Memorable quotes from New Orleans

/Home/New Orleans Food and Drink

Memorable quotes from New Orleans
October 2009
by Michael Bauer
SF Gate

"The best way to save recipes is to use them," says New Orleans cook Poppy Tooker

I spent last week in New Orleans at the Association of Food Journalists conference, where nearly 60 writers, editors and critics from around the nation gathered to eat food, talk food and eat more food. In New Orleans, of course, that's a way of life.

During the conference The Chronicle picked up five awards, include the big prize for Best Food Coverage in a newspaper. Between Meals won the top award for Best Food Blog. However, that's not the story.

I've been to New Orleans four times since Katrina. What continually suprises me is how similar the food culture is to San Francisco's; we're both passionate about how and what we eat. Periodically over the next couple of days, I hope you'll indulge me just a bit, because going to New Orleans is truly inspirational and renews my enthusiasm for what we're doing in the Bay Area.

To begin, I'd like to give a quick taste of the event through some of the quotes from various panelists.

At one panel, Donald Link of the still wonderful Herbsaint, Cochon and now Cochon Butcher, talked about why he was one of the first restaurants to re-open after the storm, at a time when there were very few people in the city:

"Inside those walls, it was like normal life. When you went outside it was crap."

Chiqui Collier, a caterer and teacher at the New Orleans Cooking Experience, showed us how to make oyster dressing with the right kind of bread.

"New Orleans French bread is air with a crust."

At that same event, Frank Brigtsen of Brigtsen's restaurant shared his roast turkey and gravy, and explained the importance of roux in cooking:

"Each color stage has a different aroma and a different texture." He also admitted: "My favorite sauce in the world is gravy."

Poppy Tooker, also a teacher who is on a mission to revive some of the long forgotten Creole recipes of New Orleans, told us why bell peppers have become a staple of Creole cooking:

"In this steamy climate you can see a pepper plant popping up in cracks in the sidewalk."

She's also the one who said: "The only way we eat a vegetable is to stuff it. We stuff everything, including people."

And like us, they're trying to preserve and further good cooking. Leah Chase — the doyenne of Creole cooking at Dooky Chase restaurant — closed for several years after Katrina, and talked about passing along the heritage and finding ways that it will work in today's lifestyle.

"We have to get people back to the dinner table."

The funniest line came from a waiter at her restaurant when Amanda Gold ordered an Arnold Palmer (half lemonade and half iced tea) to go with her fried chicken.

"Around here we call it a Tiger Woods."