Po'boys and beignets, okra and file

Although I have eaten in New Orleans just once in my life, I have returned to its food – the variety, the intense and enticing flavors – a million times in my head.

Senior year in college, my roommate and I booked flights from Providence on a whim. She wanted to catch Mardi Gras. I was game for nearly anything. So we left New England on a Friday morning in February. Neglecting to double-check the calendar, however, we didn't realize that we would actually miss the party by a few days.

On the ground, we decided to plan our own festivities. They don't call it the Big Easy for nothing. Over the long weekend, we would eat and drink as best we could on our student budgets.

For lunch, we had muffulettas and oyster po'boys. They are casual, convenient sandwiches, proteins and carbs in the same package. The first is a meatfest topped with an olive spread, the second a showcase for deep-fried oysters.

For dinner, we had red beans and rice, and crawfish etouffee, with bold spices we seldom encountered in the dining halls. They were foods my roommate knew from her Southern childhood, foods with which I had only recently become familiar.

We sipped hurricanes in bars on Bourbon Street and treated ourselves to beignets and chicory-spiked café au lait at Café du Monde.

Piled high with powdered sugar, beignets need to be handled carefully. One shake sends a cloud of sweetness across the table. One laugh out loud and there was snow on our noses, our hair and our shirts. We went through several plates of these signature pastries, laughing into the early morning.

Chicory with coffee, I later learned, is an age-old Louisiana tradition. The French added roasted and ground chicory to coffee to help stretch supplies during Napoleonic blockades in the early 19^th century. When naval blockades cut off shipments to New Orleans during the Civil War, people in Louisiana started to add chicory to their coffee as well, and came to appreciate the nuttiness it lent to the beverage.

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New Orleans, it seems, has always been about good food. "We not only love to eat and to cook what we eat," Charmaine Neville says in the anthology "My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy By Her Sons, Daughters and Lovers." "We love to talk about what we are going to cook and what we are going to eat. Before we finish what we're eating, we're already talking about the next meal we're going to have together."

"In spite of our differences," editor Rosemary James says in the introduction, "we have sought out each other's company over, always, the very best food, ingenious dishes created from a poor people's basics: beans, rice, okra, fish, crabs, oysters, shrimp, peppers, garlic, onions, file… And elegant desserts created from everyday things like bananas and sugar and rum. Ours is comfort food even for the aliens among us."

Traditional Louisiana cooking blends a number of cuisines and techniques. Creole dishes might have been based originally on French stews and soups, but they were influenced significantly as well by the Spanish affinity for onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and garlic, by the African use of okra, and the Native American introduction of file, finely ground sassafras leaves. Like Cajun foods, considered country cousins, they were spicy and robust.

By the 1980s and '90s, avuncular chefs such as Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse had mostly blurred the lines between Creole and Cajun cooking, popularizing both in person and in print. Lagasse, for example, incorporated them at Emeril's, his first solo restaurant venture, and in the best-selling book "Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking," developing additional recipes further influenced by his Portuguese roots.

In the months following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, eateries were among the first businesses in the city to re-open. Some places unfortunately did not survive. "Their owners were getting on in years," food writer and radio host Tom Fitzmorris says in "Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans," "or their buildings had been too badly damaged to rebuild, or they had intractable insurance problems."

But others including Galatoire's, Commander's Palace, Brennan's and K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen still thrive. Home-grown chefs such as Susan Spicer, Donald Link and John Besh also continue to play with seasonal ingredients and innovative approaches at places like Mondo, Herbsaint and Restaurant August, respectively.

Before Katrina hit, according to Fitzmorris, there were more than 800 restaurants in greater New Orleans. These days, there are more than 1,200 – big and small, casual and formal, Creole, Cajun, Caribbean, French, Italian. It is a testament to the hunger people in the city have for good-tasting food, and the lengths to which cooks will go to feed that hunger. It speaks to their commitment and hospitality.

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Since college, I have tasted different foods and visited a number of other cities. I have bitten into fresh scones, for example, topped with strawberry jam and lovely clotted cream in London. I have had cheese-smothered deep-dish pizzas in Chicago. I have feasted on Korean favorites like bulgogi and bibimbap in Los Angeles.

Why then, I wonder, do I return often in my head, and in my kitchen, to iconic New Orleans foods?

When catfish fillets are on special at the market, I grill them Louisiana-style, seasoned with paprika, black pepper, white pepper and cayenne pepper. I like the heat. When Christmas comes, I make a festive jambalaya. It seems the right project for a celebration. And when rain threatens to dampen my spirits, I gather ingredients for chicken and sausage gumbo. I have nearly perfected my roux.

Some foods, I suppose, are a part of who I am, who we are. They are the dishes we grow up eating, whether poached whole chicken or macaroni and cheese, barbecued pork buns or fresh baked apple pie. They are the flavors we know well, offered to us by our parents or grandparents.

Other foods, however, are a part of who I become, who we become, the people we essentially grow into. They are the dishes we discover on our own when we choose to travel and broaden our palates. They are the flavors we try to re-create when we can, combinations that started for me with a weekend trip to the South long ago.

Po'boys and beignets, okra and file. They are items my parents and grandparents never ate. After immigrating to the U.S. in the 1960s, my mother spent her time and effort at the stove fine-tuning Chinese dishes that reminded her of home. She knew of nothing else and wanted nothing more at her table in California. I would inevitably learn more and need more.

Maybe that's what New Orleans means to me. It is a terrific city with an extraordinary history. But it is also among the first places I found myself, when I began to look, when I hoped to forge an identity outside of family. There is that thrill. Maybe that's the connection. And the food? Well, maybe the food is just a splendid bonus.

(A version of this essay appeared originally on www.culinate.com.)

Who knew?

"It was hard to say goodbye to Irina, my kind, precise Russian teacher, and to my journalist friends. I was sorry to leave the dazzling commentators I had interviewed, and also the Uzbek and Chechen women who sold me vegetables and homemade yogurt and honey at my local farmers' market. 

"Theirs were the best tomatoes I'd ever tasted. 'Tashkentsky!' the Uzbek women stated proudly, for everyone wanted produce from the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent. Who knew you had to come to Russia for the perfect tomato?"

Irris Makler in "Hope Street, Jerusalem"

Blue Bottle eggs

Because we need food to go with those cups of coffee.

Catalan Eggs with Braised Greens and Tomato Sauce
from James Freeman and Caitlin Freeman's "The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee: Growing, Roasting and Drinking, with Recipes"

Tomato Sauce

3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14-ounce can tomato puree, or about 1 1/2 cups pureed fresh tomatoes
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

Greens

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 pounds chard, chicory, kale, escarole or a combination, cut into ribbons about an inch thick
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
grated hard cheese, such as Parmesan or Pecorino Romano
4 poached eggs

To make the tomato sauce: Heat the olive oil in a medium nonreactive skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and saute until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Then add the tomato puree and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes taste and smell sweet and less acidic, about 20 minutes for canned tomatoes or 10 minutes for fresh. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To make the greens: Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Carefully add the greens, watching out for popping oil. If using a mixture of greens, start with the sturdier greens, such as kale, and add more tender greens, such as chard, a minute or two later. (Escarole takes even less time.)

Stir to wilt the greens evenly and make more space for more greens. Cook until the greens are emerald green and wilted but still crunchy, 5 to 7 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To assemble: Divide the greens evenly among 4 plates, making a nest of each. Put a poached egg on top. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Then spoon the tomato sauce over each. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

Craving curry

A Ferris wheel set up for the Treasure Island Music Festival reminds me in some way of the London Eye, you know, if the Ferris wheel had been many times larger, if the bay had been the Thames, the Bay Bridge the Westminster Bridge, and the San Francisco skyline Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Yes, I am crazy.

But I think of London. I do. All the time. When the sky is overcast, I think of London. When it threatens to rain in Northern California, I welcome the wet weather. Bring it. When I hear an accent, from an actor or writer or broadcaster, I think of London. I am here, but I suspect I should be there.

I think of London and begin to crave curry. Any kind. When a head of cauliflower costs less than a dollar at the market, I grab one to make curry, using a straightforward recipe from Bon Appetit. I combine cauliflower with chickpeas, tomatoes and coconut milk, and cook it down. I eat curry with rice, basmati if I have some, medium grain white rice if I don't. At the table, I think of London.

Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Stew

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups chopped onions
5 tsp. curry powder
6 cups small cauliflower florets (from 1 medium head)
2 15 1/2-ounce cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
2 10-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 14-ounce can unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Heat oil in large skillet over high heat.

Add onions and saute until golden brown, about 8 minutes. Add curry powder and stir 20 seconds.

Add cauliflower and garbanzo beans. Stir 1 minute. Add diced tomatoes, then coconut milk. Bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and boil gently until cauliflower is tender and liquid thickens slightly, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in cilantro. Serve over rice. Makes 4 servings.

Pass the passata

Ever since a friend in London mentioned passata in a curry recipe from his mother's kitchen, I have wondered about it. Is it essentially pureed tomatoes?

The Telegraph talks about San Marzano tomatoes in a piece on store-bought passata, used in this case to add depth and texture to weeknight pasta sauces. It provides some enlightenment.

"Ripe" for review

For a book on "the search for the perfect tomato," Arthur Allen's "Ripe" is peculiarly and surprisingly light on passages that actually celebrate the popular fruit.

Aside from a few odes to its color, shape and texture, the Washington, D.C.-based journalist takes a technical approach to tomato appreciation, telling "a story about agribusiness through a single crop, examining its travels from a seedsman's laboratory or greenhouse to our tables."

In accessible but sometimes pedestrian prose, Allen writes of meetings with farmers, breeders and canners, examining historical developments and their impacts on various aspects of the industry. The tomato yield in California, for instance, increased from two million tons in 1965 to 11 million tons in 2000.

Sections on UC Davis agriculture professors and tomato breeders Jack Hanna and M. Allen Stevens prove educational, as do chapters on field workers in Florida (where the tomato is the number three crop behind oranges and sugar) and on consumers in Italy (as recently as a century ago, most Italians didn't even eat tomatoes).

By tackling the topic from the perspectives of business and science, the author engages his readers' heads more than their hearts.

(A version of this review appears in Publishers Weekly.)