Exploring Creole-Cajun Connection

NEW ORLEANS —  “I was born in New Orleans, and I never ate a blackened redfish in my life until a few years ago,” said John DeMers, food editor here for United Press International. “Paul Prudhomme invented it.”

According to DeMers, Prudhomme so popularized the dish at his K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen here that blackened redfish has become synonymous with New Orleans cooking, and the fish is threatened with extinction.

But long before Prudhomme ever touched a peppercorn, New Orleans was a city of culinary dreams-- beignets at the French Market, coffee with chicory, Sazerac cocktails, boiling pots of crawfish, huge kettles of jambalaya. Some of the best food in the nation comes out of these Creole and Cajun kitchens.

“Cajun refers to the Acadians, French Canadians who came to the South in the 1700s to escape British control,” DeMers said. “They settled in the bayous. Their cuisine, based on French country cooking, has not changed a lot over the years.”

Creole, on the other hand, refers to Louisiana-born people of French, Spanish or African descent, and that cuisine has evolved dramatically.

The basis is classic French cooking brought to New Orleans in the 17th Century. In the 18th Century the Spanish introduced tomatoes and bananas from Latin America. The African slaves who cooked the food added such things as okra--they would smuggle the seeds aboard slave ships leaving Africa. Then in the 1900s, Italians brought garlic and oregano from Sicily. The resulting mix is today’s Creole cuisine.

His Favorite Place

To sample Creole fare, we went with DeMers to his favorite New Orleans dining place, Arnaud’s. (DeMers is the author of the restaurant’s newly published cookbook.)

“Arnaud Cazenave, a Frenchman, started the place in 1918,” he told us, as we sat down in the lavish main dining room hung with crystal chandeliers and ceiling fans.

The first course was a typically Creole shrimp remoulade. “The early New Orleans chefs took a French remoulade, left out the mayonnaise, and added Creole mustard,” DeMers said. This piquant dish was followed by a mild soup of tender oysters stewed in cream and served with vegetables.

Next came a salad of mixed greens with a light dressing of walnut oil and lemon juice. The success of the main course was mixed. A pompano en croute with a scallop mousse in green peppercorn sauce was light and delicate, but the filet mignon Charlemond was served so cold that the sauces had begun to coagulate.

For dessert we had strawberries Arnaud, strawberries marinated in port and Gran Marnier and served with ice cream and whipped cream. Our meals were about $40 per person, not including wine.

For Cajun cuisine we went to Bon Ton, started in 1953 by Alvin and Alcina Pierce, who grew up in the bayou. The food they serve is from their mothers’ recipes.

The ‘Rolling Stores’

“They used to have ‘rolling stores,’ ” said Alvin’s nephew, Wayne Pierce, who manages Bon Ton. “Wagons would come to the bayou selling flour and yeast. Everything else you had to grow, hunt, trap or fish.”

Many Cajun specialties are “black pot” dishes, soups and stews traditionally cooked in a huge black kettle. At Bon Ton we tried a gumbo that was rich and intense with the flavor of file (a locally grown spice) and a hearty turtle soup with lace-your-own sherry. Soups are $2.75.

Next came crawfish etouffee ($11.75), a stew of crawfish (tiny shellfish similar to shrimp, but sweeter and more tender) and vegetables, served with rice; and a shrimp jambalaya ($8.25), shrimp and rice in a smooth but piquant sauce.

Dessert was truly decadent--bread pudding drenched in whiskey ($1.50). Creole and Cajun chefs make abundant use of the fresh seafood brought into New Orleans daily from the Gulf of Mexico: crawfish, shrimp, many varieties of fish and buckets of oysters.

The 80-year-old Acme Oyster House, with its wood-paneled walls and tile floors, and Felix’s Restaurant & Oyster Bar are French Quarter institutions. Both serve gulf-fresh oysters shucked before your eyes for $2.75 a half dozen.

Locals swear by yet another oyster haven, Casamento’s, a white-tiled restaurant on Magazine Street. In addition to fabulous ingredients, New Orleans restaurants offer visitors a sense of tradition and, very often, a history lesson.

Napoleon House occupies an 1814 addition to a structure dating from 1797, originally built as apartments for Napoleon as part of a failed plot to rescue him from exile on St. Helena.

Today the cozy French Quarter cafe serves muffulettas, huge Italian sandwiches of ham, Genoa salami, Swiss cheese, provolone cheese and hot olive salad served on muffuletta bread. A $6.50 sandwich serves two.

Center of Commerce

The French Market along the Mississippi has been a center of commerce for more than 160 years. Cafe du Monde there is open 24 hours and is famous for its coffee flavored with chicory and its beignets, super-light, deep-fried doughnuts doused with powdered sugar. An order of three beignets is 70 cents. Coffee is another 70 cents.

The history of the Sazerac restaurant and bar in the Fairmont Hotel revolves around the Sazerac cocktail, said to be the first cocktail ever created when it was mixed in the Sazerac bar in the French Quarter in 1859.

The formal dining room with plush red walls is a power lunching place and serves a sophisticated, slightly nouvelle brand of Creole cuisine that includes such dishes as Texas-bred Avis venison served with a chutney of sun-dried tomatoes, and Dover sole in a Vermouth cream sauce, served over arugula linguine.

The corn and oyster chowder we had there was rich and buttery without being overly thick, and the Louisiana crab cakes, made with shiitake (Japanese mushrooms), lemon and tarragon and served on a tomato coriander coulis (sauce), were the best we’ve tasted anywhere.

Lunches at Sazerac run $8 to $15, and a five-course prix fixe dinner, complete with strolling musicians, costs $34 per person.

Of the other legendary restaurants in town, the Commander’s Palace, built by Emile Commander in the 1880s, still does a quality job. Guests are ushered right through the kitchen to one of several large dining rooms and served such specialties as Louisiana crawfish on angel hair pasta and Creole bread pudding souffle with whiskey sauce.

Couple of Iffy Places

Antoine’s and Galatoire’s are iffy unless you know to ask for certain waiters, and Brennan’s is decidedly average.

Some newer restaurants are starting legends of their own, such as Mr. B’s, a French bistro offering lighter versions of traditional New Orleans dishes; Brigtsen’s, started by a protege of Prudhomme, and Christian’s, in a refurbished church.

Flagons, a trendy wine bar near the Garden District, offers light meals along with a selection of French and domestic vintages, and the Windsor Court Hotel serves an elegant afternoon tea to the strains of Mozart.

But the best dining pleasures we found in New Orleans were the traditional ones. We went to Mother’s, a brick-walled delicatessen started in 1938, and indulged in a Po-Boy, a huge submarine sandwich piled high with ham, cheeses and salads.

We ate at Chez Helene, the fun and funky restaurant that was the inspiration for the TV series “Frank’s Place.” Chef Austin Leslie serves heaping portions of fried chicken, greens and rice for $6.50, red beans and rice for $3.75, and great breakfasts for $5 to $6.

One morning we took the St. Charles Avenue streetcar out to the Garden District and got off at the Camellia Grill. No fabricated or re-created diner, this is the real thing, and the grill has been serving the best hamburgers in town for 41 years. Our waiter, Batiste Wildred, has been with the restaurant 37 years. A dapper man with silver hair, he moved with the grace of a dancer, and proffered napkins and straws as if they were works of art.

A huge Western omelet came with buttered grits and a pecan waffle was light and perfectly done. Meals run $3 to $5 and may be the best bargain in town.

Another New Orleans tradition is the jazz brunch. Every Sunday is a celebration. Restaurants and hotels are decked with balloons and streamers and offer platters of fresh seafood, myriad egg dishes, grillades (thinly sliced veal in a Creole/Bordelaise sauce), and bananas foster (bananas flambe with rum and served over ice cream), all served to the lilt of live Dixieland jazz.

The buffet at the Inter-Continental Hotel is especially pleasant as diners eat in the glass-enclosed patio dining area. Brunches may be sit-down or buffet, and most are served between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Prices range from $15 to $25.

Recommended (telephone area code 504): Acme Oyster & Seafood House, 724 Iberville, phone 522-5973. Arnaud’s, 813 Bienville, 523-5433. Bon Ton Cafe, 401 Magazine, 524-3386. Brigtsen’s, 723 Dante, 861-7610. Cafe du Monde, French Market, Jackson Square, 525-4544. Camellia Grill, 626 S. Carrollton, 866-9573.

Casamento’s restaurant, 4330 Magazine St., 895-9761. Chez Helene, 1540 N. Robertson, 947-1206 or Chez Helene (French Quarter), De la Poste Motor Hotel, 316 Chartres, 581-1200. Christian’s, 3835 Iberville, 482-4924. Commander’s Palace, 1403 Washington Ave., 899-8221. Felix’s Oyster Bar, 739 Iberville, 522-4440. Flagons, 3222 Magazine St., 895-6471.

Hotel Inter-Continental New Orleans, 444 St. Charles Ave., 525-5566. Mother’s restaurant, 401 Poydras, 523-9656. Mr. B’s, 201 Royal Street, 523-2078. Napoleon House, 500 Chartres, 524-9752. Sazerac restaurant, Fairmont Hotel, University Place, 529-7111. Windsor Court Hotel, 300 Gravier, 523-6000.