Feet on the Street

by Roy Blount, Jr.

  New Orleans seceded along with the rest of Louisiana at the onset of the Civil War, but by April of 1862, Union troops had reclaimed the city. The Emancipation Proclamation, in 1863, abolished slavery only in those parts of the nation that were “in rebellion.” According to Soul by Soul, Walter Johnson’s authoritative history of the New Orleans slave market, “All signboards advertising slaves for sale in Union-held New Orleans were taken down on January 1, 1864.” So the slave trade continued for over a year in New Orleans after it came under the control of the Great Emancipator.

  In 1873, when P. B. S. Pinchback, an African-American, was the Reconstruction governor of Louisiana, Edgar Degas had a long visit with relatives in New Orleans. He wrote back to Paris ecstatically of “the pretty pure-blooded women and the pretty quadroons and the strapping black women! . . . There are some real treasures as regards drawing and color in these forests of ebony. I shall be very surprised to live among white people only in Paris. And then I love silhouettes so much and these silhouettes walk.” But the New Orleans light was too bright for his supersensitive eyes. He painted indoor scenes in which only a few glimpses of black folk appear. His mother’s first cousin, a free New Orleanian of color named Norbert Rillieux, transformed the sugar industry and the sugar market by inventing a process for the efficient evaporation of murky cane juice into fine white grains. Sugar suddenly became so cheap to produce that just about any table could afford it, at least any white table, as long as there was plenty of cheap black labor. Reconstruction lasted longer in New Orleans than anywhere else, but local whites reassumed supremacist control after bloody riots instigated by a white citizens’ militia, the White League.

  Before things tightened up in the years leading to the Civil War, however, slaves had more freedom in New Orleans than elsewhere. They were allowed, notably, to assemble on Saturday nights to play drums, chant, and dance. The basic beat was known as Bamboula. The music that grew out of those get-togethers, absorbing Arabic, Italian, Catholic, and pop-American influences as it evolved, was jazz. Hip Northeasterners may sniff at “Dixieland” jazz, but bebop and Brubeck are inconceivable without the foundation laid by the tortuous, exuberant fusion that imploded in early New Orleans and expanded from there.

  The gathering place for Bamboula was known as Congo Square, part of what is now known as Louis Armstrong Park. The New Orleans airport also is named for Armstrong now. Armstrong grew up in the streets of the city, marching with brass bands and soaking up street vendors’ calls and ferociously rhythmic emanations from the clubs where musicians competed to establish themselves as the best in town. “They didn’t have all the noise that you have today, like automobiles and trucks,” remembered Danny Barker, who went back to the early days of New Orleans music, “and you could hear that beautiful calliope on the river,” and other eruptions of music all around. “It was like the Aurora Borealis. The sounds of men playing would be so clear, but we wouldn’t be sure where they were coming from. So we’d start running—‘It’s this way!’ ‘It’s this way!’—And, sometimes, after running for a while, you’d find that you were nowhere near that music. But the music could come on you any time like that. The city was full of the sounds of music.”

  Armstrong got serious about his playing after he was arrested for juvenile disorder in the streets (firing off a pistol for fun) and sent to a Catholic orphanage, where he studied cornet and played in the school’s band. Later he was nurtured, to his lasting gratitude, by a Jewish family in town. As soon as he could, he headed upriver to Chicago and New York. But he kept on signing his letters “red beans and ricely yours.” Traditionally, New Orleans music has been about “playing for the people,” not just for the improviser and a coterie. The prime of Louis Armstrong was a time when the most serious music in America was also its sweatiest, downest, most joyous and engaging.

  Today authorities recurrently try to clear the “betcha I can tellya whereya got them shoes” boys off the streets. My friend Lolis Elie, whose father was an eminent civil rights activist, argues that this is for the kids’ own good: “They’re not trying to be better, like Armstrong did. It’s not about learning anything, trying to outdance each other. It’s being out of school picking up change.” But I hated seeing a fat white man running out of the Tropical Isle bar on Bourbon to shoo away five kids—two drums, a trumpet, a tuba, and a trombone—who were raising money to go on the George Washington Carver High School band trip, because tourists were listening to them instead of coming into his cheesy club. And there can be no excusing the city’s efforts (futile as they seem to be) to discourage the cheerful a cappella doo-wop men who will serenade you and your sweetheart on the street for a dollar or so.

  There are plenty of clubs in town where you can hear good music for not much money, for instance Donna’s and the Funky Butt on Rampart, Snug Harbor in the Marigny, and Vaughn’s in the Bywater, where Kermit Ruffins holds forth on Thursday nights. Young musicians in New Orleans keep coming up with new variations on old traditions, for instance the Bounce, merging the Bamboula beat and brass-band blare and boop with rap: oompah-hop. In the window of a club called Mama’s Blues on Rampart, I saw this clipping pasted: “Praline Soul. As one of today’s most progressive young artists, ‘MYSELF’ comes from the heart and speaks to your soul. While (X)ploring hip hop and (re)defining poetry in motion, he pushes the new-soul movement to limitless boundaries . . . , embraces the conscious sounds of yesterday at the same time moving forward at the lightspeed of rhyme. . . . Hypnotic riddims with a rootsy vibe. . . . ‘MYSELF’ is formerly known as Goldielox.”

  You can further your education in New Orleans roots music by listening to WWOZ and shopping at great record stores like Louisiana Music Factory on Decatur or the Magic Bus on Conti. Or you can walk down Bourbon past various touristy clubs and take in an overlapping, well-rendered continuum of “St. Louis Blues,” “Dock of the Bay,” “Highway to Hell,” “Don’t Mess With My Toot-Toot,” “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” “Has Anybody Seen My Gal,” “Shake Your Booty,” and a guy with a great bass voice hollering “Jell-O Shots.” You can hear all that for free, but it’s only fair to stop into these venues long enough to drop a few dollars. And don’t forget to tip the band. There is such a surfeit of musicians in town that they may well be getting paid only ten or twelve dollars apiece for the night.

  The current mayor of New Orleans is black, as was his predecessor, but the city is hardly a model of racial harmony. You’re not advised to venture too far afoot at night, because there is no shortage of poverty, drugs, and deadly weapons in town, and tourists are easy prey. I’ve always counted on being too large, irritable-looking, and ill-dressed to be a high-percentage target, but one afternoon just before twilight I was walking along Esplanade past gracious housefronts when two sizable African-American youths nodded as they passed me coming the other way. I nodded back. Then from behind I heard one of them cry, “Hey, buddy! Hey, buddy!” A young, professional-looking black man jogging ahead of me took one look back and sped up away from there. I looked back. “Remember me?” said the youth who’d called out. “You know, over by Rita’s place?” He came toward me, holding out his hand to shake. There was nobody else around. I didn’t know any Rita, so I said, “You don’t know me,” and picked up my pace in a hurry.

  When you’re going anywhere in New Orleans that you’ve never been before, it’s a good idea to phone for a United cab. It’s not a touristy thing to do. Old ladies living alone in the Garden District call United to bring them vodka and cigarettes in the middle of the night. There are other taxi companies, but everybody I know in town says, “Don’t get excited, call United.” A cab will be there in a jiffy, to take you anywhere you want to go, though one driver told me he hated to venture into the area of Tulane University because he had been stiffed too many times by college students. The drivers tend to be locals. One told me he’d moved to Atlanta, “but I had to move back. Atlanta made me feel like a little child. I don’t even drink, but I don’t want anybody te
lling me I have to stop, and go home, at a certain time.”

  Lagniappe with Color

  ROYAL STREET

  Once on Royal Street I came upon a crowd that was cheering and groaning strangely. A man was lying in the middle of the street, agonizingly working his way out of a straitjacket. He dislocated one shoulder, then the other. In the end he was beet-red and scraped up, but free to pass a can around for change.

  THE ROYAL ORLEANS

  Its Rib Room provides excellent expensive food—New Orleans cooks can do steak as inventively as oysters—and also an opportunity to eavesdrop on high-rolling businessmen, like the two I overheard indulging in petrochemical nostalgia: “Before EPA, hell, we’d dump shit, when it came out, the hairs on your arms would sizzle—but you could do that back then.”

  “That’s right. I was in Thailand coming upriver to where we were building a refinery, and all of a sudden, what’d we hit? We ran into this village’s whole fishing industry. It’s a trotline all across the river, hand-woven out of bark, must’ve taken years, beautiful thing. I said, ‘I’m not going to cut that,’ but of course, had to. We wound up destroying that village. Houses, trees . . .”

  “It was a different world back then.”

  RAMBLE FIVE: FOOD

  Oyster Inspiration of the Day: The chef’s creation, from the classics to the unique.

  —THE MENU OF THE 201 RESTAURANT ON DECATUR

  THE THING I HAVE WRITTEN THAT PEOPLE SEEM TO remember most is a song to oysters:

  I like to eat an uncooked oyster.

  Nothing’s slicker, nothing’s moister.

  Nothing’s easier on your gorge,

  Or when the time comes, to dischorge.

  But not to let it too long rest

  Within your mouth is always best.

  For if your mind dwells on an oyster,

  Nothing’s slicker, nothing’s moister.

  I prefer my oyster fried.

  Then I’m sure my oyster’s died.

  In those last two lines, I lied. An oyster no more needs cooking than a sonnet by Shakespeare needs recitation. But when H. L. Mencken wrote that “No civilized man, save perhaps in mere bravado, would voluntarily eat a fried oyster,” he revealed that he had never had a fried-oyster sandwich on homemade bread in Casamento’s, the venerable shiny-tiled seafood house in Uptown New Orleans. It is a crime without question to fry an oyster so callously that the animal’s integrity is lost, but an oyster that is still juicy and plump within a light layer of deftly seasoned crunch—in fact, more juicy and plump for the frying—is a sonnet set respectfully to a tune anyone can sing.

  New Orleans is the best town for eating in America, if not in the world. There is high cuisine aplenty. I sing now of the spinach gnocchi and sauteed drum at Gautreau’s, uptown. Of the tomato and ginger soup at Herbsaint, in the Central Business District. Of the chicken Rosmarino at Irene’s, in the Quarter: chicken cooked in garlic and rosemary, which is such a signature dish that it is what Irene’s smells like for the length of the block. Of the pistachio-crusted tenderloin of rabbit or the grilled salmon “De Salvo” or the bouillabaisse at the Bistro at Hotel Maison de Ville, on Toulouse. Of the crabmeat maison at Galatoire’s. Of the pan-fried sheepshead at Peristyle. Of the salmon in tarragon beurre blanc with virtually ephemeral fried oysters and bits of leek preceded by fried green tomatoes with remoulade sauce, or, indeed, the grits and grillades, at Upperline. Of the truffled eggs at Bacco. Of the simple but savory beef brisket at Tujague’s (pronounced Two-Jacks) on Decatur. Of the smoked trout dumplings or the seared foie gras with duck confit at Emeril’s. Of the cane-smoked salmon at Commander’s Palace, in the Garden District. Of the lavishly saucy barbecue shrimp at Mr. B’s Bistro. Of a great grilled veal chop with caramelized shallot butter at Sbiza’s, which on Sunday offers a fine jazz brunch. Of the triggerfish with truffle and cauliflower vinaigrette puree and asparagus and prosciutto chips at Bayona, on Dauphine, topped off by some kind of little coconut cookie that gives you hope, when you least expect it, that even in New Orleans there is always something more to learn about what taste buds are for. In New Orleans, people know chefs like Susan Spicer (Bayona, Herbsaint) or Ann Kearney (Peristyle) or Greg Piccolo (Bistro at Hotel Maison de Ville) or of course Emeril Lagasse (Emeril’s) and restaurateurs, like JoAnn Clevenger of Upperline or the Brennans of Mr. B’s and many other places, the way people know Jack Nicholson in Hollywood. And when was the last time Jack Nicholson made you think, “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. That is good”?

  But you can’t live like that. After a week in New Orleans trying to squeeze in all the cuisine you can, you wake up thinking, “With roux my heart is laden. If only a serpent would come along and tempt me with an apple.”

  No such luck. Satan is saying, “You know, Uglesich’s is open. And they say the old man is getting tired and the son doesn’t want to take over. How would you feel if Uglesich’s were to close before you got back in town?” So at 11:30 a.m. I’m at this dump of a place on Baronne at Erato, a no-man’s-land uptown of the Central Business District, girding my loins for what may be the best food in town.

  Pronounced “Yoogle-sitches.” A Yugoslav-American family. The place is so popular with local people, including other restaurants’ chefs, that if you don’t get there early for lunch you might have to wait three times: outside in line till you get through the door and reach the counter to order, then inside for a table, and then for your food. But nothing’s expensive, and oh is it rich. Shrimp creole—“cooked,” according to the menu, “with every tomato product you can imagine.” Pan-fried trout topped with “muddy water” sauce: chicken broth, garlic, anchovies, and gutted jalapeños, and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Fried green tomatoes with remoulade sauce. In Uglesich’s I have felt, at times, that I was mopping up the most delicious grease I have ever put in and around my mouth, and that is saying something.

  You don’t have to pay much money to eat well in New Orleans. Turn most any corner in the Quarter and you will see a sign that says FOOD STORE, and inside will be crawfish egg rolls. That were made this morning. That are good. Peoples Grocery at Conti and Bourbon, the Royal Street Grocery at St. Ann, the Verti Mart at Royal and Gov. Nicholls. You can get convenience-store fare, odds-and-ends items, newspapers, but you can also get California and French wines, liquor, black-eyed peas, gumbo, fried fish, crab cakes, jambalaya, red beans and rice, full breakfasts and all kinds of po-boys and regular sandwiches to order.

  On Decatur between Dumaine and St. Philip, you can home in on the Italian influence. At Central Grocery, the muffaletta was invented: on a big round sesame-seed bun, slices of several different aromatic meats and cheeses and oily-garlicky olive salad. Half a muffaletta is enough, and then you can browse among imported pastas, spices, salamis, and canned goods including baby conch, quail eggs, octopus in oil, abalone mushrooms, Creole chow-chow, and Cajun trinity (onion, bell pepper, and celery).

  I recommend the croissants at the Croissant d’Or, on Ursulines between Royal and Chartres. Or you can go to Johnny’s Po-Boy on St. Louis, where the mule-carriage drivers and the living statues eat, and have red beans and rice or a bowl of gumbo or a Po-Boy sandwich, which you might call a hero or a sub, but in New Orleans it will contain things into which you can sink heroically. At Mother’s, another unpricey place just uptown from Canal, you can have a roast beef sandwich with debris, which is the gravy and breakage you get when you roast beef slowly with, it goes without saying, seasoning.

  “They don’t have any seasoning up there,” a cabdriver told me, in reference to everywhere north of New Orleans. “Nowhere knows about seasoning but here.”

  Then there is the whole area of fried chicken. “My mama didn’t cook any cacciatore, or any pad Thai,” says my friend Lolis Elie, the Picayune columnist. “But my mama fried chicken, so I know.” Lolis will send you to the famous Dooky Chase, on Orleans, or to Willie Mae’s, on St. Ann (both in the Treme district, across Rampart from the Quarter). The fried chicken at those places does make i
t clear that he was brought up right. But Jacques-Imo’s on Oak Street, uptown, will serve you some fried chicken, which for juicy and yet not heavy is phenomenal, and you should also try the alligator cheesecake there—I know it sounds strange, but it is I think (and it’s not sweet, now, don’t let the word “cheesecake” put you off) the best way in the world to get some alligator in your system. Jacques-Imo’s is also a friendly, talk-inducing place for a few drinks. Lay down a foundation of that alligator cheesecake (yes, it is rich, I didn’t say it wasn’t rich, but it’s not show-off rich) and you are not going to get prematurely tipsy, I’ll tell you that.

  But my mama’s fried chicken on the spectrum of juicy was more toward the chewy side than the succulent, and she didn’t season it at all heavily, just brought the brown and the flesh into a balance that echoes down through my years. I have had chicken that reminded me of that chicken in a place on Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny called The Praline Connection. From nearby tables you can overhear the unmistakable tones of reality-facing progressive biracial political palaver, and unless prices have gone up you can have crowder peas and okra and rice for five dollars, or with meat for $6.95. The meat might be chicken or it might be pork chops or something. And the fried okra—hot and lightly cornmealed, so that the okra, still holding its own in there, is a first-rate fusion of brown and green, to which you might want to add just a touch of red: hot sauce.