In this month's issue of GQ magazine, food guru Alan Richman took a glossy, 8-page look at the food of New Orleans post-Katrina. The idea sounds like a good one, so why is the article so controversial? The problem is that the piece was not gushing, not exactly sentimental and, in parts, not accurate about the city and its food.
To date, the vast majority of the pieces about New Orleans have been stories of survival and of working to restore the city to its former state. People rebuild their homes and lives. Restaurants struggle to clean up, reopen and attract customers. Richman writes some about the touching, uplifting parts and the grassroots movements of people to get their lives back in order, but does not write exclusively about the uplifting parts, in fact stating that "New Orleans shouldn't exist," referring to it below-sea level elevation right on a vulnerable coastline. In another controversial assertion, he says that Cajuns originated in Canada, which is true, contrary to what some of his critics have said. However, Richman also states that he doesn't think Creoles ever really existed, but the term applied to a definite and large group of people in the city. He explains his position in the GQ podcast, by the way.
Getting to the food, Richman doesn't like it and has never really liked it. He is disappointed that it is not better than it was before Katrina, and that it isn't what he imagines the food of the area to be - never mind that the people who actually live there seem to enjoy the food! So, any factual inaccuracies aside about the restaurants or the dishes (which NoLA residents are more than happy to correct), the real problem seems to be that Richman is writing from a view typical of many food writers: a New York-centric one. From this standpoint, NoLa food is evaluated as an attraction and if it is a draw enough to make other people care about continuing to restore the city, not whether the food is enjoyable to someone who likes Cajun, Creole or any other New Orleans cooking style.
In answer to the question of whether food can save New Orleans, the only response is to say that it shouldn't matter. The city - food or not - doesn't need to be saved for anyone other than the people who live there. And if you don't like the food, act as you would with a restaurant you don't care for: don't eat there and don't bash it to people who enjoy it.
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