About
The food in New Orleans, much like the city itself, defies comparison. Over six hours, we’ll dive deep into local culinary traditions, visiting neighborhood restaurants and food shops, discovering the roots of Creole cuisine, and meeting the people that live, breathe, and cook it. We’ll begin in the city’s oldest food marketplace with coffee and a praline-stuffed beignet, the “cronut” of New Orleans, as we dig into the historical context of New Orleans creole identity. According to the season, we may have a freshly-shucked gulf oyster or a link of boudin before having a wedge of the Italian-Creole classic sandwich, the muffaletta. Up and down scenic streets lined great examples of native architecture, Creole cottages, our feast continues in the Treme neighborhood with a stop at a local grocery for a quick fix of a locally-beloved grab-and-go street snack followed by a top spot for yakamein, New Orleans-style ramen. If it’s Friday, we’ll stop by the home of a local resident-cum-chef for freshly fried fish, followed by a cup of seasonal gumbo at a neighborhood institution. We’ll also pop into an old shop where the owners operated a recording studio upstairs where some of the greats of the 1950’s Rock n Roll and RnB, like Fats Domino, Little Richard and Ray Charles, cut singles. Finally, we’ll pay a visit to an artisanal sausage-maker with Creole heritage, housed in a historic shop that was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina but rebuilt against all odds. Here we’ll meet the 4th-generation sausage maker himself, and sample his iconic hot sausage poboy. Along the way we’ll stop by neighborhood monuments and meet members of the community who bring the rich history of this Creole city to life through their cooking. Depending on the season, there will be something sweet at the end, be it a homemade praline or a refreshing snoball. And this being New Orleans, ever unpredictable, the tour may finish with a street parade or a torrential downpour — fortunately, in this city there’s always a corner bar to duck into to digest the day’s experience.
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