by Jon Laiche
Not all of what they sell here are the products of their own industry, but are acquired through trade with other merchants and suppliers- both legal and illicit - hence the double meaning of New Orleans' black market. So now, as we approached what some are now calling, Congo Square, I instructed Etienne to stay close, to attend to the business dealings, and pay attention to our surroundings. Well, things did not go exactly as I had hoped.
Oh, the impatience of youth. As we wandered around the market, assessing the foodstuffs and other wares for sale, Etienne kept wandering to the edge of the swamp, I had to keep calling him back. Finally, his persistence paid off. I got tired of chasing him around, and as we had not made any purchases yet, I decided to go with him a few steps into the Cypress swamp. We humans are a curious lot, if something is not of immediate use to us or our interests, we tend not to see it. We had been to New Orleans over 10 years now, and the swamp, not being of any use to me, had become invisible. After walking a few paces into the swamp, I looked up and my breath was taken away. Above us loomed the ancient cypress, towering hundreds of feet high, their “knees” sticking out of the mud and water for yards around their base. These were interspersed with the deep rooted palmetto, whose broad fans provided shelter from the rain, either under the palm itself or thatched over those early huts of New Orleans which had housed all settlers from the poorest Native to the colonial governor. Just a short distance away from the market, the Cypriere had closed behind us. The city had disappeared. Then Etienne’s sharp youthful eyes pierced the green gloom and saw some movement. He plunged into the knee-high waters, grabbed on what appeared to be a long log floating there and began a short-lived
wrestling match. In the space of a few moments, he had captured a small 4 foot alligator. After dispatching the animal and taking the tail, we brought everything back to the marketplace.
The alligator, even now reduced from a vicious reptile to a future meal, caused a small scene in the marketplace. We were regaled with methods of skinning it and cooking it by the Natives, the slaves, and anyone else who cared to make a contribution. I had my own ideas, however. For the past few months I have been experimenting with sauces.
Harking back to my training in France, and taking full advantage of the copy of Massailot’s cookbook which I had acquired from a supply ship, I had mastered the three Sausses Meres, the basic sauces of all of our (French) cooking. Our potager had begun to produce a wide variety of vegetables and herbs. I wanted to take full advantage of them. While alligators were quite common in the Cypriere, they were nevertheless unusual in our diet. My idea was, at our next Sunday dinner, I would add some alligator in sauce to our usual herb rice and bread. As Etienne and I returned from the black market with our catch and a few little purchases from some - let’s say - unknown sources, I began to reflect on how different life was here in Louisiana as compared to home in France. When we had returned to the presbytere, I set Etienne to cleaning the kitchen, storing our purchases, and preparing his kill - skinning and butchering it to use in our dish for Sunday’s meal.
Gerard's Alligator Sausse Espagnole
Ingredients:
• A small onion, small bell pepper, celery stick,
• 3 toes of garlic
• Cooking fat to cover bottom of pan 1/2 inch
• 1 lb. alligator meat
• Seasoned flour
• Half cup bacon grease
• About 1/2 cup flour
• A quart of chicken stock
• Salt, cayenne pepper, bay leaves, sugar
Rice, green onions, parsley
Technique:
Fry off the meat you will be using, in this case alligator. Remove the alligator and set aside. In the same pan, add half a cup bacon grease. Now make the brown roux. Have chopped and ready the onion, green pepper, celery, and garlic. Slowly add the half cup of flour slowly, stirring constantly, until the sauce is well blended. Continue to stir as the sauce browns to the desired color, a dark brown - like coffee with just a little milk in it. You are stirring to keep the flour and the sauce from sticking to the bottom of the pan. When the color is as you desire, remove immediately from the heat and stir in the chopped vegetables. This stops the cooking. Stir everything together well, then return to a low heat, add the stock and keep stirring. Add the sugar, salt, bay leaves, and cayenne pepper. Stir well and cook on low for ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. Add the alligator back into the pan, cover and cook through. Serve over rice, garnish with chopped green onions and parsley.
As Etienne set about his chores, I sat down at my desk to make some notes.
{From Frere Gerard’s Journal}
Our capital city, while growing, is still an isolated pocket set at the top of a curve in the river in the middle of a vast wilderness. Bounded by the river on one side and surrounded on the other three by a vast Cyprus and Palmetto swamp, there are only two ways in and out of the city. The river is our primary connection with the rest of the world. The second route has been, after all these years, well worn by travel. The old Indian portage back to Bayou St. Jean which leads to Lake Pontchatrain and the Mexican Gulf, is only a matter of one or two leagues long. The surrounding swamps are beautiful, but at the same time, very dangerous, ever-changing, and treacherous. So once in the city, people tend to stay put. One only ventures forth on the most urgent business. Nevertheless, since the city’s whole purpose is to be a trade center, there is a constant flow of goods and people in and out of town. This transience only leads to an increased sense of isolation among the permanent inhabitants. These factors all combine to create a peculiar outlook on life. This peculiar outlook has even begun to be called by a name – we call it Creole.
The geography of our isolation, our Native French attitudes towards, - well, everything,- living in close quarters with the Natives and the African slaves, and the necessity to survive by our own wits, all combine to produce this Creole culture. Furthermore, we are no longer constrained by the traditions or the officialdom of the old country. We have indeed begun to see things and to do things differently. In France, I would never have dared to include so much meat and certainly no sauces into our daily monastic diet. Fish, on the other hand, have been eaten in our cloisters since time immemorial. Here, however, the surrounding waters are so abundant with useful and delicious seafood and fish, it is hardly a sacrifice to include these in our diet. In Louisiana, now with markets and gardens providing good, fresh food, sporadically, if not routinely, we tend to eat what we have - not what we should. The same can be said about all the other so-called necessities of life. We build our homes and public buildings against the climate and the weather.
Tailors and seamstresses are in short supply, but they are available, and provide us clothing made from whatever we can get off the ships. Some of our priests and my fellow brothers had taken to wearing lace cuffs and slippers, even carrying expensive snuff boxes and parasols, and we even have a little bit of money nowadays as the Company pays us a stipend every year. This is received with some scandal among our fellow citizens, but most of them find that they are in the same situation. Dealing with all of these freedoms is a mixed bag. Sometimes we do things we shouldn’t, for instance, my nutmegs and my saffron may be evidence of this. Sometimes we have to do things whether we want to or not, such as eating a joint of wild beef on Friday because that’s all there is. Such lapses in diet and fashion, due to our sometimes extreme circumstances, would probably merit an excuse in heaven.
Given all of this, though, life in the colonies offers such rich and varied opportunities to do good work and to live and learn new ways in such an air of freedom that I feel truly blessed to be a part of this experience.
Seventeen
LES PARTISANS DE LA CHASSEUSE
(Followers of the Huntress)
The excitement of the alligator catch had completely disrupted my plans for our marketing expedition. Luckily, the very next day, news came to the presbytere that several huntin
g parties had arrived at the levee market bearing canoes full of fresh meat. Etienne and I went across the square to the levee and I began teaching him how to assess the quality of the meat being sold. All in all, we picked up several nice large cuts of fresh wild beef. We brought these back to our kitchen where we hung a few cuts up to dry and began preparing the rest to be either salted or to be included in some meals over the next few days. The wild beef I speak of comes from animals that are very numerous on the prairies west of the Point Coupée settlement. These wild cattle have also been named by some of the naturalists sent over by crown and company as the American bison. As the hunters travel even further north and west these bison are very easy to harvest and not only does their meat taste good but the Natives have taught us to use every tiny bit of this bison or buffalo.The skull, the bones, and the horns are all used for the manufacture of various tools and implements. The tongue and the heart are delicacies of the finest flavor, the skins and fur make excellent materials for clothing, blankets, and coverings. This America is truly a fabulous land.
Here in a matter of 48 or 72 hours we have filled out our larder not only with alligator meat and wild beef but also some domestic pork. Fresh fish and fresh poultry are available almost on a daily basis either at the market or out of our own backyard. Now here in the presbytere we do not eat such rich meals, especially meals containing meat, very often. Nevertheless, I keep a lot on hand for the poor, for our friends in the city, and for special occasions as well. About a week or so after the alligator meal my potagér provided many fresh vegetables and with the fresh meat which I had hanging in the smokehouse, we were able to put together a very good stew, even if I do say so myself.
COLONIAL BUFFALO STEW
4 lbs. stew meat (beef or buffalo), cut into @ one inch cubes
The Trinity:
(1 medium onion, 1 large green pepper, 2-3 stalks celery), plus 4 toes garlic,
1 medium or half a large turnip
4 small carrots
3 medium parsnips
1 large sweet potato
2 small banana peppers
1 small hot pepper
one pint of beer
oil and flour to make a roux, water
First, you make a roux. Chop fine the Trinity and the chili peppers, set aside to stop the roux. In a large stew pot, heat a half cup of olive oil (any other fat will do, except butter), add a quarter cup of flour and begin stirring to “fry” the flour, add another quarter cup of flour, continue stirring and watch the color of the roux, When it reaches the desired brown color, immediately add the chopped vegetables to halt the cooking process. Leave the heat on, and begin to sauté the vegetables, about 5 to 10 minutes until tender. Add the beer and enough water to fill the stew pot about three quarters full.
Bring to a simmering boil and then add the cubed meat. Bring back to a full boil. While waiting for the meat mixture to boil, peel and cut the turnip and parsnips; add to the stew. Return to a full boil, cover and move to a low flame. Let this mixture cook for about a half or three quarters of an hour. Meanwhile peel the sweet potato, cut or slice into small chunks or slices. Slice the carrots into disks about one quarter inch thick. Add to the pot and continue cooking until the meat and the vegetables are tender. You may need to add some more water about halfway through the process.
Serve over rice.
{Author’s Note}
In the previous chapter, Frére Gerard and his student Etienne stumbled upon an alligator in the Cypriere. Accidental as this episode was, it does illustrate the place of hunting in the Louisiana economy. The alligator also represents a cross-over between fishing and hunting. Either way, it is acquisition of food from the local wilderness. Frére Gerard, working out of his convent kitchen, would probably never have had occasion to do much hunting. But he would have procured many of the products of the hunt from the marketplaces both on the levee and in the back of town. A distinct difference between hunting in Louisiana today and hunting in Louisiana in the 1700s would have been the availability of the American bison, or the buffalo. Well attested in the sources, beef from the wild “cattle” of the prairies was common on the tables of French Louisiana. On high feast days and special occasions a stew of wild cattle and vegetables from the potager would not have been unusual. This “Colonial Beef Stew” uses a mix of ingredients common to French (and European) gardens of the eighteenth century, while adding some American Native flavor with a variety of peppers. Striving for more authenticity to foods of SE Louisiana in the 1700s, one can substitute buffalo for beef. In 18th Century New Orleans, buffalo from the prairies west of Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupée was readily available.
A HISTORICAL ADDENDUM:
Louisiana’s very existence has always been intimately tied to its food. The day before entering the mouths of the Mississippi for the first time, Iberville, Bienville and their party of exploration hunted on Cat Island for supper, supplying themselves with geese and “wildcats” (raccoons) for their meal. Oysters were added to the menu to provide a quite filling meal. A French Canadian by birth, a “new world” nobleman, and a naval hero, Iberville, and his brother Bienville, were well versed in relations with Native Americans and with making their way in the American wilderness. Along with the required geographical and descriptive entries that are normally recorded by an expeditionary captain, Iberville's journal is peppered with many interesting items of Gulf Coast Indian “first contacts”. More to our purposes, entries of Native foods and meals partaken during that wintry February of 1699 are included. From the expedition's ships anchored off Dauphin and Ship Islands, the exploring party in long boats and canoes (pirogues) set about sailing westward to find the object of the mission, the mouth of the Mississippi. Along the way, some interesting meals are recorded, and therein we find the true origins of Louisiana cuisine.
We must remember that French Louisiana included all the Gulf settlements from Mobile Bay to New Orleans, and then onto the upriver settlements of Natchitoches, Natchez, and beyond. Within these geographical boundaries we find the first roots of the Louisiana Creole cooking now famous throughout the country. The following entries made by Iberville provide a clear picture of the earliest Louisiana cooking on record.
Feb. 3rd – (Dauphin I.) “four of my Canadians went hunting and killed eighteen bustards (probably Canada geese), several ducks, and a raccoon.” p.38
Feb. 6th – {still on Dauphin I.}”We are catching a great many fish.” p. 41
Feb. 9th - “ . . . a great many bustards and snow geese.” beaucoup d'outardes et d' oyes sauvages; p. 42
Feb.13th – (on the Biloxi coast) many plum trees in bloom; tracks of turkeys; partridges; hares, like the ones in France; some rather good oysters. p.43
Feb. 19th - “That day I got 16 casks of wine . . . ; 10 small barrels of flour; 97 pounds of butter, so that I would not lack provisions.
p. 48:
Feb. 26th – a party of 52 head out from Biloxi with “provisions for twenty days” to locate the mouths of the Mississippi. p.49
Iberville’s Journals (see online Bibliography)
Here, indeed, is the documentary evidence of the birth of Louisiana cuisine. As promising and delicious as these foods indicate, Creole cuisine and the colony itself got off to a less than stellar beginning. For the first thirty years, at least, it was often a toss-up as to whether or not Louisiana would even survive - in the most literal sense. Nevertheless, by the middle of the eighteenth century, enough people had arrived and enough land had been put under cultivation to insure a relatively steady supply of foodstuffs. During that first half century, the colonists, the generally friendly Louisiana Natives, and (after 1719) even the African slaves also provided a significant stream of protein sources through the ancient practice of hunting.
Colonial New Orleans (and Lower Louisiana) acquired its food in three ways. The first and legal way to acquire it was buying it from the company stores or the government warehouses that were supplied by French supply ships. The second way was to gro
w or catch it. All houses in New Orleans and certainly all the farms and plantations around New Orleans had their own gardens. The third way was to faire la marché, which is French for making or doing the market or making or doing the groceries. This is where the New Orleans slang “making groceries” comes from.
The French Market in the Vieux Carré, that we know today, did not exist during the French colonial period. It was a creation of the Spanish administration in New Orleans after 1770. During the French era, there was a market on the levee and there were a few markets in and around the city. Most notably, the market at Congo Square at the rear the city was a place where the slaves were allowed to assemble and sell their wares among themselves and to the general public. Then as now there were also the street vendors, people who came from the surrounding areas to sell whatever they had by walking up and down the street calling out their wares. Farmers from the German Coast and slaves from the surrounding farms and plantations sold their surplus produce to the city. Fishermen and hunters came to the marketplaces to sell the catches acquired through their industry.
The hunting economy in French Louisiana provides an interesting insight into the mixing of cultures that created the Creole society and Creole cuisine. Since the arrival of the French in 1699, local Natives had provided the colonists with game. This “protein supply channel” continued to flow through the entire colonial period into the American period, and, to a lesser extent, into modern times. As is often noted, the very existence of the colony, at least during those first 30 years, was often due to the Indians feeding the colonists. Another “protein channel”, surprisingly, flowed through the African slaves who were imported into the colony. French attitudes toward the Natives and toward the Africans they imported as slaves was markedly different than the other Europeans who came to America. The famous Code Noir - the Black Code - gave the French masters the leeway to arm their slaves in order that they might provide not only their masters but themselves and the marketplace with meat from hunting activities. Finally, a segment of the French colonial population were professional hunters. They ranged up and down the Mississippi Valley, north to the St. Francis Basin in the Ozark Mountains, up the Red River valley to modern-day Texas and Oklahoma, and to the prairies west of the settlements at Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupée.