarter according to Wikipedia. It evolved from Spanish paellas. A key spice in paellas, saffron, was difficult to acquire in the early days of the city due to the high cost of importing the spice from abroad. Creatively challenged, cooks began to substitute tomatoes, creating the dish we know today. The first printed reference to the word dates to 1872 while the 1909 edition of The Picayune's Creole Cookbook identifies the dish being of Spanish-Creole origin.

About.com, in an article by Diana Rattray, offers an alternate explanation to the origins of the dish with this colorful story taken from The Dictionary of American Food and Drink:

A gentleman stopped by a New Orleans inn late one night to find nothing left for him to dine upon. The owner thereupon told the cook, whose name was Jean, to "mix some things together" --balayez, in the dialect of Louisiana -- so the grateful guest pronounced the dish of odds-and-ends wonderful and named it "Jean Balayez.

In Gonzales, Louisiana, a gentleman by the name of Steve Juneau developed the idea of naming the city the "Jambalaya Capitol in the World" with an accompanying annual festival in order to promote the city. The city's title was confirmed in 1968 by Governor John J. McKeithen. Held over Memorial Day weekend, the festival's main event is the Jambalaya Cooking Contest. Other activities include a carnival, live music, car show and the crowning of the Jambalaya King and Queen.

SOURCE: "Jambalaya" 03/31/08
SOURCE: "Southern Food: Jambalaya"
SOURCE: "The Jambalaya Festival" 2008
photo courtesy of MetalCowboy, used under this Creative Commons license

Tomatos Make The Dish

Tomatoes are part of the Creole triumvirate of a seasoning blend made from tomatoes, onions and sweet peppers, according to Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook. The Shrimp Creole on page 220 features this saucy seasoning in an easy-to-prepare recipe that takes less than an hour to make. Tomatoes entered the New Orleans stage of the culinary arts thanks to the Spanish Conquistadors, who encountered the vegetable in South America and later brought it to New Orleans during their 40-year period of colonization beginning in 1762.

According to Wikipedia, the tomato was discovered when the Spanish first came to South America in the early 1500s. It was distributed throughout Europe and the Spanish Colonies with cultivation in Spain starting in the 1540s. By the mid-1700s, cultivation of the plant had spread throughout the colonies though many plantings were ornamental in nature and not necessarily used in cooking due to a false belief that the plant was poisonous.

In an article, "The Tomato Had to Go Abroad To Make Good," it is stated that the tomato has been commonly eaten for about the past 100 years in the United States. Being largely cultivated as an ornamental plant, the vegetable was also known as "love apples" from the French phrase pomme d'amour. The article argues that the tomato's first known appearance in New Orleans is in 1812.

It was embraced by Mediterranean cooks when first introduced in Europe. The first cookbook with tomatoes listed among the ingredients was published in 1692 in Naples, though the recipes appear to be of Spanish origin. Terry Thompson-Anderson, author of Cajun-Creole Cooking, states in an excerpt of her book the identifying characteristics of Creole-Italian cuisine:

The most unique feature of the cuisine is its tomato sauce, commonly referred to as "red gravy" or "tomato gravy." This rich sauce, used over meats and pasta, has dozens of variations from family to family.

The acidic property of the tomato helps to bring out the other flavors in a dish, making it beloved ingredient of chefs. This vegetable is rich in anti-oxidants, particularly lycopene and benefits the heart and the prevention of prostate cancer.

SOURCE: "Tomato" 03/31/08
SOURCE: "The Tomato Had To Go Abroad To Make Good"
SOURCE: "Cajun-Creole Cooking"

photo courtesy of Sylvar, used under this Creative Commons license

Gumbo Is Delicious

Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook features four gumbo recipes for the home gourmet to prepare. In the book, it's stated on page 110 that "The chances of two Louisiana cooks coming up with gumbos that are exactly alike are about the same as the New Orleans Saints football team winning two Super Bowls in succession." Its a wonderful recipe that allows for adaptation and improvisation, permitting the cook to use virtually any kind of meat or seafood in its preparation. Mark W. Huntsman states that written reference has been found where owl, muskrat and even squirrel has been used in gumbo.

Both Ralph Brennan and Huntsman contends that the dish is of West African descent. Huntsman states:

Although the French contributed the concept of the roux and the Choctaw invented filé powder, the modern soup is overwhelmingly West African in character. Not only does it resemble many of the okra-based soups found in contemporary Senegal, the name of the soup its self is derived from the Bantu words for the okra contained within (guingombo, tchingombo, or kingombo. A legacy of the colonial era, the modern French word for okra is quite simply “gombo”).

Gumbo is in fact named for one of its principle ingredients, okra. The Food Reference Website explains that the word is Bantu in origin and is in fact one of the few words that have entered the English language via the transmission of the African slave population. Ralph Brennan states in his cookbook that the recipe has been around over 200 years. According to Stanley Dry, Dr. Carl A. Brasseaux of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette discovered the first written reference to gumbo in 1803 in New Orleans. The dish was prepared for a gubernatorial reception.

Dry probably captures gumbo's appeal for cooks best when he states that, "part of Gumbo's virtue, apart from its deliciousness, is that the dish is very forgiving of the cook. . . ingredients may be changed to use what is on hand."

SOURCE: "History of Gumbo"
SOURCE: "Gumbo"
SOURCE: "A Short History of Gumbo"
Photo by Kerri McCaffety. Copyright by The Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.