The Food Section

Parisian Pitfalls

Paris dining is full of pitfalls. The guidebooks warn you, your best friend who just got back from a Provence tour with a quick weekend stop in Paris warns you, and even your distant college backpacking memories remind you: Paris is very pricey compared to the rest of France, it’s surprisingly easy to eat badly if you’re not careful, and Parisians are not necessarily the world’s most courteous or servile people. This isn’t a good thing or a bad thing, of course, it just…is.

I grew up in Paris, I can fully con Parisians into thinking I’m one of them—and still, during my short vacation here this past week, I’ve experienced some of those dining pitfalls. So, in the interest of helping others avoid the same mistakes that I’ve made this week, please find below a short list of the some of the eating and drinking experiences that can go terribly awry in this tough town.

Croissant aux Amandes

The almond croissant is my absolute favorite flaky-pastry pastry, or viennoiserie as the French call that genre of pastry that includes croissants, pains au chocolat and apple turnovers. It’s an epic calorie bomb that tastes as divine as it is dense—pastry layered with almond cream, layered with marzipan, topped with powdered sugar and slivers of toasted almond. And like all Parisians, I have my favorite source. It’s a little boulangerie-patisserie on the short rue Mouton-Duvernet, in the 14th arrondissement, one of the city’s most quiet and pleasantly inconspicuous neighborhoods. It is, however, my mecca. I turn up this past Sunday, stand in line searching the display case, and immediately locate my target. But when I ask for a croissant aux amandes, the baker’s wife tells me that they only have chocolate almond croissants left ! I am crestfallen. Paralyzed. Incredulous. Who knew they would run out of the classic kind? It’s only noon! Now, I’m going to have to accomodate a thick vein of dark chocolate running the whole length of the pastry—every single bite, chocolate and almond, chocolate and almond. Woe is me.

I buy it because I have no choice—but don’t let this happen to you. Get there early.

Terrace Dining

You know that feeling: you’ve been on your feet for hours, shopping, strolling, taking in a few exhibits, meandering down streetlets and up boulevards. But suddenly your feet feel like lead, your legs are fomenting mutiny, and just really need to sit down and have a bite. Of course, you’d like to find a little terrace or garden, somewhere you can enjoy the summer breeze and the people-watching and the fact that it’s 2pm on a Tuesday and you have nowhere else to be. The problem with Paris is that there are just too many places to do this.

Take, for instance, the 10th arrondissement near the Canal Saint Martin. This is a neighborhood just north of the Bastille, built around this lesser-known cousin of the Seine river that’s controlled by ancient iron locks, and lined with cobblestone walks and trees and benches. It’s a neighborhhod that’s been gradually hipster-fying over the past few years, with boho-chic boutiques, galleries and trendy innovative restaurants springing up. Primo people-watching. But do I go to the Chinese take-out—these traiteurs chinois now pullulate in Paris, and they’re actually cheap and good, nothing to do with their New York counterparts—and get a Vietnamese spring roll and some dumplings to go and picnic on a shady bench by the canal? Or do I grab a sidewalk table at one of the two cafes facing each other on the corner of the rue Lancry and the Quai de Valmy, that both appear to serve delicious-looking salads, if the food that the hipsters already eating there is any evidence? And if so—which one ? This one offers a tuna tartare with fresh dill—the consummate French summer dish—and this one serves a Salade Océane, a trio of poached fish on a bed of dijon-dressed frisée… 

All I’m saying is that this is a dilemma you never want to face, so just do your best to think ahead.

Sancerre v. Water

And then of course, there’s the café situation. Café waiters are notoriously surly. Some may even appear mean. This is in their job description, if not their DNA. They do not have the patience to field questions, especially not about the drink selection or their prices. But in fact, one of the stranger aspects of the café economy in France is the pricing. Who knows whether it’s a question of supply and demand, mischievousnous or French wackiness, but a glass of wine in any given café is among the cheapest beverages you can order. A glass of chilled Chinon, or a pleasant little Bordeaux is, quite literally, cheaper than a Perrier with lemon. A glass of Sancerre costs less than a cappuccino.

I know this seems strange. I know it’s only 4 o’clock in he afternoon. But don’t ask your waiter for any explanations—just suck it up and resign yourself and order the wine. And just so you’re fully warned, if it’s any time near-ish apéritif time, you may be compelled to pick at a dish of complimentary herb-marinated olives, as well.

***

In conclusion, just try to be careful. Be on your guard. These pitfalls can be very hard to avoid in Paris, so you may just need to learn to live with the fate that befalls you.

French Women Eat Milk Fat

In the Department of Fatty and Caloric Foods the French Seem Magically to Metabolize and Yet Neither Get Fat Nor Die Young, I would have to add sweetened condensed milk. I know, jaws are dropping, the mind boggles: the French? Canned cloying milkstuff?

When you think sweetened condensed milk you picture little cans of that Eagle Brand goo that’s invariably called for in “dessert bars” and “no-bake pies”—those classic American assembly line desserts that usually include whipped topping and butterscotch chips, as well. Or, since the mainstreaming of dulce de leche (which is just caramelized sweetened condensed milk) in Haagen Dazs ice cream and Cheesecake Factory cafés—it’s now their fifth most-popular cheesecake—you might even think of gooey Latin American treats. Or you might just think of fudge, which can be made quite simply by nuking a package of chocolate chips with a can of the condensed stuff, stirring, and then proceeding to have a very excellent time.

But my own first taste of sweetened condensed milk actually took place in France, allegedly the homeland of complicated, sophisticated fats, like real-butter flaky pastry and triple-cream cheeses. It turns out that not only do the French eat the milky goo, but they eat it straight. I discovered this one year at a rustic sleepaway camp on the Atlantic coast in Southern France. Four o’clock rang in snack time everyday, and since the French aren’t afraid of feeding their children a lot of sugar, this often meant chocolate sandwich cookies and chewy caramel candy. But one afternoon, the counselors handed out little paper packets in the shape of tetrahedrons, a sort of three-sided pyramid that fit in the palm of the hand. I took one and squeezed it—it felt like toothpaste inside—but I had no idea what it was. I looked around and watched the other kids: they stuck a little corner of the packet in their mouths, bit down, and tore. And then they inhaled.

What these delicate French children were inhaling in these adorable packages was pure sweetened condensed milk. It was packaged in these kiddie portions and marketed as a children’s snack. The brand of choice was Nestlé, the little packets were called Mini Berlingots (that’s what the tetrahedron shape is called in French), and they also came flavored, strawberry or chocolate. To make an analogy to crack cocaine would perhaps be overstating my enthusiasm for these little berlingots—but not by much. After my first draw, I was hooked, though I remained unclear for years as to what exactly the divine sweet cream was.

Soon after, I found out that the stuff was available in less mini packaging—in full-on toothpaste-sized tubes, that could be stashed in the bottom of one’s book bag for quick sucks throughout the day. I may sound like an addict here, but the hit-of-goo-on-the-run was not my idea at all. That’s literally how the condensed milk was promoted on the tube’s packaging then, and that’s exactly what it says on the back of the Nestlé package today:

Offrez-vous un instant de pure sensation gourmande pour recharger vos batteries en le dégustant tel quel, partout selon vos envies! Indulge in a moment of pure delight, boosting your energy by enjoying it just as it is, anywhere that suits your lifestyle!

Just to sum up and make sure the point is clear: the French here are suggesting you suck on a tube of intensely sweetened whole-fat dairy product for the sheer gustatory pleasure of it. And they don’t stop there. They also vaunt the nutritional benefits of sweetened condensed milk, citing it’s richness in calcium and protein. So that in addition to the fact that it just plain tastes delicious, the French breezily celebrate the stuff—a mere 660 calories and 18 grams of fat per recommended serving—as an energy food, much the way that Americans might talk about, say, a granola bar.

So what can you say to a nation of slim, long-living, life-loving people who advocate sucking on a tube of yummy milkfat? Amen.

The Golden Egg

Why does free food always taste better? In college, free food—generally mediocre, cold-upon-arrival pizza—was the required lure to get people to come to any meeting. As a journalist just arrived in New York, I made whole dinners of free food at promotional events and book parties, stalking trays of tuna tartare and stuffed mushrooms until I was full. I was 25 and these were exquisite meals. And even now, for some reason that is neither greed nor stinginess, but has more to do with a feeling of ceremony, a meal tends to taste particularly wonderful when someone treats you.

But there is another free-food ritual that tastes better than even a whole free meal: the amuse-bouche. An amuse-bouche is that complimentary hors d’oeuvre served before the first course, a surprise treat sent out by the chef. It’s allegedly to distract you from the wait before the appetizer, but really to impress you with his ingenuity. It must be something that even in a small quantity makes a memorable impact, that leaves you with a flash of flavor or richness in just one swallow. It’s a free thrill—always the best kind!

The amuse-bouche is typical especially in French restaurants, and required ritual at any Michelin-starred establishment, where these small bites are presented in a deliciously overwrought pageantry. At the kind of place that has a few stars in the red bible, a white-coated waiter appears at the table unexpectedly, holding immense plates upon which rest miniscule portions of something as yet unrevealed. He bends forward obsequiously, and whispers a complex description of this bite-size miracle, as though letting you in on the secret of your own VIP-ness with this tribute the chef has prepared—it would seem—exclusively for you.

There is one amuse-bouche experience in particular that I will never forget. I had it over ten years ago at L’Arpège, the extraordinary Paris restaurant of Alain Passard, the most experimental of France’s celebrity chefs. It’s on the Rue de Varenne, in a grandiose Left Bank neighborhood of ministries and embassies. The lunchtime crowd in the plush, art deco dining room was all businessmen and deputies, the French government elite who, after lunch, would go back to their offices and continue to run the country. When the waiter deposited the brown-shelled egg in its simple white stand, he described it as a chaud-froid d’oeuf fermier, a cooked then chilled farm fresh egg. It didn’t sound very impressive. It looked like breakfast. He continued: in the eggshell was a warm coddled egg yolk, topped with a dollop of cool whipped cream, a sprinkling of sea salt and chives—and a drizzle of maple syrup.

I couldn’t imagine what it tasted like, and most of all, I couldn’t imagine these elitist technocrats around us starting off their expensed lunch with maple syrup—something that barely exists in France, and that the French tend to associate with the crass American appetite for the cloying and caloric. But the taste was unforgettable: the yellow liquid of the ruptured yolk, blending with the salted airiness of the cream, and cut by the sweetness of the maple syrup, hit three exquisitely high notes. I cleaned out the egg and never forgot it.

It turns out that many others who’ve tasted the chaud-froid d’oeuf haven’t forgotten either. I discovered a whole subculture of chaud-froid worship on the Web, with websites in English, Dutch, French and Spanish describing the ecstatic experience—and sometimes trying to recreate it. Here is a link to one of these recipes.

Of course, it may not taste as good as the one in the art-deco dining room, but that’s just because it won’t be free.

EGGCELLENT Pictured above, a version of Alain Passard's famous egg served at Manresa in Los Gatos, California (photo by The Ulterior Epicure, who has also documented a phenomenal 19-course amuse bouche menu served at Germany's Restaurant Dieter Müller).

In Search of Fluffy White

I love frosting. Love frosting. Which—I know—in these days of cupcake mania, is pretty run of the mill. Every time I turn around there’s another new retro bakery peddling little cakes with a big dollop of pastel goo. But what I really love, specifically, is cheap frosting. I actually dislike real buttercream. I can’t stand the density of powdered sugar and butter icing (e.g. Magnolia Bakery’s), or the hardened-butter texture of a shiny—slimy! —buttercream frosting, the real kind made with sugar syrup and eggs (e.g. the Cupcake Café’s).

I admit it: I prefer fake frosting. Canned ready-to-spread frosting. And since I’m telling it all, what I especially enjoy is Betty Crocker’s Whipped Frosting in that brilliant artificial flavor General Mills has dubbed "Fluffy White." Who knew fluffy white had a taste? But it does, and it’s delicious.

But what I love above all is grocery-store frosting. Lowbrow sheet-cake frosting. Fluffy, weightless and glaring white. I once experienced the ne plus ultra of sheet-cake frosting. It was at a Safeway grocery store in Marin County, California, which sold huge pre-cut squares of spongy yellow cake with an inch-deep layer of fluffy white frosting. I would read the bottom of the sheet-cake box and marvel at the dozens of ingredients—artificial flavorings, chemical preservatives, weapons-grade uranium—and wonder which of them made this light, white marvel taste so good: all whipped airiness and sweetness, with not a hint of real butter taste.

I haven’t tasted that frosting in years, and for years I’ve wondered: What is the Safeway secret? Surely there must be some mix that grocery stores and bad bakeries use, some 20-pound bag of magic powder—processed sugar and powdered milk fat and MSG—that I could buy. One day, I Google “industrial frosting,” but all I find are glass companies selling frosted windows. I Google "frosting mix": here is a link to a whole category of "Icing, Filling & Topping mixes." I scroll down: vanilla fondant mix…cookie icing mix…raspberry mousse filling mix . . . snack cake filling mix. I stop. I picture the interior of a Hostess cupcake—artificial, fluffy, cloying. I buy it.

What arrives in the mail is a small packet of powder from the King Arthur Flour company. Its package logo includes the slogan "Naturally Pure and Wholesome." This makes me apprehensive. The instructions call for the addition of vegetable shortening and water, and then beating until the filling is light and fluffy. After all these years since the Safeway conversion, I feel fluttery inside as I gradually add the water, and watch the shortening-and-powder crumbs morph into frosting. I won’t let myself taste it until I finish beating it into a paragon of fluffy.

Finally I stop. I sniff. I stick in my finger and taste. It tastes overwhelmingly of vanilla. A strong margarine flavor follows rapidly. I plunge the spatula into the filling and it spreads like a dream on my sheet of cake, but it’s creamy like a dense glaze. Not airy. It lacks that that beautiful insubstantiality that I’m starting to believe happens only when the stuff is made in enormous industrial vats with magic chemicals that somehow lock in the fluffiness and the artificial goodness. I look at the ingredients, and there are only six. There are no unnatural additives, no hyphenated or polysyllabic words, no…magic. It’s basically just the frosting recipe from the back of the powdered sugar box with some added “corn syrup solids” and "natural and artificial flavors" (evidently a ton of vanilla).

It doesn’t taste bad. It’s certainly not viscous or slimy. It’s actually quite smooth and creamy. And, I will admit, it is a pleasant complement to the cocoa cake I made to spread it on. But it doesn’t taste like fluffy white.

Photo: Johanna Goodyear

Salade Macédoine

I was invited to go to Macedonia recently, but I realized that I had only the vaguest idea of where Macedonia is actually located on a map. I suspected that it was one of the many little countries that spun off from the former Yugoslavia, and I did recall some distant association with Alexander the Great. But the only immediate association I could make to Macedonia was…salad.

In Italian, a macedonia is a fruit salad, and in French, a salade macédoine is a vegetable salad. In fact, in France, it’s a classic institutional appetizer, served in the finest school cafeterias and consisting of cooked peas, carrots, green beans and turnips in a heavy mayonnaise dressing that looks like white sludge and, as I recall from my elementary school days in France, tastes just as good (here's a commercial version, minus the sludge).

So where the hell is Macedonia? And how it is that chopped carrots and peas and pears and peaches can all somehow claim to be Macedonian? It turns out Macedonia is actually wedged way down in Southeastern Europe between Serbia, Albania and Greece, that the national diet tends massively toward barbecued meat, and that there wasn’t a single Macedonian salad on any of the menus in the many restaurants I sampled there.

What I did find in Macedonia, however, is an unbelievable hodge-podge of ethnicities. The country that calls itself Macedonia today is actually populated by one quarter ethnic Albanians, two-thirds ethnic Macedonians, equal sprinklings of Serbs, Bulgarians and Roma, and a substantial serving of Turks. Add to that a seasoning of intense religious diversity—one-third Muslims, two-thirds Macedonian Orthodox, and a potent dash of Albanian Catholics—and suddenly you begin to understand why the term macédoine in diplomatic history is synonymous with “complicated mixture.” If, over its many centuries of ethnic conflict, Macedonia has come be known as the “tinderbox of the Balkans,” it’s because no amount of mayonnaise dressing could ever make the ethnic peas identify with the ethnic carrots, or make the green beans speak the turnips’ language.

So a Macedonian salad, in the end, is just a mixed salad. A salad with a diversity of similar ingredients—fruits, veggies, warring ethnicities, whatever. And it also turns out that the sludgy mayonnaise dressing part of the salade macédoine is just some French lunch-lady’s idea that everything tastes better with mayonnaise.

Below, a recipe for a seasonal macédoine of spring vegetables. Hold the mayo.

Macédoine de Légumes

Ingredients:
1 bunch of fresh tarragon (optional)
1 tsp. of sugar
½ cup of pancetta, chopped in small cubes
3 Tbsp. clarified butter
1 cup of fresh shelled peas [Note: you can also use frozen peas, but don’t defrost them before]
1 cup of snow peas
6 mini-carrots with their green tops
6 scallion branches
6 small turnips
Salt and pepper

Directions:

Wash and peel the turnips and the carrots, leaving the tips of their green tops.

Shell the fresh peas and trim the tips from the snow peas.

Wash the scallions and cut them in half.

Wash and pat dry the bunch of tarragon, and remove the leaves from the branches.

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add salt, and cook all of the vegetables separately, except the scallions. About 15 minutes for the carrots and turnips, 10 minutes for the fresh peas, and 5 minutes for the snow peas. Rinse each of the vegetables under cold water to prevent them from continuing to cook—it’s important that they remain al dente, a little firm and crunchy—and drain them. Set them aside.

In a frying pan, heat 1 tbsp of the clarified butter, add the scallions, sprinkle them with the sugar, and cook them over low heat until they are lightly colored.

Meanwhile, plunge the pancetta cubes in boiling water for 3 minutes, and remove them with a slotted spoon. Set aside.

In another frying pan, heat the rest of the butter, add the pancetta, the onions, and all the vegetables. Heat the mixture over very low heat, about 5 or 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper and sprinkle with the fresh tarragon.

Serve immediately, while warm.

Introducing Renée Kaplan

I am pleased to welcome Renée Kaplan as a guest editor who will be contributing a series of guest posts to The Food Section.

Ms. Kaplan is a writer and television producer in New York. Her first novel, Shaking Her Assets (Berkley Trade), came out in May 2005, and her most recent writing appears in the just-released anthology Half/Life: Jewish Tales from Interfaith Homes (Soft Skull Press). She is currently a news producer for CNN, previously produced for “60 Minutes II,” and before working in television journalism was a writer and editor for the New York Observer.

Born in upstate New York, Ms. Kaplan grew up between Ithaca and Paris, France, which probably made her the only kid in midde school who knew more about Michelin stars than the teen ones. She says it wasn't good for her popularity, but it fostered a life-long passion for thinking, writing, and reading about food. In addition, as the daughter of an expert of French bread, she has been talking about the mouthfeel of crust and the alveolage of the crumb since her mother started her on solids.

Look for her first post -- on a curious French salad -- to appear later today.

The Rings of Saturn

The Ninth Ward neighborhood in New Orleans has been on the tip of many tongues over the course of the past two weeks. This area, also known as the Bywater, is the part of the city that has been under the most water since Katrina hit and the levee broke.  Just down-river from the French Quarter, this is an historical neighborhood that many famous residents have called home: trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, the musical Lastie family, poet and author Kalamu ya Salaam, and rock-and-roll legend Fats Domino, who was rescued from his house in the Ninth Ward just last week. But on the corner of Saint Claude Avenue and Clouet Street, there is another star in this neighborhood’s galaxy.

The Saturn Bar is a humble little building with a small sign and a few bits of neon lighting the way to the corner door.  Inside, the light from the neon soon reveals an array of treasures from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. O’Neil Broyard is the caretaker of its contents; he is a native of the city and has been at the helm of this neighborhood joint for more than forty years. When his regulars come calling, you’ll find him behind the bar, popping the cap off of an Abita or pouring a little Wild Turkey. But if it’s slow, he’ll be busying himself somewhere among his vast collection of baseball caps and garage sale paintings, tending to his flock of animals, or fiddling with his urban garden. With the time Broyard spends cultivating seeds, he could garnish more cocktails than he cares to even sell. He has a collection of fruit trees, a few vegetables and dozens of tomato plants. There have actually been times that Broyard has reaped such a harvest that he would share the bounty with his customers, regulars and tourists alike. He even grows mirlitons, a squash that’s used regularly in Creole cooking and a vegetable that is celebrated each year with the community-wide Mirliton Festival.

What constitutes the fabric of a community? The streets? The buildings? The businesses? The people? These things are certainly part of the warp and woof of any neighborhood. But what about the corner bar? Clouet Street is under water, but The Saturn Bar beckons to all of us as a reminder of the small treasures tucked in and around a city like New Orleans and the role that they can play in a neighborhood like the Ninth Ward. It’s not Galatoire’s or Commander’s Palace. It’s a little brown building with a door that opens to a community. It’s the thing that connects that community to the rest of us—and to the rings of Saturn.

While there have been so very many losses to mourn these last two weeks, we can now allow ourselves a hint of celebration: O’Neil Broyard and his beloved Saturn Bar have survived the storm. Now, he and his flock wait for the streets to dry up and for their neighbors to return.

* * *

Find out how the Southern Foodways Alliance and other organizations are helping those in need in the wake of Hurricane Katrina

Again and again, many thanks to Josh Friedland for the invitation to contribute to The Food Section.

Amy Evans, acevans@olemiss.edu
Oral Historian, Southern Foodways Alliance
Oxford, Mississippi

In Her Own Words

“Because, as I say again, [when you make a drink,] if you don’t put the love and tenderness in there with that, it’s not going to taste good.” – Floria Woodard

Originally from Mississippi, Floria Woodard headed to New Orleans seeking opportunity. She found it as server at The Court of Two Sisters (the first African-American server at that), but she eventually set her sights on the bar. Thirty-eight years later, Miss Flo is still behind that bar, serving cocktails to the locals and returning tourists who seek her out at this well-known French Quarter restaurant.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Miss Flo’s story resonates. Hers is the story of an African-American woman from Mississippi, who set out on her own to find a job and make a new life for herself. She ended up in New Orleans, and the service industry answered her call. The state she left—the state of Mississippi—is where I live today. It might also be the state that Miss Flo returned to in order to escape New Orleans and Katrina. We can only hope.

In honor of Miss Flo and the thousands like her, her own words are offered here. Let them remind us all about the lives of the people we interact with, standing just on the other side of the bar.

* * *

Floria Woodard, bartender
The Court of Two Sisters
New Orleans, LA

[This is an edited version of an interview that was conducted by Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance on March 31, 2005. Read the entire transcript.]

My name is Floria Woodard, and I’m old as dirt. [Laughs] My birthday is June 6, 1938.

I understand you’ve been working here at The Court of Two Sisters for forty years or some such thing.

It’s close to forty. It’s thirty-eight years this February seventh, two thousand five…And I’ve enjoyed it ever since I’ve been here. I’ve been—I started out here as a bus person and a server for so many years. And then I moved up to seating captain, from seating captain to receiving at the front door, and then one day they decided they [were] going to give me a bartender’s job. [Short laugh]

[Y]ou were the first black server here at The Court of Two Sisters?

In the evening, yes…And that was starting back in sixty-eight. And even though it was integrated—they was integrated like in the daytime—at nighttime it wasn’t. Or they couldn’t get [black] servers, I’m not sure what the cause was. But I had no problem getting acceptance. They accepted me with open arms. And I came in, and I liked the place, and I decided to stay for a little while.

Just to back up a little bit, you said [that] you’re from Mississippi, originally.

Yes, born and raised in Tylertown, Mississippi. Uh, I come from a large family. Uh, from eleven siblings that’s alive, that I’m the youngest of all.

And what brought you to New Orleans?

Survival. [Laughs] You know, survival? That’s what it was. It was nothing in Mississippi to do as far as work-wise, and if you couldn’t farm you couldn’t—you wasn’t making anything. It was really tough for the people of color in Mississippi. Mm-hmm. It’s tough.

Was the job here the first job you had in New Orleans, or did you work other places?

No, it wasn’t. I did other jobs. I worked, um, as a home keeper for children for a while, and then I did hotel maid service for a while, and I did healthcare for a little while. But then I decided none of those was for me.

Did they just throw you into the fire?

Yeah, they just threw me into the fire. Into the—into the lake and said swim! No—no paddle either! [W]hen they put me in over here they hadn’t [had] anyone at all to train me. I really had to train myself. I had to learn everything back here, and I had a lot of reading to do. I had a lot bar-guide books. And there—they have a recipe book themselves [The Court of two Sisters], so I don’t make the drinks the way I want to drink—to make them. I make them the way they want them made…So that means I follow their recipe. So if you have a drink from me today that you’d enjoy, tomorrow or next month or two years from now, when you return, it will be the same because you use the same recipe.

[A]nd so what is it about your job that keeps you here?

I think it’s the stress. [Laughing] That’s a joke. Well, I enjoy it, sweetie. I don’t think it’s no one thing, but I always feel like what keep[s] me going, I’m not a lazy person. I like to work. As long as I’m working, I’m happy. Because I know I’m gonna get paid. And as I tell all the young people that come through here, you know, you’re looking at thirty-eight years, and I can’t remember one payday [that] I didn’t get a check. You know? And that’s what work is all about. It’s a shame to say it, but we’re working until we get paid, because we can’t survive without it…So that’s—that’s what it is again. I stay here for survival! [Laughs]

What do you think it takes to make a good bartender?

Well, you have to like people, you have to have a cool personality, and you have to be patient. You cannot be [short pause] a chip on your shoulder that you have, you leave it at home. You can’t bring it in because [if] someone make[s] a statement to you that you don’t like, you can’t be touchy about things. See I’ve had people sit here at the bar and speak up [about] different things that’s going on, and black people are involved—it doesn’t affect me. Because that’s news. But you’ll find some people—people of color would get offended. You’ll find the gay part of the industry. You’re speaking of the gay people, they’ll get affected. But no, you can’t—you can’t do that. You’ve got to be open when you [are] tending bar. The only thing that I don’t do is—like I say earlier—I don’t have stories to tell. I tell stories, but they’re the truth[.]

Basilica Casamento and The Patron Saint of Oysters

The city of New Orleans has long been compared to the Italian city of Venice. Both places were built on watery slabs, defying common sense, yet stimulating our imaginations. Still reeling from the storm, I am forced to think of New Orleans’ sister city and of the power of water meeting stone.

The Basilica San Marco is the jewel of Venice, but its arches and domes weigh heavily on the piazza, tons of marble and bronze slowly sinking into the canals. Inside the basilica, hundreds of years of floods and high tides have left their mark. Watery forces have pushed on these floors so regularly and for so long that you feel drunk just walking through the door, solid waves of marbled mosaic fooling your eyes and feet with each step. Perhaps the waves have tired of Venice, and they have finally come to push against New Orleans.

Waves of immigration have brought scores of Italians to the Crescent City and other parts of the South for generations, and New Orleans was where a good many of them decided to put down roots. The Casamento family was one of those families. In the early part of the twentieth century, Joe Casamento arrived in New Orleans and opened a restaurant on Magazine Street, putting his family name above the door. Serving fresh seafood and above all, fresh oysters, Mr. Casamento quickly established a reputation for serving some of the best seafood in town.

My recent trek to New Orleans to document bar and cocktail culture happened to fall near the end of oyster season. Naturally, I wanted to get my hands on some while the getting was good, so I headed straight for Casamento’s. This is the kind of place that is so serious about oysters, it closes its doors during the summer months -- those dangerously hot months without “R”s -- signaling the temporary hiatus of the ritualistic union of shellfish, hot sauce, crackers and beer. That fine New Orleans day, I savored half-a-dozen raw oysters and contemplated my mission. Even then, I wrestled with the fact that here I was in New Orleans to document bartenders, but what about this joint?  What about all of this decorative tile covering practically every square inch of the place? What about that man in the corner, shucking oyster after oyster all the day long? What about the woman who so carefully delivered that gloriously shiny plate of rawness to my table? What about Joe Casamento, who came to New Orleans from his native Italy and opened a café? What about his family who is continuing the tradition that he started so many decades ago? Who installed all of this tile? All of this tile! Imagine: the Basilica Casamento right there on Magazine Street in New Orleans.

Unfortunately, I had to move on. But I made mental notes: the pattern in the floor, the stacks of candy bars behind the register, the stunted wall in the middle of the room, the tiny kitchen, the sound of oysters being shucked. All of this, thinking that I would be back. That it would all still be there. Today, I don’t know how high the water rose on this particular part of Magazine Street; I don’t know if the tiled floor has been bent and twisted into a solid current of stylized flowers. I pray, though, let Joe Casamento’s monument to his life in this New World stand intact. There may not be any oysters to serve for a while, but services can still be held in the Basilica Casamento.

In the decades since Joe Casamento first arrived in New Orleans, many more have followed, making this unique place their adopted home. It is, indeed, the most European of American cities, and that is certainly part of its appeal. It is also a city whose economy is based in tourism, so there is usually a service industry job to be had -- a shift to pick up, a new trade to learn, an opportunity to move up through the ranks. Paul Gustings landed in New Orleans almost by accident, and he became a bartender -- one of the best.

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PAUL GUSTINGS, bartender
The Napoleon House & Tujague’s
New Orleans, LA

Originally from the Netherlands, Paul Gustings flipped a coin one day, headed to the United States, made his way to New Orleans for a visit, and ended up staying. Twenty-three years later, his bartending resume includes some time spent behind the bar at places like the Clubhouse of the Galloping Gooses and Brennan’s Restaurant. Paul’s prickly personality eventually found the right fit at two bars in the French Quarter: Tujague’s and the Napoleon House. While he appreciates a good cocktail, he also appreciates the cocktail connoisseur and hasn’t much patience for less. He’ll take the time to make traditional cocktails the right way and will appreciate you for knowing enough about cocktails to order them. So belly up to the bar, serve Paul a smile, and he’ll serve you a well-made drink.

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Find out how the Southern Foodways Alliance and other organizations are reaching out to service industry workers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Amy Evans, acevans@olemiss.edu
Oral Historian, Southern Foodways Alliance
Oxford, Mississippi