Rouses Everyday - May & June

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11
CULINARY INFLUENCES
As a starting point for a discussion about the importance of
culinary influences, perhaps there is no better example than
the Napoleon House in New Orleans.
From an ambient and attitudinal point of view, it’s one of the
“Frenchiest” places in a once-predominantly Italian neighborhood
called the French Quarter, where the architecture is almost entirely
Spanish.
Stay with me here; it gets a little confusing.
Its signature dish is Sicilian — the muffeletta, a hearty stacking of
meats, cheeses and olive salad between delectable round loaves. Its
signature cocktail is British — the Pimm’s Cup, a refreshing spritz
of lemonade, soda water and Pimm’s No. 1 liqueur, garnished with
cucumber.
Invented and originally served in English oyster houses, the Pimm’s
Cup has become a trademark
drink not only of Napoleon
House, but of all New Orleans.
(*Along with the daiquiri, a
mixture of rum, sugar and
lime juice first popularized
in Cuba a century ago that is
now any random concoction
of potent clear liquors mixed
with flavored sugar waters and
served as a slushy. In Styrofoam cups. At drive-through windows.)
It’s clear that “influences” can cast a wide net!
The Napoleon House, a legendary bistro and tavern — and a staple
of every New Orleans guidebook —was founded by Italians, named
for a Frenchman who never set foot in Louisiana, and is now owned
by an Irishman, Ralph Brennan.
The point being that everything — even the “classics,” signature
dishes and house specialties that rise, to iconic status in a city, state
or region — came from somewhere else.
Everyone’s food, music, literature — every strand of our cultural
and physical DNA — was incubated and nurtured in an existential
petri dish somewhere else.
Hell, in New Orleans, even our drinking water has passed through 16
heavily industrialized American states before it comes out of our taps.
If that’s not “influence”, then nothing is.
• • •
Everything comes from somewhere. And then it changes.
OK, that’s not quite as profound as the opening line from Genesis
— nor The Origin of Species, if that’s your theological inclination
— but you get the picture.
Everything— every style, sound, flavor, fashion, ingredient, pigment
and fabric — started somewhere. It either suited the necessities and
whims of its indigenous population, or it didn’t.
Often these things— let’s say an
ingredient — become uniquely
identifiable to a certain location
and its inhabitants. Eventually,
either through migration out,
or somebody passing through,
those ingredients find their way
to other locations and other
inhabitants.
Consider the contemporary
phenomenon of Sriracha sauce, the trendiest condiment in the
world right now, which is basically Tabasco in a paste form, native
to Thailand but produced in California. It wasn’t invented for use on
fried eggs or shrimp po-boys, but that’s what lots of folks choose to
use it for — so there you are.
It’s an example of culinary style’s Evolutionary Road: Everything
that tastes good inevitably migrates from one culture to the next,
where it is then shaped to the needs, necessities, styles and even
religious values of its new hosts, and — in its new iteration —
migrates once again.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
I’m not sure all of this is a
proper encyclopedic definition
of “influence”, but it’s a suitable
explanation for how any
particular culinary, artistic or
musical style travels from one
place to the next and how they
influence their new environs.
And how their new environs
influence them.
In this issue of My Rouses
Everyday, the accent is on
culinary influence. Where a
food begins, where it travels to
and why, and how it influences
all the other foods around it.
Very little that we eat comes
from where we eat it.
[LEFT] Napoleon House [RIGHT] Napoleon House’s Signature Cocktail, Pimm’s Cup
“You see these culinary influences when you walk
our aisles — tamales, pralines, gumbo, jambalaya,
andouille, Rouses coffee and chicory.”
—Donny Rouse, 3rd Generation