It's easy for us to think of New Orleans and French influence. That's the obvious one. But a lot of times we don't think about the Italian influence there. From 1884 to 1924, there were over 290,000 Italian immigrants, mostly from Sicily that immigrated to New Orleans. Then we also have the movie let that which is an Italian inspired sandwich with Italian meats, cured meats and cheeses and wonderful Sicilian Brad, and that has become very traditional for New Orleans.
If you're looking for a party, you'll have a hard time finding one much bigger than Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Like a lot of great parties. Food plays a major part in the New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. You don't have to be in the Big Easy to eat like it's Fat Tuesday. In fact, much of the traditions and traditional foods associated with New Orleans cuisine come from somewhere else. And that's what we're going to talk about today.
I'm Candace Bosworth and I teach community education classes in the home and garden area at Heartland. What are some of the classes you teach everything from breads to Italian cooking, we do kids camps in the summer.
One of the classes that you teach is focused around Fat Tuesday traditions, which of course, is New Orleans style food, which brings in I guess, a lot of different cooking styles. Right?
Right. But that Tuesday is not just New Orleans, there are Fat Tuesday, celebrations all around the world, whether you're in Great Britain where they have pancake day. That's what they call their fat tuesday celebration, or in Venice where they have Carnevale. Again, Fat Tuesday, which Mardi Gras is French fat, Tuesday, or actually Tuesday, fat. But
in all these traditions, and carnival generally is tied into basically leading up to let
wild land is a time where people traditionally give up foods, anything sweet during the Lenten period as they consider their faith and pet into the Easter season. Fat Tuesday is the day before lat. Today, there's probably not a lot of serious giving up of things happening. But in the past, there were a lot more, oh, we give up all sweets we give up. But we're not going to have dairy, we're not going to have eggs. So this was the final Hey, we can eat this food, we're gonna give it up. But we can eat this food now and enjoy it. And in some cases, it was also oh, we're just gonna get this stuff out of our cupboards. So it's not there to tempt us. We'll just eat it all now.
So what then are some of the foods that are associated with Fat Tuesday that people are either emptying out their cupboards to make or doubling down on before the period where they're supposed to give them up for lunch?
While some of the foods would be kings cake, which think more of a bread, all the good things that we think of that we know that like in cinnamon rolls is in this bread that they call king cake. It's an enriched bread, that means it's got egg and butter and it's a nice rich bread usually put into a ring and it's filled in the sucker with all kinds of good cinnamon yumminess. A lot of times of course, today with Mardi Gras Oh, we have to have the sprinkles, we have to have all the goodies on top and we go with the colors purple, gold and green.
So those colors are associated with New Orleans Mardi Gras, right for Is there a traditional reason why those colors are utilized with that celebration?
There is although there's several different opinions about it. Generally what people give out is that purple stands for justice. Green is for faith. And the gold is for power. There's other theories. There was a researcher who he said that Oh, well. You know, if you look back through history, what happened is they said, We want to have a try color. Because all these flags of different countries they have three colors. Now the United States has red, white and blue. We want three colors. So we'll go with the purple for oil. Then they brought in the idea of the heraldry rules and what goes into a coat of arms. There are rules for the colors of the coat of arms. One of them had to be a metal. So they chose gold. Hey, sounds royal goes with King sounds good. Let's go with the gold. Then back to the heraldry rules, we have then how are left with a choice of red, blue, purple, green or black to go with what we already have. And they chose green, when the visiting Russian Grand Duke came to visit that it was his colors. And so they said, oh, we'll impress him and we'll have his colors. Whichever way. They're fun colors.
When we talk about the king cake. Also, there's something else that you can tell me whether or not it's specific to specific areas, or they do it everywhere. But sometimes there's something that's baked into the cake, like, kind of like a prize at a cracker jack. And if you get it, it means something.
Okay, King Cake has a little usually plastic baby inside. If you get this plastic baby in your piece, then you're the one who gets to bring to the party the following year. This is because king cake comes from the three kings who visited baby Jesus. So then the little baby in the cake would represent baby Jesus.
It's a seems like a choking hazard. Yeah, but then is it good or bad? Is it good luck or bad luck to get that piece with the baby on it? So yeah, I guess you have the responsibility, then
you have the responsibility. But if you've got the baby at skadevi, good luck.
You mentioned that Mardi Gras, and Fat Tuesday are traditions that come from a variety of places that they celebrate in a variety of places. And we associated a lot with New Orleans because it's such a big and famous and really elaborate party. But New Orleans is a city that brings in traditions from a lot of places. It's a port city, can you talk a little bit about some of these things that we might associate with New Orleans coming from, say, France, or Italy, or some of the other places that exerted influence, particularly on the cuisine that we think of with New Orleans?
Well, it's easy for us to think of New Orleans and the French influence. That's the obvious one. But a lot of times we don't think about the Italian influence there. From 1884 to 1924. There were over 290,000 Italian immigrants, mostly from Sicily that emigrated to New Orleans, three shifts a month would come bringing these new immigrants, then we also have the movie a lot that which is an Italian inspired sandwich with Italian meats, cured meats and cheeses and wonderful Sicilian bread. And that has become very traditional for New Orleans.
It seems like a lot of these dishes kind of do have a little bit of a mix of Italian and French tradition. Sometimes even in the same dish, you'll see that one of the things that people think of when they think of going to New Orleans is some of the famous restaurants and one of the things you can do is you go to cafe du monde French name, and they have been yeas there. What are those? Are they specific to that area? Are they where do they come from? And how are they different from other things might be similar?
Oh, I've been yet is to our American minds, we would think of almost a doughnut hole.
It looks like it. Yeah,
it looks like it. It's fried dough. A tiny little further. Benya is French and you can get them in France. You can get them in New Orleans, several other cultures. Several African cultures have picked up that as part of their cuisine as well.
And what's the difference between that and a donut? Is there one?
Oh, I'm sure if you ask the French they would tell you exactly what it is. Some of it you have to taste to know probably the simplicity of ingredients. Today, you can buy mixes that are labeled been yet we'll be making it from scratch and our class. And to me, that's going to be the biggest differences. We'll be doing simple, plain whole ingredients, as opposed to all the additives and preservatives that can be put into a mix or prepared foods when you make them for a whole bunch of people.
So what other foods in class will you be making?
If we have time we're going to do Bananas Foster. Very simple recipe very delicious recipe.
This part of Bananas Foster and its association with New Orleans come from that port city history, because you think of bananas, you know you're not growing bananas, really, a lot of places
Brennan's restaurant in New Orleans is where it started. They flame with huge numbers of bananas every year. It's crazy. It's very simple. Brown sugar, and butter and banana cooked, flamed with a little bit of bourbon,
probably have to be a little careful with the amount of bourbon to control that flame, right?
Oh, yes, yes, very will be measured, we'll be careful. And we'll learn as an anything. Anytime you're in the kitchen, there is safety to be considered. Whether it's, oh, wow, we're gonna flame this, or you're using a knife, you're using the stove top, you have a flame. So we'll talk about kitchen safety.
There are a lot of interesting stories that surround some of these dishes and the influences that come from them. How did you become interested in the styles of cooking that you are exploring here, and some of the things that have developed these dishes, what piqued your interest?
Well, I became interested in cooking. When I was working with my daughter, she wanted to learn cooking, and I thought, Okay, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, right? And the Okay, we're gonna invest the time, let's look at our heritage, and my heritage as an Italian heritage. So we started looking there. And we just learned that this is a really, food is a really good way to learn about culture, to learn about people, and to share. So food is not just what we put it in our mouth and swallow and it gives us energy. Sure, it's that, but it's what connects us to our heritage is what connects us to each other and our memories, our history and where we want to go today,
you said that that your daughter wanted to learn how to cook sort of sounded like you needed to learn some of those things yourself to teach her. Were there dishes that when you were growing up that your family made traditionally and you learn to make,
I didn't have the privilege of growing up knowing my heritage. That part of the family, my grandfather died and the rest of the family did not speak the language. So that whole heritage was something that I didn't explore until I was an adult.
So this was a way for you to really get connected with part of your heritage through some of these techniques in this food. Yes. Were there any things that you discovered about that filled in some of those gaps for you? What did you learn,
I learned that many of the foods that we consider to be really good foods now started out as poor people food that, particularly in Italy, people took what they had and used what they had, and didn't give up. When things were hard. After World War One World War Two, specially the area that my family's from, it was it was hard. cities were destroyed. People were gone had left. And the people said, we're gonna make the best of what we have, so that we can have good food. We're not gonna give up, we're just gonna keep going and find what we can. And I think that that is a really good lesson for all of life. To say things are bad things are hard. But we have a will. And we can think creatively we can think outside the box and use what we have to still enjoy life.
Cooking is a pretty basic thing that you can do for someone. If you have a little bit of expertise, maybe even not a lot. It seems like there's a real connection if you make something for someone else, that instead of picking up takeout or or something else to feed your family, it is more meaningful, even if it is a simple dish. Even if it is something they call it comfort food for a reason.
Yes. As simple thing as my kids growing up, my daughter who wanted to learn to cook her brothers would get pulled out with her at times. I would say oh, we're in the kitchen. Oh, here take this to your brother. Oh, hey, everything was good. And there's a reason we say the way to a person's heart is through their stomach. Because food is more than just what you eat. The other thing that I found interesting as I was looking at all this is okay in New Orleans, they have the tradition of the masks. You happens in Italy as well in fairness for the masks. And the idea there was to that for one day or for this one period of time, everyone is the same. Everyone is equal. It's a great so that if you're of low class, you can talk to the people of high class and interact with them. So I think anything that helps us connect with other people and see other people as people and as equal is amazing, and we can do that with food.
Alright, Candace, thanks for coming in and talking to us about this and traditions and food and cooking and Fat Tuesday dishes. Thank you. Candice borth teaches cooking classes for continuing education at Heartland Community College. For more interviews on arts, culture, history and more. Subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this episode. Thanks for listening
