Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Brunch
SAY HELLO TO HALLOWEEN IN NEW ORLEANS
From real zombies walking the streets to haunted hotspots galore, New Orleans is truly the place to be for those who love to be terrified!
Ours was a delightful Shotgun House from the 1800s. Which means that if you stand in front of the house, you can shoot a bullet clear through every room in the place (we did not do this). From the outside it looked like a small cottage, but extended inwards into large bedrooms with panelled walls, parquet floors, high ceilings, a stone-tiled open modern kitchen, and finally, a sun terrace and fountain. This southern home had luxurious bathrooms with clawfoot bathtubs, casement windows and antique fans complete with an oddly comforting whirring sound. I was confused. Is this Airbnb or was
I staying with Ida Mae or Mary-lou Jane from Louisiana, circa 1808? Everything was as it should be in the Deep South. We were relieved there were no slaves.
BIG STREET COSTUME PARTY
We had two new culinary objectives. Beignets. And alligator meat. It’s a yes to the first and a big no to the second. Alligator meat is chewy, but unlike rabbits, alligators are not particularly endearing, so the guilt is missing. Beignets, on the other hand are made of bread, butter, sugar and a little bit of cloud. They were
flamingo costume, spotted an octogenarian in Spiderman pyjamas, spied a man outside the church dressed as a priest (maybe he was a priest), saw a Dominatrix hailing a carriage, as well as a guy in thongs cleaning a street lamp. And it wasn’t Halloween yet.
The French Quarter in New Orleans is reportedly one of the most haunted places in the United States. The city is proud of its forbidding reputation, and its tourist attractions are proof of this. The Mortuary is an old mansion that rests in the middle of a cemetery and served as an actual mortuary for 80 years. Now it is flooded with sightseers who go there on Halloween to be terrified. Halloween stealthily approached us, and houses on the streets had been decorated with grotesque ghouls, jeering jack ’o’ lanterns and smiling skeletons. What we did not expect to see were real zombies walking on the streets. We’re still not sure if the vacant-eyed chap with the outstretched arms and slow mechanical walk was one of those, or simply a lively reveller. My sister Anandi and I armed ourselves with sticks and bricks just in case.
The indoor-outdoor French Market was on the list for souvenirs. We couldn’t believe there were so many things there that we had done without all this while. Mardi Gras beads, a Rougarou mask (the famous Louisiana swamp monster), wooden clogs (in case of floods), multiple versions of hot pepper sauce, General Jackson bobbleheads, ancient hats of Louisiana (in case we were invited to a hunt), and the essential Hurricane Glass in the shape of male genitalia. There is little wonder that in our time at the French Quarter, we did not spot any children. Having said that, I understand that the city sports a fabulous zoo, amusement park, and Butterfly Garden.
New Orleans was acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the period when the country was coming together in bits and pieces which were bought, acquired, taken from the European powers that had occupied them. ‘Occupied,’ because the original residents have always been Native Americans. This amalgamation over the decades brought together two of the world’s most wonderful cuisines. Cajun and Creole.
I learnt that the biggest difference between the two is that Creole cuisine uses tomatoes and proper Cajun does not. So off we went on a merry trail to discover the finer
THE LIVE MUSIC IS UP AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF COLOURFUL STREET ART AND LANDSCAPES. IT’S AN IRRESISTIBLE JUXTAPOSITION.
nuances of both. I say merry, because each of these gastronomic quests was accompanied by amazing cocktails and even better music. Coop’s Place gave us a stunning seafood gumbo, spicy jambalaya, crabmeat stuffed jalapeno peppers and Étouffée, (a wonderfully seasoned stew). Everything was always accompanied by hot, crisp bread. We ate fresh oysters almost everywhere we went, but the giant plates at Acme Oyster House won. The lively, grungy Frenchmen Street is home to a row of feisty bars… the Spotted Cat Music Bar, Apple Barrell with men on electric guitars, and Adolfo’s, which serves Italian cuisine with Cajun-creole influence. The stuffed flounder in ocean sauce (crabmeat, crawfish and capers) was so good that I thought it had jumped off my plate and slapped me.
My nephew Kartikeya tracked down Dat Dog and ate a ‘Croc-dog’ but I didn’t want to get into that. Lafitte’s Blacksmith Bar was built in the 1700s. At the time, when someone said that they ‘knew a guy,’ they meant Jean Lafitte. Today, after surviving two great fires, more than one devastating flood, and the catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, it is known as the oldest standing structure used as a bar in the United States.
In 1721, priest-chronicler Charlevoix said that New Orleans was “a place of a hundred wretched hovels in a malarious wet thicket of willows and dwarf palmettos, infested by serpents and alligators.” Three hundred years later, it is known as ‘the Big Easy’. In striking contrast, it is a place of exuberance, of jazz cruises, astonishing food, dazzling energy, and of simple, unadulterated joie de vivre.
NOT BY BREAD ALONE
IN NOLA (NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA), THE PARTY IS AT BOURBON STREET. THE TRICK IS TO LIVE CLOSE ENOUGH TO IT TO WALK, BUT NOT CLOSE ENOUGH TO BECOME DEAF.