A Small Creole Dinner

TO THE DELEGATES OF

THE NEW ORLEANS PRESS CLUB.
INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF THE PRESS CLUB.

In the Atheneum, corner of Clio and St. Charles Streets.

SATURDAY, 19th FEBRUARY, 1898

In the City of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Any time near nine o'clock

* * *

Tattered rags are better than to go naked.

Absinthe and Anisette.

In Louisiana they find good calas, (cake eaten with coffee).
Oysters, Chooupique and bamboula (national dance).

Oysters from Mosquito Bayou.

With a good gombo prepared by Silvie,
Without ever scolding I would pass my life.

Gombo file Bisque 'crebitches [crawfish]

Small vegetables with salt.

When I was a little boy
My mother would say
Courtbouillon Creole
is a mightly fine dish.

Courtbouillon Patassa from Bayou Patassa.

HAUT SAUTERNE 1978

A cockroach never holds its own before a hen.

Chicken Pate.

A crawfish is a darned beast!

Boiled crawfish.

Everyone knows what boils in his own pot.

Red beans with rice ("Hopping John")

SAINT JULIEN 1876

They boast of their terrapin,
But once you taste Caoene,
You taste something just as fine.

Fricassee Caoene (Pig-skin)

Don't tie your dog with sausages

Jambalaya Tchourisses (Rice and blood-puddings)

A Creole dinner is not complete Without a little suckling pig.

A runaway pig, stuffed and roasted. Sweet salad with chicory.

A bird in the band Is better than all the birds flying in the woods.

Snips with laurel leaves en baguette. Watercresses from Bayou des Herbes.

CHAMPAGNE

Lagniappe is something very good (a corruption of a Spanish word which
means thrown in a market basket over and above).

Popcorn, Sugared Pecans,
Sweet Potato Bread, Thick Molasses.

(The last drawn from the pots in the sugar-house before it turns to sugar)

A fourth of the ice cream. A fourth of a piece of cake.

Ice cream biscuit. Mulatto stomach (gingerbread).
Tante Zizine's poundcake.

There are no Skipenon grapes and no persimmons,
But we'll give you what there is.

Bananas, Oranges, Sugar Cane, Mandarins.
Black Creole coffee ("Morning Joy")

A singed cat fears the fire.

Brulo. Cigarettes perique (corn paper).
Creole cigarettes (yellow paper).

When you have no horse, you ride a donkey;
When you have no donkey, you ride a goat;
When you have no goat, you go on foot.

—from Around The American Table

Selected Recipes for Mardi Gras

More about Mardi Gras and Carnaval.

This page originally published as a Global Gourmet Today column in 1998.

Current Kate's Global Kitchen
Kate's Global Kitchen Archive

This page modified January 2007

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