Taking home a slice of southern hospitality
Muffuletta
NEW ORLEANS— Before this trip, I was at a loss to define the difference between good service and southern hospitality. As someone who fancies himself a good host, New Orleans offers a refresher course.
With less than half a million residents, and nearly 10 million visitors a year, it’s a tourism town. So of course they’re going to be welcoming. But they’re so good at it.
Our hosts, writers Joseph and Amanda Boyden, are having a crawfish boil party for friends who are getting married tomorrow.
But by the time we land, it’s midnight, and my food anxiety is peaking. As a Torontonian, I cannot imagine party guests leaving a scrap of edible matter for latecomers.
When we arrive, the party has wound down. Our hosts show us the beds and bathrooms and quickly get drinks in our hands. But I don’t see food anywhere.
Joseph walks us out to the yard, a Chihuahua skittering around our ankles. There, spread out over a wet wooden table, glittering in the moonlight, are a couple hundred cherry-red crawfish, potatoes, yams, pineapple, corn, pork and alligator sausages, brussels sprouts, carrots, mushrooms, onions and whole garlic cloves. Ten loaves of baguette are stacked nearby, and a bucket of ice and beer. I don’t even see the pile of fried chicken right away.
Soon I’m two-fisting hunks of potato and sausage, whiskey and beer, twisting off nubs of bread, rubbing them in butter to cut the tingling chili sensation that’s spreading from my lips to my nose.
Joseph has only recently perfected the crawfish boil, after 20 years of practice. As an amateur, I’m having trouble getting the meat out. Amanda appears on my left, peeling the little things and handing me the tails.
Pausing to get water from the kitchen, I join a brigade of guests shelling leftovers. By the tenth crawfish, I learn to twist the top from the bottom, squeezing the tail to help the peanut-sized meat wiggle out.
Snacking, drinking and gabbing, it’s 3 a.m. before I go to bed and 8 when I rise. In between, our hosts have wiped clean the kitchen and yard. All elements of the crawfish boil have been bagged and stacked in the fridge. Alone in the air-conditioned silence of the morning, I truly question if I have died. And if last night was the feast of Valhalla, what follows?
New Orleans is a tremendous food city, not all of it fried seafood. We consume a tourist’s fair share of shrimp and oyster po’ boys, muffulettas and beignets, plus a classy lunch at the century-old Galatoire’s.
At night, after milk punch and Sazerac cocktails, I can’t wait to cook with the leftovers, frying up wedges of potato, corn, sausage and crawfish, jamming them into yesterday’s baguette. I ask permission from Amanda before adding mayonnaise because people can be touchy about mayonnaise. Drunkenly, I make a mess of their beautiful kitchen, dropping bits of corn between the stove’s elements, but Joseph won’t let me wash even a single dish.
The next day, marching in a Second Line parade, winding through residential streets, trumpets playing on the go, the procession spilling into a party under a highway, I grab a pork chop sandwich off the back of a pickup truck, but grow frantic to find a garbage can for the bones.
“Toss ’em on the ground,” insists a local. “Just tell everybody how good our food is.”
Everywhere we go strangers say hello or spark up conversations.
A man asks about my friend’s camera and accompanies us for three blocks. A woman walking alone in the park says good morning to four strange men. An employee in a coffee shop chats so much about his plans for the summer (he’s off to cook vegan food for rich kids in Yosemite National Park) that he forgets our orders.
In my Toronto condo, neighbours will ignore me when I wish them good morning.
But each New Orleanian has a personal story about violent crime too. One woman tells us that she wouldn’t ever leave her car beyond sight of her destination. In the MidCity neighbourhood where we’re staying, yards are protected by gates or high walls, often topped with hooks or barbed wire. On a morning stroll I see one garden wall whimsically adorned with broken bottles, oyster shells, rusty scissors and table saw blades, a stark contrast to the consistent friendliness of the town.
On our last night, we’re invited to a dinner party hosted by oil billionaire Thomas Coleman, in his riverside party shack, where Joseph and Amanda once lived.
During the first course, the tycoon asks us to go around the table and explain what we’re doing in New Orleans. As a host, I find this rarely gets beyond two guests before conversation digresses. But with a billionaire asking the occasional followup, a dozen people share their stories, first over gumbo, then scallops, then steak, the last of us wrapping up just as dessert is served.
Most cities you travel to (Toronto is no exception), as nice as folks may be, there’s always an explanation of how to drive, behave or pronounce the city’s name. Here, the only rule enforced is when my friend takes off his suit jacket at Galatoire’s and a maitre d’ requests that he put it back on. Other than that, we’re only asked to make ourselves at home. Maybe that’s the difference between good service and southern hospitality.
In the days after New Orleans, many people on the streets of Toronto spontaneously talk to me, something that usually never happens, thanks to my force field of unapproachability. Is my posture different? My smile? I like it. I hope it doesn’t fade like a vacation tan.
Star Tested What seems like an obvious combination of every meat in the fridge, plus olives, adds up to something much more satisfying. This is a Toronto adaptation of a muffuletta. The sandwich is made in New Orleans on a loaf of bread I can’t find here. It’s round, with a spongy crumb like challah, about two inches high, but a crust closer to focaccia and sesame seeds on top. At the city’s famed Central Grocery, they use and sell a salad of olives with pickled cauliflower and carrots. Here we’re going to simplify with the materials we have, but keep the essence of it. 1/3 cup (80 mL) black olives, pitted 1/3 cup (80 mL) green olives, pitted 1/3 cup (80 mL) pickles (any kind — cucumber, cauliflower, carrot, pepper) 1 tbsp (15 mL) parsley 1 loaf focaccia or Portuguese pada bread 8 slices ham 8 slices mortadella 16 slices genoa salami 8 slices provolone cheese Roughly chop black olives, green olives, pickles and parsley.
Slice bread lengthwise. Layer bottom with ham, mortadella, provolone, salami and then olive salad. Crown with top of bread loaf. Divide into four.
Makes four servings. Star-tested by Corey Mintz Email mintz.corey@gmail.com and follow @coreymintz on Twitter and instagram.com/coreymintz