The Petticoat Rebellion

by Jon Laiche

  “Sagamité resembles a wide range of modern New World corn dishes, including New England's succotash and hasty pudding, the South's cornbread and hush puppies, the Acadian macaque choux,…” (Ibid., p. 472)

  It is important to note as well that the word Sagamité applied not only to the food but also the methods of preparing it. Enjoy then this wonderful dish like those Louisiana Natives, the old French settlers, and their Creole descendants, who never make it twice the same way.

  * Campanella, Richard. “Geography of a Food, or Geography of a Word? The Curious Cultural Diffusion of Sagamité.” in Louisiana History: the Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. Fall, 2013, Volume LIV, No. 4. pp. 465-476.

  Three

  AN ORIGINAL RECIPE

  Some years prior to our arrival in the Louisiana colony, the Mississippi Company had been busy sending new emigrés to New Orleans and beyond. After all, a colony is not worth so much if there are few or no settlers to build the houses and plant the gardens. Two groups of these newly imported people were destined to play an important, indeed a crucial, role in my job of providing good food for my brothers, our guests, and neighbors. The first group to influence my New World cooking experiments were the Africans that the company provided to serve the planters and merchants of New Orleans. Sent as slaves, their’s was a hard lot, but they persevered in their fate, and some were eventually able to buy their freedom, or earn it in some other fashion from exceptionally kindly owners. The Africans brought with them, not only their bodies, but the techniques, skills, and even some Native foodstuffs from that dark continent. Our community were lent some of these folk to help us build our chapel, home, and the other requisites for our community life. When certain of them discovered that I was in charge of the kitchen, they were generous to me in their help and advice. This was not because I am special or more deserving of their consideration that my brothers, but simply because I had the key to the food stores.

  The Africans introduced me to okra. We discovered together that the plant grew well in this new and unusual climate. It produces a pod containing all of its seeds, and has a most pleasant flavor and aroma. The African word for this plant was gombo*. They taught me to dry out the pods in the front of the fire. This process would eliminate the pod’s natural mucous nature while keeping its savour. Along with okra, the Africans had also brought rice from their low lying country along the Senegal and Gambia Rivers. The company directors, in their wisdom, had directed the ship captains to take along a quantity of rice with which to feed their unfortunate cargo, but also to supply their needs in their new home. However, it was the other group I mentioned above who would be responsible for making available this staple of our larders.

  Monsieur Law’s plans for New Orleans and Louisiana included the development of Agriculture. To this end, he (or rather his company) had appealed to the German peoples occupying the newly French districts along the Rhine. These Alsatians and Lotharigians from these districts were, after many adventures up the Mississippi, finally settled several miles above the capital, where the land becomes less of a swamp and is more suited for farming. We call this area the Côte des Allemandes. Those hard-working farmers were soon producing enough food to ship their surplus supply of vegetables, meats, and grains to our levèe market here at New Orleans. These supplies not only provided for our immediate survival, but laid the foundations for household gardens around the town, including my own potager.

  One day, after many days of my French and Indian bread, I decided to expand the kitchen’s repertoire. In the market that day, I was looking for something different. During my shopping, I encountered several of my African acquaintances, along with their females from across the river. The ladies were discussing (arguing?) about their best okra recipes. I joined in and soon was devising a new combination of foodstuffs which were both abundant, cheap, nutritious, and quite filling. Along with my usual supply purchases, I

  increased the amount of rice I usually bought, procured a goodly supply of okra, and gathered several bunches of onions, both to plant and to cook. Now that the community’s hearth was nearing completion, I unpacked some large earthen casserole platters and began my trial of…

  The Casserole

  An Original Recipe: Frére Gerard Feeds the Builders

  of New Orleans

  Begin by slicing and roasting 12-18 pods of fresh okra for 30 minutes in front of hot fire. Season with salt and black pepper. This process dries the okra out and eliminates the sticky slime that stewed okra generates.

  Prepare the rice as though you were cooking it for an ordinary meal.

  Continue with the Sacred Quadrivium†, that is, a small onion, a small mild pepper, 2 or 3 stalks of celery, 5 or 6 toes of garlic

  Finely chop the vegetables, saute in a bit of lard until tender and cooked through. When done, add the rice and okra and mix thoroughly. Place the mixture in a casserole dish. Mix in one cup of coarsely chopped pecans, add chopped up cayenne peppers to taste. Top with several pats of good rich butter if you have it. Bake in a medium oven for about 20 minutes. The longer the casserole sits, the more the flavors meld.

  † Sister Mary, down at the Ursuline convent, castigates me for being a horrible heretic when I use this term to name this virtually universal combination of vegetables that are the basis for the majority of our dishes. I am sure that St. Paschal, and the other heavenly cooks, smile at this venial sin on my part.

  * As I edit these notes of this journal for our scribe, Frère Philip, so many years after these events of our origins in New Orleans, it is amusing to me that the okra or gombo, is now the name of a nearly ubiquitous soup throughout the kitchens and homes of the entire Louisiana colony. Fr. G.

  (An adaptation for modern (21st Century) kitchens:)

  You may use 12-18 pods of fresh okra or one 15 oz. can of sliced okra).

  Roast for15 minutes in a hot oven, 425°.

  Season with salt and black pepper.

  Prepare one cup of rice by your ordinary method.

  Continue with the Sacred Quadrivium, that is, a small onion, a small bell pepper, 2 or 3 stalks of celery, 5 or 6 toes of garlic.

  Finely chop the vegetables, sauté in a bit of olive oil until tender and cooked through. When done, add the rice and okra and mix thoroughly.

  Place the mixture in a Casserole dish (glass or earthenware). Mix in one cup of coarsely chopped pecans, cayenne pepper to taste (if you are not sure of the cayenne, start with ¼ tsp. and adjust with experience). Top with several pats of butter (up to ½ stick).

  Bake at 350° for about 20 minutes.

  The longer the casserole sits, the more the flavors meld.

  Four

  A VOYAGE UP THE BAYOU

  We left before dawn. It would only take an hour, give or take a few minutes, to get to Bayou St. John. But, once there, we still had 2 or 3 hours travel ahead of us. there was a definite chill in the air this morning, the weather had finally broke the endless night and day of steamy heat of the past five months. October had come in all its glory. It would still warm up by the noon hour, but the heat was nowhere as intense as the summer, and the steam was gone from the air. Then, as the sun set, the air would cool off again, giving us some very pleasant hours of sleep. My companions, two of the Natives from our destination, and Herr Lothar Bayer, a farmer from the Côte des Allemandes, met me in the new village square which our presbytere fronted. From there, we would stop by the Ursulines' house to pick up their young novice, Therese, who was nurse-in-training. A visit to the village upriver would give her a chance to practice some of her new-found skills. The Tchoupitoulas group would certainly be grateful for any of her ministrations. My reason for going was obvious, it was harvest time, and I was acting in my office of procurer to gather as much fresh food as possible to cook now and to put up for the winter months.

  Morning twilight had just turned the eastern sky indigo when we left the back of town and proceeded up what had now become The Bayou Road. In all the excitement and fr
ustration that comes with constructing a new colonial capital in the middle of the swamp, it is often forgotten that a French settlement had been at our destination for ten years before our governor, Monsieur de Bienville, decided once and for all to place the new city, La Nouvelle Orleans, where the trail from the three bayous’ headwaters meets the great river. It is only a little more than a league from the new city to the Bayou settlement. The road is good, with a few ancient bridges across the lowest points (these bridges are simple log affairs which predate our arrival by possibly centuries). At times, the swamp waters press close to the road, giving it a somewhat gloomy and, Lord forgive me, supernatural aspect. By the time the October sun was shining through the cypress and palmetto gloom, we had arrived at the Village de Ste. Jean.The inhabitants of the trading post, really the only building of substance in the “village” were already up and about when we arrived. A few folks from the surrounding farms were also filtering in to the post to lay in some supplies for their homesteads. Our only business this morning with M. Lavigne was the hire of two pirogues and a bateau which would be our main transport for the food we would acquire from our trading with the Tchoupitoulas. We loaded Sister Therese and her medicine bag into the bateau, while one of the Indians got into each pirogue. I clambered into one (being raised on a lake, boats and waterways were almost my natural habitat) and Bayer stepped into the other. We lashed the bateau to each pirogue, even though a trip up the sluggish bayou in fine weather hardly strained our seamanship.

  In those early days, the village at Bayou Ste. Jean was really a settlement where three bayous met. If anyone at home (France) ever reads these notes, perhaps some explanation is in order. Here in lower Louisiana, there are dozens of what we in France would call a creek or stream. Louisiana however, especially around New Orleans, is flat country, a perennial flood plain. And while these local streams do move water, they simply drain the countryside from one low spot

  to another. They move with incredible slowness as well, so slow that there is always stagnation here and there along the way. Three of these streams, or as the Natives call them, bayous, meet at the Village. The largest, St. John moves almost due north to the huge lake that Bienville named Pontchartrain, and connects the sea to New Orleans. Another, called Bayou Sauvage, or sometimes Chantilly, moves east, north of the city and flows into the same lake through a dense swamp. The bayou where we rowed our little flotilla is called Tchoupitoulas, after the Native group which live where the great river carved the bayou through its bank. From the village to the river and the Tchoupitoulas settlement is only about two, or at most three leagues from Village Ste. Jean. Our passage through the bayou was swift and pleasant, waterfowl splashed around us in great numbers as they attended to their own breakfast. Beaver, muskrat, and mink also joined then in their watery feast. As to ourselves we joined God’s creatures by breaking bread and some cheese which we munched on between turns at the paddle.

  Arriving at the Tchoupitoulas village, we were met with a joyous fanfare, as though we were long-lost voyagers from the East Indies. Our Tchoupic companions found their families and immediately disappeared to a warm welcome home. Sister Therese set about at once talking to the village women, discovering who was sick, and what sort of symptoms they showed. These days (the 1740's) few people realize, as the Ursulines run a fine school and boarding dormitory at their convent, that they were originally tasked to ministering to the health needs of the new capital. It was Sister Therese’s task in those old days to learn and administer to the medical needs of both the French and the Native populations. Furthermore, being devoted to God’s service, they did not look askance at the needs of the Africans in our town. For her services and some medicines, Sister, who was no mean business woman either, was able to acquire some pelts, fish, and woven stuff for the convent.

  Herr Lothar Bayer, my other companion, had come to Louisiana before we friars had arrived. He and his Rhenish brethren had been moved upriver past the lakes to where the land dried out a little and began to rise towards the higher ground towards the north. There, on the Côte d’Allemandes, these industrious farmers of the Rhineland, had carved out numerous small farms and began producing rice and vegetables, as well as some livestock to feed themselves and the capital. It is not too far off the truth to say that they, along with the friendly Natives, like the Tchoupitoulas of this village, saved our capital and most of the colony itself from starvation. He had arranged with M. Lavigne at Ste. Jean to keep a pirogue until he returned later, to continue his trip back upriver. From the trade goods he acquired at the New Orleans market, he was able to get from the Indians here some seeds for the spring, and some wild beef (buffalo) to take home.

  As to my own purpose for this unusual trip, I bought beans, corn, squash for I wished to make a dish I had heard about since arriving at New Orleans. In the Levee Market for the past few years, I had often heard a story, which seems to me to be just a little made up, as it were. Although I do not doubt that something of the sort may have happened. The story tells how the the original colonists, mostly from New France in the north, after exploring the area around here on the river and along the seacoast began to be desirous of some women from home to help establish the colony here in Louisiana. As such M. de Bienville and some other officials had prevailed upon the Bishop of Quebec to arrange for some females to be sent over. (See above, p. xi) In any event I was intrigued by this succotash stew that was spoken of in this story.

  Along with the vegetables needed for the succotash, I also traded for some fresh fish to cook shortly and to salt down for later use. After all, I needed a large supply of salted fish to keep on hand for Fridays. Then, after spending the rest of the day talking with the Tchoupitoulas, and even announcing some of the “Good News” to them, Sister and I retired for the night and returned early next

  morning to our abodes in the capital. After seeing Sister Therese safely back to her convent, I stopped at the Levee and, from the Africans there I procured various peppers, and from the Germans I got some garlic and onions. I found also some sesame from the East Indies/Caribbean trade from some folk who do not wish to be named. My own potager at the presbytere provided more varieties of onions and peppers and finally, from my pantry was the salt, black pepper and fat. Tomorrow the brothers will eat fish and succotash.

  Tchoupitoulas Succotash

  The Three Sisters of the Soil Make a Complete Meal

  Yields: 5 one-cup portions Succotash

  Ingredients:

  * 1 spoon fat or olive oil

  * 2 cups fresh maize (corn), cut off the cob

  * 1 small onion, a large red bell pepper, chopped, 2 garlic cloves, minced

  * 1 small hot chili pepper, diced

  * 2 small summer squash, chopped

  * black pepper * salt

  * 2 cups Indian beans,

  * 1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth

  Soak the beans in the broth for an hour or two.

  Place a large sauté pan on high heat until very hot.

  Add 1 tsp of the fat, the corn, peppers, and onion, then sauté until the vegetables start to brown and caramelize slightly. This should only take about 5 to 7 minutes.

  Add the remaining fat, squash, salt, black pepper and garlic.

  Cook for another 3 minutes on medium heat.

  Add the broth and beans. Simmer until all the vegetables are tender. It should take about 5 minutes.

  A HISTORICAL ADDENDUM:

  Some words relating to the Tchoupitoulas Indian group as written by someone who claims to have actually known them.

  “The overall picture of the Native population is enhanced by the presence of another local bayou connected to Bayou St. John from the west (and, indeed, is really one of Ste. Jean’s sources). Today, Metairie Road more or less traces its route. In colonial times, it was called the Tchoupitoulas Bayou, because it led to the country (settlements) of the Tchoupitoulas Indians. These people lived along the Mississippi in today’s Jefferson Parish. Some sources say that th
e Tchoupitoulas had disappeared by the time the French arrived.

  However, there is evidence that they remained there for quite awhile into the nineteenth century. Mr. Meloney Soniat, writing in the Louisiana Historical Quarterly in 1924, tells of childhood memories of the Tchoupitoulas on his grandfather’s plantation-which was named after the Indians.”

  “The Indians of the Tchoupitoulas Village were gradually driven away by the white settlers and moved over the lake in the neighborhood of Mandeville, there joining other tribes. Every winter, however, some of them would come back and camp on a piece of ground called Terre Haute, in the rear of the Tchoupitoulas Plantation, where there was a large grove of magnolias. There the Indians would remain until Spring, when they would return to their village near Mandeville. These visits continued until the United States Government had the tribes

  removed to the Indian Reservation. I remember that, as a boy, I visited the Indians on several occasions at Terre Haute, and saw their huts, which were built of palmetto leaves. The reason given by the Indians for coming from over the lake, was that the winters were less rigorous on this side, but the real reason, no doubt, was that the older Indians who had inhabited the village of the Tchoupitoulas were drawn back to the neighborhood where they, in their youth, had been accustomed to hunt and fish without interference from the whites; then again their descendants also desired to visit the hunting grounds of their ancestors.”

  LHQ 1924; V7, #2, p.314 ff.

  Five

  Creole Corn Stew

  Il fait chaud !!! (It is hot!) Not that July in Louisiana is ever cool. But one would think that after three years of these tropical summers in this mosquito infested swamp, a person would finally be able to accommodate the weather. Nevertheless the work of the Lord goes forward. The new church is finally being built in the town's center.