Deliciousness

Creole life is centered around food. The meals themselves are true tradition. Each Creole family has a variation to each dish but in the end, it is all Creole. It has several origins including African, French, Spanish, Italian and Native American. One could say that it is a "gumbo" of cultures. African slaves brought things like rice and okra to Louisiana where they were able to grow small gardens for their own food. Most meals were made all in one pot. The use of butter, braising and the idea of sauces and gravies is very French. The introduction of beans and the use of peppers and spices comes from the Spanish. Native Americans introduced seafood. Slaves learned how to grow the foods that they brought from home from the Native Americans. The Choctaw introduced them to the sassafras tree. The leaves are dried and ground into something called file (fee-lay). This is used as a spice to add heat to gumbos. Creole food developed through the collaboration of culinary ideas. Slaves cooked for their masters. They altered different things to satisfy their masters' tastes. There are hundreds of different dishes that come out of this tradition. A few of them are: Gumbo, Maque Choux (mock shoe), Grillades, Crawfish Bisque, Jambalaya, and Mirlitons.

Gumbo is a soup cooked in a huge pot. It starts off with a good Andouille Sausage, a roux (I'll talk about this later), and either seafood, chicken, or okra. It is always served over rice.

Maque Choux is a dish made of corn, onion, garlic, tomato, bell pepper and butter.

Grillades are a type of steak that is browned and then cooked down until extremely tender in a tomato/meat gravy.

Crawfish Bisque is a labor intensive dish. The shell of the crawfish is used to stuff a dressing of crawfish, oinon, garlic, bell pepper, minced crawfish, and other ingredients. They are then lightly floured, browned and are served in a light sauce.

Jambalaya is similar to the Spanish Paella. It is a rice cooked with a very light amount of tomato sauce. It is mixed with shrimp, sausage and chicken.

Mirlitons are a fruit in the squash family that are cooked down with onions and garlic and shrimp.
In order to really get to know Creole food, I think you should get to know someone who makes it.
I would like to introduce you to my grandmother, Mathilde Savoie Smith.

She was born in Edgard, Louisiana. She is the second of nine children. Creole was spoken in her home along with English. Everyday, her mother fixed meals that my grandmother now fixes for us. She moved to New Orleans at 18 years old and now lives in the upper 9th Ward.

This is her new kitchen.

She lost the old one to six feet of water from Hurricane Katrina. She searched everywhere for an old O’Keefe & Merritt stove.

This weekend, I decided to go home to talk to her about the way that she cooks, and of course to eat. She prepared a simple yet rich meal: Fricassée.

This is a chicken stew that we typically have for dinner on Sundays. Meat is always cooked down in a gravy until tender and served over rice. We eat rice every single day unless there is spaghetti (which has a thinner tomato sauce and sometimes has shrimp instead of ground beef). The fundamental ingredients to Creole cooking are: onions, garlic, bell pepper, and a good roux. Almost every dish is made with roux- especially gravies. A roux (roo) is made of flour and oil or butter. The flour is mixed with the oil and heated in a cast iron skillet. It is a long, painstaking process that runs the risk of burning if you were to walk away or turn away for a split second. I have made a roux before and I must say, it takes true dedication. Once it burns, it smells horrible and you have to start over. The flour must brown to the color of Swiss Miss hot chocolate and can then be stored away and used in just about everything you make.

I really could go on to tell you about how to make several more dishes, but I will stop here. While In New Orleans, I would suggest eating as often as possible. Food is especially delicious here. If you know a Creole, I think you should ask them to cook for you. Restaurants just can't exactly replicate a real Creole meal. If you really can't get a Creole, try out some hole-in-the-walls. You'd be surprised how good the food is.