Rouses Everyday - May & June

ROUSES

EVERYDAY

MAY | JUNE 2015

the

Culinary Influences

issue

The great talent of the human race is its knack for adaptation. To

take an alien object or idea and fashion it for optimal personal use.

That’s how we got everything from Delta Blues to corn stalk fences

in the French Quarter to the Vietnamese ph

ở

and bubble tea houses

in Bayou La Batre.

Between the counterpoints of the two great port cities on the

Gulf — New Orleans and Mobile — the volume and variation of

transplants and transients is staggering when added up over the past

three centuries.

The Spanish, English, Irish, German, Italian, French and Canadian

French. The Indian, West Indian and American Indian. (Might as

well toss in Mardi Gras Indian as well; the food at their events

doesn’t suck!)

Croatian, Haitian, Loatian,West African and Mexican. Islenos and

Tejanos, Portuguese and Vietnamese.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but curiosity is the

mother of adaptation. And not having the ingredients from your

mother country is when things get creative.

Look at it this way: If you come across a dish foreign to your sense

and sensibility — and not exactly suited to your precise culinary

standards (in other words: you don’t like the way it tastes or smells)

— you can dismiss and disregard it.

Or you can take a loftier, more analytic view of the DIY chef

de cuisine toward offending gustatory presentation: Somebody

somewhere thinks this tastes great. With a little bit of thinking,

testing and tinkering, then — to misquote late night comic Steven

Colbert — you can, too!

For those skeptical of this theory, I offer one word as proof positive:

Crawfish.

Am I right? One man’s trash (fish) is another man’s treasure. (It’s

strange but true: Here on the Gulf Coast we eat things that folks

from other places right here in these United States would pay an

exterminator a great deal of money to get rid of. Go figure.)

In any ingredient or dish, one person sees one thing, another culture

sees another. It’s all a matter of perspective and tastes. You like it

this way, I like it that way.

Isn’t jambalaya almost the same thing as paella? Andouille is German

sausage by another name. And isn’t it kind of like brautwurst? And

what’s the difference between gumbo and bouillabaisse? Isn’t it all

just “stew”?

A muffalatta is a hoagie is a sub is a grinder is a po-boy. Some folks

just call it a sandwich. Unless you wrap it instead of fold it, then it’s

called, well … a wrap.

It is both elementary, simple and logical — and confusing,

complicated and counter-intuitive. Many culinary influences have

been precisely traced and documented by historians; many are

unknown and unknowable, the results of unwritten recipes with

secret ingredients passed down by carefully protected oral traditions.

And then there’s the broader cultural context and paradox of the

entire Gulf Coast.Who makes the best what, and who made it first?

Sometimes the inclination of the rationalist is to just say: Who

cares? Just shut up and eat it.

But what fun is that? Trying to figure out the culinary history of

the Gulf Coast and trace its food influences is one of the best parts

about living here. (After eating that food, that is.)

For instance, think about the Gulf Coast highways one traverses

to sample the many delicacies presented in this magazine. Think

about the scenery as you drive those Gulf Coast highways: All those

majestic oak trees with all that beautiful Spanish moss swaying

from their branches in the early morning mist.

Is there any image more iconic to our region than that?

Well, keep this in mind: It’s not Spanish. Hell, it’s not even moss.

As you set off to read the many tales of culinary and cultural

influences across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in this issue

My Rouses Everyday

, the only thing you need to apply is an open

mind. There is no such thing as absolute truth once the topic of

discussion is food.

Accept this notion — or be prepared to defend your position under

any one of the old historic dueling oaks in southern Louisiana and

Mississippi. You know, the ones with the Spanish …

Parkway Bakery – photos by

Frank Aymami