Bananas Foster

Bananas Foster
Court of Two Sisters, $8

Like a rock star who relies on showmanship in lieu of youth, looks, great hair, or straight teeth, Bananas Foster is homely dessert that puts on one hell of a show. Its basic constituents are sliced bananas, vanilla ice cream, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and booze. What makes Bananas Foster extraordinary is that these ingredients typically come together at tableside and over an open flame: it's a performance dessert.

The dish originated in 1951 at famed New Orleans restaurant Brennan's, and was named for a local politician who was friends with the owner. I ordered it at the Court of Two Sisters, another venerable restaurant, named for sisters Emma and Bertha Camors, born 1858 and 1860, who ran a fashionable "notions" shop on the site. The restaurant's courtyard is the largest in the French Quarter, a romantic expanse dolled up with wisteria, fountains, and gas lamps. It's a great place for dinner at dusk, and a perfect stage for dessert course pyrotechnics.

Our affable server, Jay, set up a prop table with all the necessary accouterments, including a battered copper pan that looked like it might have belonged to Emma or Bertha; Jeff explained that all the waiters fight over that one because it works the best. He cooked the butter and sugar over a small brazier, then added the cinnamon and bananas. Finally, he checked that no one was walking nearby, told us to get our cameras ready, and added the rum to the hot pan: it instantly ignited into a tower of flame. Seconds later the bananas were spooned over the ice cream and dessert was served. I was digging into the warm, gooey mess before my eyes had even recovered from the rum flare.

Court of Two Sisters
613 Royal Street
New Orleans, LA 70130-2181
504/522-7261

Pralines

Pralines

Several New Orleans guidebooks suggest that a cash-strapped tourist could make a meal out of hitting the sample trays at the French Quarter's many praline shops. Pralines aren't especially expensive, but as a quintessential souvenir they add up to big business. Competition is fierce, with some shops specializing and others casting a wide net in an effort to have something for everyone: you want your pralines creamy? Crunchy? Flavored with chocolate, peanut butter, coconut, maple syrup, or rum? Or how about Tabasco?

Pralines have come a long way since they first appeared in France in the early 17th century. Although candied nuts had been around since the Middle Ages, almonds coated in caramelized sugar only came to be called "pralines" through association with the Duke de Plessis-Praslin. One story has it that the recipe was discovered when the household cook Lassagne caught his children improvising a fragrant treat using stolen almonds and sugar, which was then an expensive luxury. Another says that Lassagne added sugar to help the Duke digest almonds, since sugar was also considered to have medicinal properties. The treat became popular across France, and the praline shop founded by Lassagne is still in business today.

The recipe for pralines arrived in New Orleans with the French, but the confection quickly took on a New World form. Almonds were replaced by pecans, which then grew in abundance throughout the city. Refined sugar was replaced by cheaper brown sugar, and the candy coating increased in proportion to the nuts until in New Orleans "praline" meant a matrix of solidified sugar studded with whole or crushed nuts.

The beginnings of the local praline industry also reflect New Orleans' unusual socio-political structure. In contrast with other areas of the US, New Orleans was subject to the French Code Noir; under its terms slaves were given Sundays off and permitted to meet, play music, and dance in Congo Square to the north of the Quarter. With their owners' permission, slaves were also able to engage in trade, and at the Congo Square public market they were could earn extra income by doing odd jobs or selling food or crafts.

Pralines were a common sight at the market. Made from byproduct sugar and nuts gathered from public land, they cost next to nothing to make, and even when sold cheaply, represented almost pure profit. As noted by Liz Williams of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, "Selling pralines and other candies offered a regular and socially sanctioned source of income for many free women of color and slaves." Some of this income could have been directed towards a particular purpose; under New Orleans law, slaves also had the opportunity to purchase freedom, and at least some praline vendors were able to contribute to buying freedom for themselves or their families.

In the period after the Civil War, pralines continued to be a popular treat and an important source of income for women who might have few other options. With their bright kerchiefs and fly-shooing fans, the praline marchandes became a city icon (see vintage postcard, top). In SoFAB's "Pecan Candy" display, curator Chanda Nunez explores the complexity of this image: "Because of the popularity of these confections, the highly visible praline vendors were simultaneously celebrated and caricatured by white observers who depicted them as 'mammy' figures. However, these women were entrepreneurs adapting to their time and place." As praline making became more industrialized, manufacturers exploited that historic association; an "Aunt Sally" emblazoned on a candy wrapper amounted to a seal of authenticity (above, two 20th century examples).

Pralines continue to evolve today, with consumers rewarding both tradition and innovation, and tending to define both in terms of ingredients. Laura's Candies (established in 1913 and possibly the city's oldest candy shop) sells an "original Creole" praline ($1.85) based on an 18th century recipe. The crisp, translucent treat is made from brown sugar and pecans with a touch of vanilla.

Laura's Candies

331 Charters St

504/525-3880

The next generation of pralines were made more complicated and luxurious with the addition of butter or cream. Typical of this type is Southern Candymakers' tender and rich "Original Creamy Praline" ($19.95/lb).

Southern Candymakers
334 Decatur St
504/523-5544

As the food culture in New Orleans evolved, so did the praline, reflecting new technologies and new cultural influences. Recipes were modernized to include convenience ingredients such as condensed or evaporated milk, or updated with flavorful additions such as coconut or chocolate.

Wandering through the Marigny, a more workaday neighborhood that borders the French Quarter, I poked my head into Loretta's Authentic Pralines looking for something they didn't have, and walked out with a couple of free pralines; it happened to be Valentine's Day and the woman behind the counter said she just couldn't let us leave empty-handed.

The pralines were delicious--creamy, slightly chewy, one plain and one chocolate, both huge and distinctively ovoid. Even luckier, it turned out that I had also stumbled across one of the most fascinating stories of the new praline economy. Loretta's motto, "Not just a creamy, chunky, delicious piece of candy, but a piece of New Orleans", holds true from almost every angle. When Loretta Harrison started her company 30 years ago as a divorced single mother, her only assets were $700 in seed money and a praline recipe four generations old. Loretta's Authentic Pralines became the first candy company in New Orleans to be owned by an African-American.

Loretta's retail shop in the French Market was destroyed by the flooding during Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath, with insurance payouts delayed and debts mounting, Harrison had to go back to the drawing board. With help from a Seedco development grant she remodeled her production kitchen to accommodate a new retail store and a popup restaurant, which attracts crowds for Friday lunch. Today, Loretta's has two locations and 15 employees and Harrison is a local figure, even appearing in a 2010 Super Bowl commercial with a tray of her signature pralines.

Loretta's Authentic Pralines

2101 N Rampart

504/944-7068

or

1100 N Peters St Stall #9

504/529-6170

If your mouth is watering, have a look at some posts from other WanderFoodies!

Angelo Brocato's

Torroncino

Angelo Brocato's, $2.75

As a child in Palermo in the late 19th century, Angelo Brocato served a formal apprenticeship in a gelateria. After immigrating to Louisiana, he labored on a sugar plantation until he could save enough money to strike out on his own, opening first a small ice cream store, and then an elegant sit-down ice cream parlor in 1905. Brocato's has since operated out of several locations, moving to its current Mid-City location in the late 1970's. With its tile floors and delicate wirework chairs, the glass-fronted shop feels like something from another era, the time-travel aura enhanced by the fact that Brocato's is most easily reached by streetcar.

Just two months after celebrating its 100th birthday in July, 2005, Brocato's was swamped under five feet of water during Hurricane Katrina. Repairs and rennovations took more than a year to complete, and the reopening was greeted with fanfare and a brass band. The parlor is still operated by Angelo Brocato's decendants, who use his original Sicilian recipes for gelato, fruit ices, and pastries.

Some of the baked goods are familiar pan-Italian favorites (biscotti, torrone, cannoli, rum baba) but Brocato's also bakes treats that are less known and more specifically Sicilian. As their website explains, "...the nations which occupied Sicily at various times in its history have all left their mark on its cooking. So authentic Sicilian confections have Arabic, Greek and French overtones in addition to traditional Italian influences." More exotic offering include cuciada fig cookies and pigniolata, fried, sugar-coated nuggets of dough that resemble large pinenuts. A glass jar on the counter holds scadalina, a crispy, creepy "Deadman's Bones" cookie darkened with copius amounts of cloves and cinnamon and topped with a white cylinder that looks like an ossified marshmallow.

Brocato's still makes thirst-quenching Sicilian ices made from real fruit such as blood oranges and passionfruit, as well as a range of charmingly old-fashioned composed frozen desserts. These include tortoni (a frozen mixture of whipped cream, cake, and almonds), spumoni (layers of pistachio, tutti-frutti, and lemon gelato plus whipped cream), cassata (spumoni with cake and candied fruit).

Torroncino (above) was Brocato's first creation. The mixture of vanilla gelato, cinnamon, and crushed almonds is frozen into a brick and served in thick slices on an anachronistic paper doily. It's a simple concoction but satisfying on a number of levels--slightly spicy, light but creamy, and with a fine-grained crunch.

Angelo Brocato's Italian Ice Cream Parlor
214 N Carrollton Ave
New Orleans, LA
504/486-1465

Roman Chewing Candy

Chocolate Chewing Candy
Roman Chewing Candy Company, $1.00

While the French and the Spanish have had a more noticeable influence on New Orleans' architecture and language, the city has also been shaped by centuries of Italian migration. Given opportunities to work in fishing and agriculture, Italians from the poorer and more rural south of the country were particularly drawn to Louisiana. Towards the end of the 19th century, New Orleans' Sicilian population grew to be one of the largest in the country, exacerbating racial tensions and leading to a notorious criminal case. In 1890, Police Chief David Hennessey was murdered while investigating a vendetta killing within the Sicilian community. An enraged mob took eleven Sicilian suspects from the jail and lynched them.

Twenty-five years later, New Orleans saw the start of a much happier cross-cultural exchange. In 1915, a young street vendor named Sam Cortese had the idea that the traditional taffy his Sicilian mother made for special occassions might be a big seller. Angelina Napoli Cortese was happy to share her recipe but too busy to make as much candy as Sam needed. So in collaboration with a local wheelwright, Sam Cortese designed and built a mobile candy kitchen, a trim little cart equipped with a stove, a marble cooling slab, and a sturdy hook for pulling taffy. With the jaunty red-and-white cart hitched to a mule, Cortese crisscrossed the city making and selling his taffy--dubbed "Roman Chewing Candy" since "Sicilian" still had some negative connotations.

Sam Cortese continued to trade in taffy until his death in 1969, always keeping to the original price of 5 cents per foot-long stick. His grandson Ron Kottemann took over the business in 1970 and still sells Roman Chewing Candy from the original cart, changing only the stove (a butane replacement for the old coal-burner), and the price (now $1 a stick). Roman chewing candy is available in vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate (think "artisanal Tootsie Roll"), and if you don't happen to live on Kottemann's route you can also buy it online.

Swiss Confectionery

Swiss Confectionery

Founded in 1921 by emigre Henri Moecklin, Swiss Confectionery is now run by his great-grandson Larry. The shop's Alpine-crowned logo promises "The Peak of Perfection" and Swiss has built its reputation by living up to that promise at the most crucial of times. The staff estimate that of the 200 weddings that take place on an average weekend in New Orleans, they supply the cakes for 60. There's even a custom-built adjoining room where Swiss holds regular cake tastings for brides-to-be.

They also do a brisk business in traditional doberge cakes, beautifully iced birthday cakes, and prim little petit fours (bottom, left). Swiss can make any flavor you'd like, but around here, what most people want for their birthday cake is "wedding cake"--which in New Orleans means almond cake with almond buttercream. The bakery's air was so saturated with almond extract I could smell it in my hair for the rest of the day; it was like the heavenly flip side of enduring a smoky bar.

There's also an appealing quirkiness about the place--nothing forced or hipsterish, just a humor that seems to stem from being relaxed and confident. When I commented on the huge fish tank in the main room, the woman behind the counter joked that some people see it and assume they're a sushi restaurant. Asked if he was the baker, a guy in full kitchen whites grinned: "I'm the candlestick maker."

A sense of playfulness is also evident in Swiss' immaculate creations. The pastry "pattie shells" (below, right) are same kind you'll see elsewhere used to hold oysters or savory vol-au-vents; at Swiss they're filled with jelly and iced in Mardi Gras colors. If you look closely among the photos of elaborate wedding cakes in the shop's brochure, you'll spot this groom's cake: a perfect chocolate buttercream replica of a rumpled four-poster bed.

Swiss Confectionery

747 St. Charles Ave

New Orleans, LA

504/522-7788

King Cake

King Cake Cupcake
Swiss Confectionery, $2

Although the Mardi Gras parades won't start until the day after I leave New Orleans, I timed my trip just right for indulging in one of Carnival's quieter traditions: eating king cake.

King cake season starts on Epiphany, the holiday celebrated on the twelfth night following Christmas when tradition has it that the Three Kings (or wise men) arrived in Bethlehem with their gifts for the infant Jesus. Between Epiphany and Mardi Gras, Catholics in many countries gather for king cake parties. The rich, sweet cakes are an efficient and festive way of using up luxurious ingredients such as sugar, butter, and eggs before the beginning of Lent.

Depending on where you find it, king cake can mean very different things. One old-fashioned version is made from a yeasted brioche dough with candied or dried fruit. Another, the "Galette des Rois," is a golden disc of butter-rich puff pastry filled with almond-flavored frangipane; those pictured above, in four party-appropriate sizes, were on display at La Boulangerie on Magazine Street.

In New Orleans alone there is considerable variation in king cakes, but the version most common today is akin to a cinnamon roll. The cake is usually formed into a ring, heavily drizzled with icing, and encrusted with sugar dyed in the Carnival colors: purple (for justice), green (faith), and gold (power). Many bakeries offer king cakes customized with your choice of fruit or cream fillings. The king cake boxes above, from the Croissant d'Or on Ursulines Street, list seven standard choices as well as a space for write-ins.

One key feature of the king cake is actually inedible: hidden somewhere inside is a small token. In the past, it might have been a dried bean, a coin, or a porcelain figurine. Today in New Orleans, the treasure is most likely to be a small plastic baby. The tradition probably derives from a the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, when the hidden bean was used to select a man who would reign as Saturn incarnate before being sacrificed to ensure fertile crops in the following year. These days the guest who finds the baby in his or her slice of king cake has it relatively easy, being expected merely to host the next king cake party.

Although king cake is not difficult to make at home, New Orleanians have long been accustomed to buying them. Many of the region's bakeries also send cakes around the country and overseas. Owned and operated by the same family for three generations, Haydel's Bakery has built up a strong following. According to the company brochure, their king cake operation is the world's largest, and during the Mardi Gras season Haydel's ships "tens of thousands" of oven-fresh cakes. Each package is a party waiting to happen, with beads, doubloons and a bag of chicory coffee included with the cake.

I couldn't justify buying an entire king cake, but thankfully I had plenty of chances to sample. During the season, many coffee shops offer a free slice with a drink purchase, and some tourist shops that have nothing to do with food sell slices on the sly. It's also possible to get personal-sized king cakes (top photo), king cakes made from doughnuts or ice cream, or tiny king cake charms fashioned from silver or gold.

At any time of year, a tour of the float workshops at Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World includes a cup of coffee and a slice of Gambino's king cake (above). Gambino's is another one of the big players, shipping up to 4,000 cakes a day during the season. When I asked our guide if that meant that Kern's considered Gambino's to be the best, she cautioned me not to see it as an endorsement, but then added, "We go through a lot of king cake, and we do have a lot of choices about where to get it..."

For more on king cake sources, here's an article from New Orleans Magazine.

Beignets

Beignets
Café Du Monde, $2.10/3

One of my fondest memories of a childhood trip to New Orleans involves eating beignets from Café Du Monde--but not at Café Du Monde. My parents and I picked up a couple of orders of the deep-fried square doughnuts on our way to the airport. Our flight home was delayed on the runway, and we were stuck in our seats for several hours while our plane went nowhere. How to pass the time? Break out the grease-stained paper bags! As a rule fried foods don't travel very well, but those beignets were one of the best picnics I've ever enjoyed--although, of course, they never made it off the ground.

Beignet derives from an old Celtic word meaning "to raise", and the pastries are made from a yeasted dough that turns to a golden pillow when dropped in hot oil. Beignets probably arrived in Louisiana by way of France, possibly introduced by Acadians expelled from Canada in the mid-18th century or by Ursuline nuns who arrived in New Orleans in 1727. While French versions were generally filled with fruit, the American beignet is pure dough, served in a thick drift of snowy confectioner's sugar and usually paired with milky, chicory-tinged café au lait.

Café Du Monde opened in the open-air French Market in 1862, rival beignet stand Morning Call in 1870. When Morning Call moved to the suburbs a century later, Café Du Monde became a quintessential experience for French Quarter tourists. Franchises began to appear in the 1980s and they now include more than 50 locations in Japan alone.

The original French Market location is open 24 days a year, every day but Christmas--and, as their website notes, "...on the day an occasional Hurricane passes too close to New Orleans." Café Du Monde closed during Hurricane Katrina and reopened two months later, having undergone renovations rather than repairs.

Café Du Monde
French Market
800 Decatur Street
New Orleans, LA
504/525-4544

A newer player on the beignet scene, Café Beignet has two French Quarter locations. One is attached to the "Musical Legends Park" and boasts everything you'd expect from a Bourbon Street address--live music, late hours, and strong cocktails--plus fresh beignets ($2.95/3). On more sedate Royal Street there's a tiny full-service cafe; at a lacy cast-iron table on the patio it shares with the neighboring police station, you can enjoy an order of light, airy beignets and share your pound of excess powdered sugar with some very jazzed birds.

Café Beignet

334-B Royal St

New Orleans, Louisiana

504/524-5530

Ramos Gin Fizz

Ramos Gin Fizz

Muriel's, $8

New Orleans was the birthplace of the cocktail and over the years many concoctions have been heralded as the city's favorite. In 2008 the debate was silenced when the "Save the Sazerac" campaign succeeded in having the rye-and-bitters mixture invented in 1795 by Frenchman Antoine Amedee Peychaud named as New Orleans' "official" cocktail.

Well, hmph, I say: that just leaves more Ramos Gin Fizzes for me. My own new "official" cocktail is another New Orleans classic; a venerable and time-consuming froth that tastes delightfully like someone spilled gin on an uncooked meringue. Here's how the Museum of the American Cocktail tells its story:

"Around 1880 bartender Henry C. Ramos developed the drink in the Imperial Cabinet Saloon at Gravier and Carondelet Streets. He took it with him when he purchased The Stag saloon further down Gravier Street. 'It's like drinking a flower,' one poet eulogized. Properly prepared, each drink was shaken for five minutes, or, 'until your hand freezes to the shaker.' Ramos employed 'shaker boys,' (as many as 35, it is said during Mardi Gras season of 1915) who did nothing but shake fizzes."

The story provides a fascinating glimpse into the economy and society of a heavy-drinking culture. Bars were lucrative and strongly competitive; it's hard to judge how much of mythology of mixology was fact and how much was hype. Was the 5-minute shake for real? Or an exaggeration calculated to add glamor or justify prices? Cocktails were a kind of magic--particularly when the recipe for a popular drink like the Ramos was considered by most to be a guarded secret. It's interesting to imagine the reverberations when one of the bartenders who had previously worked with Ramos defected to the St. Charles Hotel...and had the Ramos Gin Fizz recipe printed on the back of his new business cards:

How to Prepare This Famous Gin Fizz:

2 Teaspoonsfull of Sugar

4 Drops of Orange Flower Water

1 Teaspoonfull Lime Juice

1 1/2 ounce of Good Gin

Crushed Ice

Small dash of Sparkling Water

White of 1 Egg

1 1/2 ounce of Sweet Milk

Shake well for half minute

Serve in thin glass.

According to the Museum of the American Cocktail, the Ramos also had friends in high--and distant--places:

"By the time the Ramos Gin Fizz was the favorite drink of 'Kingfish' Huey Long, governor--and later U.S. Senator for Louisiana, the drink had made the move to the Roosevelt Hotel. In 1935, Long transported the Roosevelt bartender, Sam Guarino along with him to New York City to ensure the drink was authentic. Huey insisted on personal quality control measures. 'I'm merely sampling this to make sure you gentlemen are getting the real thing.' After sampling five of them, Huey proclaimed, 'And this is, gentlemen, my gift to New York.' He dragged Guarino with him to Washington so, likewise, he could have an uninterrupted flow of New Orleans fizzes. In historian Shelby Foote's words, 'The whole Congress cheered him for that.'"

Muriel's

801 Chartres Street
New Orleans, LA
504/568-1885

Café au Lait Crème Brûlée

Mini Café au Lait Crème Brûlée

La Madeleine, $1.99

A stop at La Madeleine cafe and bakery is a great way to ease into a New Orleans visit: you get a few sights and a light snack under your belt before the bingeing begins in earnest. Take in all the architecture as the St. Charles streetcar trundles down the Garden District's grand boulevard, then hop off just when it makes a sharp right onto Carrollton. To one side people jog, cycle and walk their dogs on the top of the steep, grassy levee that blocks the Mississippi River from view. To the other, you'll see La Madeleine, tucked into the crook of the road.

Although the bakery is part of a chain, the cheerful din and full tables are proof that it has been thoroughly adopted by the neighborhood. Founder Patrick Leon Esquerré grew up in the French countryside and wanted his cafes to provide the fresh, healthy, hearty food and communal experience he enjoyed at home. You can get omelettes, salads, soups and baked goods to eat there or take away.

Combining a popular dessert with a ubiquitous beverage, the café au lait crème brûlée is an inventive mashup of New Orleanian flavors. The buttery pastry cup is filled with an eggy custard tinged with coffee, the top caramelized and crowned with a flake of dark chocolate. If your New Orleans agenda calls for eating 4-5 meals a day, you'll appreciate that La Madeleine offers many of its desserts in "mini" sizes.

La Madeleine

601 S Carrollton Ave
New Orleans LA
504/861-8662

KA-POW! Bar

KA-POW! Bar

Sahagún, $6

Coffee and cacao have so much in common--they're both the pungent, oily seeds of exotic plants, both luxuries that have become part of our everyday lives. The quality of either finished product is the result of a long chain of variables such as varietal, roast, and terroir. And of course they're great tastes that taste great together: we melt chocolate into coffee drinks and smother coffee beans in chocolate.

Now Portland confectioner Elizabeth Montes has taken the coffee-chocolate parallel one delicious step further with KA-POW!, a bar that's not merely flavored with coffee, but actually made from it. The only ingredients are cocoa butter, coffee, and sugar. The cocoa butter binds the whole thing together, giving KA-POW! the "physicality of chocolate" and amplifying the heady scent and robust flavor of the coffee. Sugar is added to the mix at just the right moment, seeding the creamy matrix with contrastingly crunchy crystals.

Each bar features a single-origin coffee from Portland area small-batch roasters such as Water Avenue Coffee, Extracto, Ristretto, and Stumptown. A KA-POW! bar made from Extracto's Sumatra Permati has all the tangy gaminess of a strong shot--but in a more portable format.

Speaking of portable, check out other travel-appropriate treats at WanderFood Wednesday.

Sweet Masterpiece

Bleu Cheese Truffle

Sweet Masterpiece, $2.50

Like the miso paste in matsukaze cake, aged blue cheese is a robustly umami foodstuff--rich, satisfying, and almost meaty. Although it is capable of adding a savory baseline to sweet treats, it is much more apt to drown out any softer flavors that try to share its stage.

Portland chocolatier Crystal Pyatt achieves a rare balance with her bleu cheese truffle, producing a tiny treat that bursts with complementary flavors. She blends three types of cheese into a silky, butter-soft dark chocolate ganache, covers each ball in a thin shell of dark chocolate, and tops it off with a few flakes of toasted nuts.

The bleu cheese truffle's only weakness is a short shelf life, thanks to the inherently moldy cheese. For the time being, it is only available at Sweet Masterpiece in Portland's Pearl District. This choco-centric cafe and winebar also features desserts, drinking chocolate, wine tastings, and live jazz.

Sweet Masterpiece

922 NW Davis St

Portland, OR

503/221-0055 ‎