"jambalaya" news and stories

New Orleans is America's original foodie mecca. In the 1700s, there was already a 400 vendor farmers' market in the center of town (on the site of the current French Market). By the 1800s, cookbooks were being published here long before the rest of America, like the local newspaper's anthology recently reprinted as 'The Times-Picayune's Creole Cook-book'. "Our cuisine is 25% French, 25% Spanish and 50% African – the French and Spanish influenced the food, but it was the Africans who largely cooked it," explains Tom Fitzmorris, author of "Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans", "It's a creole cuisine in every sense of the word." (Creole is derived from the Spanish criollo or 'native')

Several different factors influenced the eclectic tastes of New Orleans. Firstly, it was a port city throbbing with newcomers from across the world. "People don't realize that in the 18th and 19th centuries, we had more immigrants coming through our port than they did in New York," food guru Poppy Tooker explains. Those new arrivals couldn't scatter into self-defined ethnic enclaves as they did in Chicago or San Francisco either. "Look at our geography, wedged between [Lake] Pontchartrain and the Mississippi river, there's not a lot of room to expand," notes Kelly Hamilton, who leads food tours around the city. Settlers clubbed together to cook and so produced hybrids of the foods they'd eaten back home.

Read our "only in New Orleans" list after the jump...

The fine folks at our sister site Blogging New Orleans have been covering Jazz Fest over the past three days, and have been running their own little food porn collection of the meals available for purchase.

Imagine, if you will, an order of Beignets and a large frozen 'Cafe o'Lait' for breakfast, some crispy, home-style Cajun Fried Chicken served with Jambalaya (as pictured, above) or an order of Traditional Fried Creole Calas which they describe as "a perfectly fried up rice and dough ball covered in powered sugar."

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• What kind of sauce do you put on your steak?
• An appreciation of writer R.W. Apple Jr., who died last week.
• An interview with David Kamp, author of The United States of Arugula: How We Became A Gourmet Nation. Arugula is one of those words that doesn't sound like a word anymore if you keep saying it out loud. Arugula, arugula, arugula.
• Eat sushi. All the cool kids are doing it!
• Three students from Johnson & Wales took on three students from the New England Culinary Institute. And the winner is...
• From the Dishing blog: why is a 2004 cookie recipe the most e-mailed article at Boston.com this week?
• This weeks' recipes: Loaded Butter Cookies with Chocolate, Fruit, and Nuts, Jambalaya, Fruit Chaat, and Mrs. Fleisher's Almond Cake.

If you’re not familiar with New Orleans food terms, Mardi Gras can be a confusing time because their cuisine is in the spotlight. We’ve covered King Cake and Jambalaya, but there are so many others. NewOrleansRestaurants.com has put together a list of the local lingo, complete with definitions of anything you might encounter when dining down in the Big Easy. The pronunciation guide is especially helpful to anyone who will be traveling through the area. Examples include:

• Beignet (ben yay') - Lighter than a doughnut, and square (no holes), sprinkled with powdered sugar
• Crawfish (craw' fish) - Fresh water shellfish, also known as "mudbugs" from the bayous!
• Muffuletta (Muf' a lotta) - And a lotta it is! Super-large, round, fat sandwich filled with salami-type meats, mozzarella cheese, pickles, and olive salad.
• Praline (Praw leen') Brown sugar, pecan-filled, candy patty.

And if you’re looking for non-food terms that might help you out on your travels, ExperienceNewOrleans.com has plenty, and you’ll soon know your bayous from your Boogalees.

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