Hello friends!
About a week ago, I was very fortunate to make an unexpected trip to New Orleans for the NFL Divisional Playoffs between the Cardinals and the Saints. Although I do like football, I love food more. So I jumped at the chance to visit the South for the first time.
When growing up, I would hear loads of stories from my parents about the amazing experiences they had in New Orleans. Of course in my family, those stories consisted mainly of crawfish, everything Cajun or Creole, shrimp and muffulettas. And naturally they loved the energy and hospitality that ‘Nawlins’ showed them every time. My experience was no different (despite the fact that I was rooting for the Cardinals). * I warn you that there is a whole lot of food that will be discussed in this post. That’s what happens when you unleash a foodie into New Orleans for a couple days!
But let’s just get straight down to business. Our first stop (immediately after checking into our hotel) was the Acme Oyster House (http://www.acmeoyster.com/). My parents and aunts and uncles had been here many times before, so my mom insisted we go here first. Now let me preface that I do love my shellfish but have only ever tried oysters once and wasn’t all that impressed. But now that I’m going to be going to culinary school, I’ve promised myself to at least try something no matter how scared or grossed out I might be. So first thing was first – raw oysters.
After a moment of hesitation, I swallowed my fear and then the oyster. It was slimy, kind of gooey and covered in hot sauce. Honestly, it didn’t taste like anything other than a delivery system for hot cocktail sauce. So I tried another with lemon juice and a little salt and pepper. Again, it didn’t taste like much. I really was expecting it to taste salty and kind of fishy, but that experience fell a little flat for me. So I moved on to the next thing.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the most beautiful picture because we started digging in immediately before I realized I wanted a picture. The first dish is a combo of beans and rice, gumbo and Cajun Jambalaya. The second dish is a wonderful assortment of fried goodness – fried shrimp, fried oysters, hush puppies and my all-time-new-favorite fried catfish. The gumbo and jambalaya weren’t particularly impressive compared to others I’ve had before. However, the catfish – oh the catfish – was exactly as I dreamed it always would be. From all the food shows and movies I’ve seen with fried catfish – my goodness it was ‘scrumptious’ as my good friend Anwar would say. It seriously melted in my mouth. You have to love fish that is so fresh it melts. The batter was cornmeal and was incredibly light and crunchy. The hush puppies were also fantastic although I honestly felt that if I had to feel guilty about eating fried food I’d prefer the catfish. The fried oysters and shrimp, sadly, just tasted fried – masking the actual flavor of the seafood.
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Recently I returned to New Orleans – just about a year and a half after my first visit. I was delighted to find all the classics were still there and that not a thing had changed. The beignets at Cafe Du Monde were still hot and crispy and still worth the line. Deanie’s fried catfish dinner was still the freshest catfish I have ever had – melt in your mouth and not greasy crispy goodness. And of course – you can’t go to New Orleans and not have a muffuletta. A muffu-what?? Even if you don’t like olives, I bet you’ll LOVE this sandwich. It’s all about the quality of ingredients though. And if you’re in town, you must get your muffuletta from the original place Central Grocery. Now I admit it’s a bit of a tourist attraction, but I think it’s worth it.
In summary, a muffuletta is a sandwich made on a round Sicilian sesame bread with a chopped olive salad (olives, celery, cauliflower, carrot, etc) and layers of capicola, salami, pepperoni, ham, emmentaler and provolone. The bread is very similar to focaccia but not as greasy. Although this isn’t a warm sandwich (my usual preference), it’s fresh, crunchy, salty and full of flavor. Apparently I was eating my sandwich so well that some news photographer insisted on taking multiple photos of my sandwich. He said it was “smiling”! This is a definite must if you love sandwiches!
a VU on Food 