"remoulade" 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...

Why is it that a shrimp cocktail can instantly transport us to 1965, hostess pajamas, a martini shaker and Frank Sinatra's "In the Wee Small Hours" pouring from a Hi-Fi?

The classic appetizer still works today, but cocktail sauces have evolved from the ketchup-heavy to lighter ones using fresh tomatoes and herbs, such as the dill sprigs Special KRB captures here. If you feel like a Mexican version, try a recipe using green chiles, lime juice, cilantro and avocado. Or go Cajun with a creamy, horseradish-spiked remoulade (which also works beautifully with salmon croquettes).

Sinatra, however, is still the perfect soundtrack for shrimp cocktail and icy gin.

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Photo: Amazon.com

'New Orleans Classic Gumbos & Soups'
Recipes from Favorite Restaurants
Text and Photographs by Kit Wohl
Pelican Publishing -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

The best Creole-Cajun dishes are oft found in Louisiana: gumbos bursting with fresh seafood, sausages and chicken slopped together with rice, soups with an intense depth of flavor -- all representing comfort food at its best. "New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups" showcases some of the best recipes from eateries around the region and brings them to home cooks in a non-intimidating approach.

Recipes like Tulane Chicken Andouille Gumbo and Red Bean and Sausage soup will keep you coming back to this book for the ultimate weekend dinners. Be sure to buy the freshest ingredients possible, especially seafood: It plays a key role in the outcome of dishes, and makes the extra effort well worth it.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.