Lima beans, green beans, corn, pork, and sweet potatoes are among the ingredients in a Caldo soup served at Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society’s 41st annual Fiesta in St. Bernard, Louisiana. (Photo by Marie de Grado)

When it comes to exotic Louisiana subcultures that have captured the popular imagination, the Cajuns and Creoles have cornered the market. Thanks to larger-than-life culinary ambassadors such as Paul Prudhomme and Justin Wilson; Hollywood depictions such as Swamp People; and music crazes such as Rockin’ Sidney’s zydeco hit “My Toot Toot,” most of America has pegged the whole of Louisiana as happy-go-lucky, alligator-wrestling, French-speaking bon vivants.

But let’s not forget Louisiana’s “Spanish tinge,” to lift a phrase from New Orleans jazz giant Jelly Roll Morton. Past the Lower 9th Ward and down the road through St. Bernard Parish toward Delacroix Island live the Isleños — “masters of the marsh” who are just as culturally intriguing as the Cajuns, except they habla español rather than parle francais.

A Louisiana Isleño checks his muskrat trap in the marshes near Delacroix Island in 1941. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Los Isleños: Canary Islanders Who Settled in Louisiana

Under the radar for centuries, and yet practically in New Orleans’ backyard, are the descendants of Canary Islanders, or “Isleños,” who immigrated from the archipelago off the African coast in the 1770s and ’80s and settled in four Louisiana locations, the most enduring of which is St. Bernard, just east of New Orleans.

Charbroiled oysters are served at Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society’s 41st annual Fiesta in St. Bernard on March 9-10. (Photo by Marie de Grado)

Isleño Culture and Food Traditions Survive for Generations

Like the Cajuns, the Isleños became farmers, hunters, trappers, and fishers in the dense, swampy terrain. Generation after generation thrived in the isolated cypress groves along Bayou Terre-aux-Boeufs, living self-sufficiently off the bounty of land and sea and selling their wares in New Orleans markets. Their Hispanic language and customs were preserved through their seclusion, and yet they also adapted their lifestyles to the unique lay of the Louisiana land.

Boat models on display at the Isleño museum complex in St. Bernard depict the fishing and maritime lifestyles of the Canary Island descendants. (Photo by Marie de Grado)

Amazingly, their frozen-in-time 18th-century Spanish dialect survived the centuries, encapsulated in orally transmitted folk songs known as decimas, right up through Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And while their cuisine has much in common with Cajun cooking, drawing its ingredients from the same region, a few distinct dishes with roots in the Canary Islands are still served today.

Bacon-wrapped plantains are served at Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society’s 41st annual Fiesta in St. Bernard on March 5-6. (Photo by Marie de Grado)

Isleño Cookbook a Roadmap to Hidden Culinary Treasures

Thanks to the preservation and outreach efforts of groups like Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society, which celebrates its annual “Los Isleños Fiesta”, the world is starting to awaken to the legacy of the Isleños.

And food is a large part of the Isleños’ identity. The Isleño society’s cookbook features Canarian-style dishes such as Besugo al Horno (Baked Red Snapper with Potatoes), Chayotes Rellenas (Stuffed Mirliton in Sauce), Gambas al Ajillo (Garlic Shrimp), and Empanadillas de Chorizo (Sausages in Pastry). Also offered are recipes for local specialties like Alligator Stew, Marinated Shrimp, and Duck Sauce Piquante, as well as numerous bean dishes.

Saveur magazine has profiled Isleño food traditions, and Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern even visited “Da Parish” and sat down with some locals for a bowl of Caldo.

Caldo: An Old World Stew Rules This Bayou

Caldo is the most famous Isleño dish, a complex vegetable soup that employs a medley of diverse ingredients, much like a Cajun or Creole gumbo, but without a roux.

Navy beans (or limas) are the Caldo’s centerpiece, supplemented by components such as pickled pork, fresh green beans, corn, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash. Of course, like gumbo, each Caldo recipe can vary from cook to cook or family to family, and depends on whatever ingredients are on hand at any given time.

The Caldo recipe presented here is from Isleño elder stateswoman Dorothy L. Benge, whose family donated land that serves as part of the overall Isleño museum complex. According to Benge, this recipe, which uses both salt pork and pickled pork, is “from my grandmother, Camille Silvera Molero, 1891-1976.”

A pot of Caldo simmers at a recent Isleño Fiesta. (Photo from Los Isleños Heritage and Cultural Society’s Facebook page)

Caldo Recipe

Ingredients:

1 pound salt pork*
1 pound pickled pork*
1 cup dried Navy Beans, soaked overnight
3 ears corn, cut into 6 or 9 pieces
2 cups Large Lima Beans (fresh or frozen, optional)
3 small sweet potatoes (whole or halved)
6 to 8 small Irish potatoes (whole or halved)
1 medium head cabbage, sliced
1 pound fresh green beans
1 or 2 Knorr caldo concentrado de jamon (ham bouillon cubes) to taste
3 quarts water
Salt to taste

Directions:
Place salt pork in pot. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil 5 to 10 minutes to remove some of the salt from the pork. Drain and rinse, discarding the water. Drain beans from overnight water and rinse. Add beans and salt pork and pickled pork to stockpot with 3 quarts water. Bring to a boil and cook until beans are tender, about 1 hour. Add remaining vegetables and bouillon cubes. Cook until potatoes are done, about 20 to 30 minutes. Add more water if needed. Add salt. Serve over rice. Serves 10 to 12.

An Isleño models a traditional Canary Islands dress at the March Isleño Fiesta in St. Bernard. (Photo by Marie de Grado)

Go Soak Up Some Isleño Celebrations

Every March the museum complex at 1345 Bayou Road in St. Bernard is the site of the annual Isleño heritage fiesta, full of rich history, beautiful scenery and architecture, authentic arts and crafts, live music and dance, and delicious food. Besides Caldo, fest-goers gorge on shrimp, oysters, and fish; Louisiana classics such as jambalaya and gumbo; and Spanish favorites such as paella, flan, and sangria. This year’s fiesta takes place Saturday, March 7th – Sunday, March 8th, 2026.

Also be sure to catch Chalmette’s 2026 St. Bernard Irish Italian Isleños Parade, which will feature 50 floats, 30+ marching groups, and 300,000 pounds of fresh produce (cabbage, potatoes, onions, carrots, etc.) for whipping up your own batch of Caldo at home! The parade rolls Saturday, April 11th, 2026 at 11 am.

*Salt pork usually comes from the fattiest part of the pork belly but is neither smoked nor cured like bacon, just generously salted for preservation. No other seasonings are added.

Pickled pork often is made from meatier cuts and has been rubbed and layered with a mix of salt and pickling spices such as mashed cloves, ground allspice, chopped onions, and bay leaves. The meat is rendered supremely tender and is preseasoned from the brine.

Both salt pork and pickled pork are used to flavor slow-cooked pots of beans and smothered vegetables. The fat from the salt pork melts into the dish, lending flavor, whereas the generous seasonings used in the brining process for pickled pork are rendered into the pot as the meat breaks down and saturates the pot’s other ingredients with its flavors.

Both salt pork and pickled pork are available in some grocery stores. Pickled pork tends to be more available in south Louisiana. Salt pork is not hard to make — it’s just pork fat and salt. For Caldo, one could use salted pork fat or pork belly as a replacement for salt pork.

Caldo recipe from Los Isleños (Canary Islanders) Cookbook by Los Isleños Heritage & Cultural Society, © Los Isleños Heritage & Cultural Society used by permission of the publisher, Pelican Publishing Company, Inc.

If there is a restaurant known for both its adherence to tradition and innovation in the culinary and hospitality world, it’s Commander’s Palace.

Guests know when they go to the restaurant, the menu will have turtle soup au sherry, shrimp and tasso Henican, eggs Sardou and Creole bread pudding soufflé, among the offerings. But they also know that new dishes, in keeping with the restaurant’s practice of allowing its chefs — which included legends Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse — to add unique flavors to the menu.

So, when COOLinary, an event that happens throughout August featuring New Orleans restaurants, Commander’s Palace Executive Chef Meg Bickford got busy dreaming up some new dishes.

The Cochon de Lait Tostada

The result? Among them, the Cochon de Lait Tostada, a dish that has been on the restaurant’s menu in other variations, but now it had a Bickford twist.

This multi-layered iteration consists of garlic- and hot sauce-rubbed fall apart 18-hour smoked pork shoulder on a crisp tortilla with smoky boudin, creamy red bean purée, pickled corn and okra chow chow, crumbled Cotija and charred poblano aioli.

Not only does the red bean purée made from Camellia Red Kidney Beans act as the foundation of the dish — and contributes a “rich, earthy flavor,” says Bickford — it is a great sauce to dip and mix the dish’s other ingredients into. It is also a time-tested Commander’s Palace recipe.

“We braise the red beans with tons of andouille and house-made tasso,” says Bickford. “Then we puree the whole thing with pickled okra and roasted garlic. We’ll add a mound of butter into it so it’s nice, shiny and silky.”

“It’s just phenomenal … I could eat with just a spoon!”

Camellia Beans: An Essential Ingredient

Bickford, whose family is from Cut Off and New Orleans, grew up well-versed in south Louisiana cuisine, “Both my parents cooked, kind of everybody in my family cooks. It’s a rite of passage.”

“We always had Camellia Beans in the pantry. And no matter where we lived, we always used Camellia Beans.”

“It’s a very consistent product. They’re very clean, which a lot of people don’t think about. But when you’re not finding rocks or sand in your beans, it’s a big deal,” she says.

“It also goes beyond brand recognition … you want to use a local product, and that product proves itself to be superior.”

Rich and Buttery

Camellia Red Kidney Beans are also used for the red beans and rice made for the staff meal on Monday.

“Serving red beans and rice every Monday is more than just a meal — it’s a tradition rooted deep in New Orleans culture. It’s how we start the week together, just like families have done here for generations,” says Bickford. “Around that pot of beans, our team becomes a family, sharing stories, laughter and the spirit of this city we love.”

Everyone in the kitchen takes turns making the family meal — for Commander’s Palace, it’s all part of working as a team and part of its culture.

Another bean Bickford is a fan of is the Camellia Cannellini Beans for the garlic-braised white beans, served with a pork tenderloin.

Bickford favors these beans because they are “super rich and buttery, and it kind of gives this nutty flavor a little.”

She also features the cannellini bean in the heartier white bean cassoulet available at the restaurant’s Le Petit Bleu, its Parisian-style cafe next door highlighted inside and out by the restaurant’s signature color, Commander’s blue.

Rooted in New Orleans culture, the restaurant’s use of local Camellia beans — from red beans to cannellini beans — honors heritage, quality and good food not just for COOLinary, but all year long.

Commander’s Palace, 1403 Washington Ave., NOLA 70130; 504.899.8221; commanderspalace.com/ ; on Instagram.

White beans come in many shapes and sizes, and when a recipe calls for simply “white beans,” it can be challenging to figure out which kind to use, especially when deciding between Great Northern beans and Cannellini beans. Although these two types of white beans are similar, they have crucial differences regarding flavor and texture. Luckily for you, we’re experts on all things beans. Here’s what you need to know to decide which beans to use and when.

White Bean History

Cannellini beans originated in Argentina but are much better known for their use in Italy. In central and southern Italy, Cannellini beans are a staple in countless traditional dishes. Great Northern beans gained popularity in the Pacific Northwest region of America and took their name from the Great Northern Railway. This now-defunct railroad helped to distribute these beans across the United States.

Great Northern Beans

Great Northern beans are highly versatile with a delicate, nutty flavor and delicate, creamy texture. Camellia Brand CEO Vince Hayward likes Great Northern beans for their creaminess, stating, “One of my most favorite dishes is shrimp and white beans – a creamy, thick, delicious shrimp-flavored dish that brings back memories of my mother’s home cooking and warm bowls of beans on cold winter nights.” Great Northerns work well in American classics like baked beans, chili, and succotash, although they can be used in almost any recipe calling for white beans.

Cafe Reconcile’s White Beans and Shrimp

Cannellini Beans

Cannellini Beans are larger and heartier than Great Northerns and are sometimes referred to as “white kidney beans” because of their traditional kidney shape. You’ll often find them mixed with pinto beans. Cannellini beans are commonly used in Italian dishes like cozy minestrone, and because they hold their shape well when cooked, they’re a favorite in soups and stews. Like Great Northerns, Cannellini beans cook creamy and smooth with a nutty flavor.

Which ones should I use?

Both options are great for almost any white bean recipe, but we like using Cannellinis in a pasta e fagioli, while we prefer Great Northern beans for dishes like shrimp and white bean soup or white beans and ham hock.

Pasta e Fagioli

Shrimp and White Bean Soup

Great Northern Beans and Ham

Camellia CEO Vince Hayward clarifies the difference:

“It rests primarily with the heartiness of the Cannellini over the Great Northern,” he explains. “Because of its thicker skin and slightly bolder bean taste, the Cannellini lends itself better towards soups and stews. The Great Northern is a bit more delicate, and breaks open more easily, lending itself towards bean dishes consumed directly from a bowl, or to using as an ingredient in baking, or just simply when a lighter texture is desired.”

Ultimately, the main differences come down to their origins, subtle differences in appearance, firmness and flavor, and how they are traditionally used in regional cuisines. Both Cannelinis and Great Northerns are tasty, nutritious white bean options!

When an Iconic Restaurant Changes Hands

It isn’t easy to open a restaurant, so imagine what it’s like to buy an established New Orleans neighborhood eatery where the regulars expect their favorite dishes in an atmosphere that is the same as it was when they originally walked through the doors. Which may have been 50 years ago.

“It’s both very exciting and daunting,” said George DeCastro, who bought Liuzza’s on Bienville in fall 2022 with Erin Clark and two partners in Miami.

“I have the opportunity to step into an iconic New Orleans restaurant and serve food to diners who have been coming here for generations,” he said. “To carry that torch and still be a part of the fabric of New Orleans culture carries great responsibilities.” DeCastro is mainly in the kitchen/back of house, while Clark runs the front of house.

They are familiar with the city: Clark and DeCastro were part of the crew that opened Finnegan’s Easy in the French Quarter. Both relocated to New Orleans when they bought Liuzza’s business, building, and recipes.

Liuzza’s Keeps it Old School with its Red Beans and Rice

Among the original recipes was red beans and rice.

“I found out when I came to New Orleans that locals are very particular with the food products they know and love,” said DeCastro. “They are a very knowledgeable group when it comes to traditional cuisine.”

And, of course, there was no changing up the recipe when it came to using Camellia Red Kidney beans.

In keeping with the Liuzza’s red beans tradition, the beans are rinsed, not soaked. They are put in a large kettle to which assorted meats such as homemade tasso and smoked sausage are added, as well as the “trinity” (onion, green peppers and celery), Creole seasoning, garlic and other ingredients.

“We just keep on tasting it to see if it’s the cleanest consistency that we want,” DeCastro said. “It usually comes out the same every time.”

The red beans are made in a large batch, then frozen in portions which are taken out as needed.

“Once it goes into the freezer, all the flavors and everything that goes into it condenses,” DeCastro said.

He emphasized that when they heat up the red beans, they don’t microwave them, but put them in a small double boiler.

What the Future Holds: A Delicate Balance of the Old & the New

Many like to enjoy the red beans and rice alongside the restaurant’s signature 18 oz. goblets of frosty cold beers — or an Abita root beer. Other signature recipes include the Frenchuletta (Muffuletta on French bread) and shrimp and oyster beignets.

While committed to the restaurant’s traditional recipes, DeCastro said that he is also looking to “explore a lot of other Louisiana foods.” Sounds a lot like Vincent Liuzza, who founded the restaurant in 1947, and like his successors, blended Sicilian foods with Creole and Cajun flavors.

“I want to grow as a brand but walk the line that stays true to what Liuzza’s is to the local community,” said DeCastro. “Being a flag-bearer of a 70-year-old [plus] tradition is a great responsibility that so far, our guests have enjoyed.”

Liuzza’s Restaurant and Bar, 3636 Bienville St., New Orleans; liuzzas.com; Hours: Mon. 11 a.m. – 8 p.m., Tues. Closed; Weds. 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Thurs.-Sat.11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

For many cultures around the world, salt pork is a beloved ingredient that adds a unique savory flavor to many indigenous dishes. And in Louisiana, it’s a favorite in everything from red beans and black eye peas to cassoulet. But what exactly is salt pork? And what does it bring to the table?

What is Salt Pork?

Salt pork refers to heavily salted slabs of pork belly, pork shoulder, or other fatty cuts. The meat is rubbed with salt or submerged in a salt brine, which preserves the meat and infuses it with concentrated flavor.

The History of Salt Pork

The use of salt pork traces back to Europe in the Middle Ages, when salting and curing meats was an essential preservation technique. The practice spread around the globe as Europeans explored and colonized other continents. In the Caribbean, West Africa, and the United States, salt pork became a culinary tradition in New England dishes like Boston baked beans and clam chowder, and in the South, in staple dishes like beans, peas, and greens.

How to Use Salt Pork

Imparting flavor and fat into bean and blackeye pea dishes, salt pork adds body and a silky texture to stewed and slow-simmering favorites, thickening and enriching the cooking liquid. Traditional southern dishes like BBQ Beans and Field Peas with Snap Beans feature salt pork for its signature flavor.

The Difference Between Salt Pork and Bacon

Salt pork and bacon are both made from pork belly, salted to cure the meat, and available in slabs or sliced. But unlike bacon, salt pork is not smoked and contains substantially more fat. It also costs less! And since it has more fat, the collagen that’s released from salt pork during cooking melts into beans and other slowly simmered dishes, giving them amazing richness and texture. Salt pork can be used as one large piece, cut into cubes, or diced, depending on the recipe.

The Difference Between Salt Pork and Pickled Pork

Another common question is, what’s the difference between salt pork and pickled pork? While both salt pork and pickled pork are favorites in slow-cooked dishes like beans, pickled pork is cured with salt and then brined in vinegar, spices, and seasonings, providing a tangy flavor in addition to the saltiness. Salt pork is cured with just salt, and no other seasonings are involved.

Here’s what home cooks say when asked about the secret to their red beans:

“Sometimes cook with pickle and salt pork, or mild smoke sausage, also some people use bacon.”- Roxanne F.

“Salt pork!”- Wade L.

“I use the trinity, salt pork, smoked or regular turkey necks, Tony’s, and that’s about all. I will try the crab boil.”- Saja M.

“I’ve been cooking Camellia red beans for 55 years. I use onion, garlic, bacon fat and salt pork. If I can’t get salt pork, I use pickle meat. I taste the beans before I add salt.”- Eunette B.

When a plate of red beans and rice with French bread comes to the table, a debate can sometimes arise about the correct way to eat it.

Should the French bread be used as a scoop, a way to soak up the last bits, or as a separate accompaniment slathered with butter? Then again, why make a choice?

Just like the debate over who makes the best red beans and rice, the debate over how to eat the French bread is ongoing. But no matter the preferred eating style, all agree that the French bread has to be from Leidenheimer Baking Company.

French Bread in New Orleans

Leidenheimer’s was founded 1896 by George Leidenheimer, when New Orleans was teeming with bakeries. About a decade beforehand, the City Directory listed 150 bakeries.

Leidenheimer immigrated years earlier from Deidesheim, Germany. He opened the bakery on Dryades Street and in 1904, moved it to the corner of Simon Bolivar Avenue in Central City, where it remains today.

At first, Leidenheimer made the heavy, dense breads he was more familiar with from Germany; however, around 1905, the bakery segued to making French bread, in addition to other types of breads popular during that time period.

How much did a loaf of French bread cost? At the turn of the century, it was somewhere in the neighborhood of a nickel per loaf.

The Proof is In the Water

What gives Leidenheimer’s French bread its flaky, thin crust and fluffy interior is a combination of interesting influences, but the Mississippi River’s hard water plays a big role.

Other factors include the fermentation process and the weather.

“We naturally ferment our dough, allowing it to age and develop flavor and its unique crumb characteristics,” says bakery Director of Operations and fifth-generation owner William Whann.

“Our bake time varies based on the ambient temperature. We have to put a considerably harder bake on our products during the hotter months because the New Orleans humidity will soften the bread’s signature crust,” he added.

But even with the introduction of technology, the bakery still harkens to its roots.

“While we have incorporated the use of automation to increase output,” says Whann, “human touch will always play an important role in our products. Every po-boy loaf produced at Leidenheimer is still hand-stretched to its signature 32-inch length.”

Po-boy bread in New Orleans is often referred to as French bread and vice versa, but they started out differently.

While French bread had been available in some variation since the city was founded in 1718, po-boy bread was introduced to New Orleanians in 1929. The first po-boys — sandwiches that can be filled with an infinite amount of combinations — were credited to Martin Brother’s Grocery which made them during a streetcar strike. The brothers, who had been streetcar conductors, decided to help out and created a loaf of bread for the “poor boys” to eat or share with their families.

Originally, a typical French bread was a family loaf roughly 16-inches long. It was fatter in the middle at around 4- to 5-inches wide, with narrow, pointed ends. Notes Whann, po-boy bread was developed as a long loaf uniform in width – because when making sandwiches, restaurants were having to throw away the unusable ends.

In the past, New Orleanians may have used the ends of the French bread as a makeshift bowl for their red beans and rice. According to a Southern Foodways 2006 interview with Joe Darensberg, whose family worked at the bakery for generations, “My dad said, ‘We put red beans in the ends of the French bread …” (Perhaps the ends worked well as a large scoop!)

Leidenheimer Today and Beyond

Today, Leidenheimer customers can order different sizes of its French/po-boy bread depending on their needs. The company is the largest producer of French bread in New Orleans.

The bakery also makes pistolettes with the same formula that range in size from 4 inches to 12 inches and is the largest producer of muffuletta bread in the country.

“We bake and deliver tens of thousands of loaves daily to both local and national customers,” says Whann.

“In addition to supporting the needs of our incredibly loyal, local customers, we have had the unique opportunity in recent years to connect with restaurants and chefs all over the country through social media, which has been an incredible experience to see how people are using the product across the States,” says Whann.

Working with Whann in the bakery business is his father, Sandy Whann, president; aunt Katherine Whann, office manager; and sister Katie Whann, marketing and social. Mitch Abide has been the longtime plant manager.

While some may argue cornbread is a go-to accompaniment to red beans and rice, for many, only a slice of Leidenheimer’s French bread will do.

leidenheimer.com/; on Instagram; 504.525.1575.

When owner and chef Jeffrey Heard opened the doors to his restaurant on March 2, 2015, his wife made the red beans and rice.

“She had always cooked them for me at home,” Heard says. “So I let her cook them here.”

But when he entered the Krewe of Red Beans “Bean Madness” contest in 2017, he decided to take on the challenge himself. Working from the memory of his mother’s red beans and rice recipe, he made a batch and had his oldest brother do the taste-testing. His brother proclaimed them “marvelous.”

Heard’s red beans made it to the final eight contenders out of 64 in the competition, but in trying to make more batches, he wasn’t able to cook the beans long enough. “They didn’t have enough time to break down right,” he says, and they didn’t make it to the final four.

Despite that, Heard was hooked on making red beans and rice.

Precision: The Key to Heard’s Red Beans

The process for making everything he serves at the restaurant is precise — including the red beans and rice.

“What I do now is soak them in water overnight. Then, the next day, I cook them on a high fire for about eight hours,” he says.

“And then after that, I simmer them on a real low fire for about 12 hours. I don’t put any seasoning or anything in it. I’m just trying to get them broken down.”

Once they reach the consistency Heard likes, if he doesn’t need them right away, he separates the red beans into portions and puts them in the refrigerator or freezer. Heard then sautés onions, peppers, and pork sausage and puts that aside, divided into portions, as needed. His dry seasonings, including garlic and onion powder, are all ready in a Ziploc bag, again, divided into portions.

Most of the prep takes place on Saturdays, so when Mondays roll around, “I’ll just put it all in the pot, so with that process, it takes me about an hour to an hour and a half to finish cooking.”

His secret? Don’t rush the beans. “I found slow cooking them on that real low fire is what really will make them creamy.” His preferred bean is Camellia Red Kidney Beans. “It’s just something my mom always used. It was like it was a rule and the only kind we had in the house, actually,” he says.

From Front of House to Back of House

Heard was born and raised in New Orleans, the second oldest of six boys. He worked in the hospitality industry for more than 30 years, serving in a variety of front-of-house positions, including waiter, operations manager, and banquet captain at places such as Restaurant August and the Crowne Plaza/W Hotel/Le Méridien on Poydras Street.

Though Heard didn’t work in the kitchen during that time, he watched and learned from chefs such as Michael Gulotta, Michael Stoltzfus, Brian Landry, John Besh, Alon Shaya and Agnes Bellet. And he credits learning the importance of how to plate food so it looks appetizing to his time at Restaurant August.

While working at these establishments, he would often be asked where to find authentic New Orleans food – “I want to go where you eat,” people would say to him. No one knew better than he did, so when the opportunity came along to open his own restaurant, he took it.

A Restaurant of His Own

Heard’s family members are his main collaborators: son, Jeffrey Heard Jr. and daughters Tia’Nesha Heard-Dorset and Angel Heard.

The restaurant’s Audrey Mae’s Catering is named after his mom. Heard was catering before he opened the restaurant at the corner of Magnolia and Felicity streets, in a building with historic roots. Built by Johann Heinrich Keller of Keller Southern Soap Works, it housed the largest manufacturer of soap products in the South in the late 19th century, with products distributed to the eastern U.S., Mexico, and Central America. The front of the building still has the Keller name on it. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it accommodated a food store and the restaurant’s dining area, but neither the food store nor the inside dining area have re-opened.

Heard Dat Kitchen’s menu is available for take-out or can be eaten outside at the picnic tables, but Heard is hoping the owner will soon re-open the building. He’d like to use the larger kitchen and offer inside dining again.

“It would be a perfect spot for coffee, as the neighborhood doesn’t have a coffee shop,” says Heard, who prefers to wear a t-shirt proclaiming, “Exceed Expectations,” a phrase based on Ephesians 3:20.

The red beans and rice do live up to the promise of the t-shirt’s expression; served with a choice of fish or chicken that’s blackened or fried, it is a popular menu item. (Heard points out the blackened chicken works well with the red beans.) Two other signature menu items include the Superdome — a blackened fish dish in a lobster cream sauce with fresh corn and crispy onion rings, and Bourbon Street Love — a baked macaroni dish topped with fried chicken and a crawfish cream sauce.

Heard Dat Kitchen is both a neighborhood spot and a place people seek out – for the food, the experience, and for Jeffrey Heard himself.

Says Chef Gulotta, “I worked with Jeffrey years ago when we had to execute massive private dinners together, and he was unflappable through countless high stress situations – and his knowledge and love of great wine is also unmatched. When I tried his food at Heard Dat Kitchen, he floored me again.”

“My biggest motto is, I tell people that I’m in the memory-making business,” says Heard.

Heard Dat Kitchen, 2520 Felicity St., (504) 510-4248, @_hearddat_ on Instagram, heardatkitchen.com. Hours: Mon. – Sat., 11 a.m.- 8 p.m.

A Staple of French Cooking

Mirepoix, (pronounced meer-PWAH) is a simple, homey vegetable base that plays an essential role in the aroma and flavoring of soups, stews, casseroles and more. A staple of French cooking, it’s a classic way to begin a recipe — by slowly sautéing a combination of onions, celery, and carrots in butter or oil until soft, fragrant, and translucent.

Playing A Key Supporting Role

Named in the 18th-century after the duke, Charles Pierre Gaston François de Lévis, or Duc de Mirepoix, a French general and diplomat, the generally accepted ratio of ingredients is 2:1:1 (two parts onions, one part celery, and one part carrots). However, there’s no need for today’s home cooks to be precious about it; it’s best to think of mirepoix as playing a supporting role in a great dish, as it helps the main ingredients to shine.

Cousin to the Holy Trinity

In fact, most of the world’s cuisines start with a common vegetable base that brings out the flavor of their iconic dishes. Creole and Cajun cuisines are no different, benefiting from their own variation. Interestingly, early French settlers in the Louisiana Territory brought their culinary customs with them, but there were no carrots in their swampy new home. So they substituted bell peppers for carrots, creating the Holy Trinity.

Usage Tips

A few usage tips when making mirepoix: in general, the finer you chop the vegetables, the quicker the aroma and flavors will be released. And if you’d like to prep for future use, go right ahead. Pre-chopped, frozen batches of mirepoix can be used easily in your favorite bean dishes.

Nestled in a restored 1920s-era train depot in downtown Covington, Lola is a place where you will run into your neighbors, co-workers, family and friends — anyone who has a hankering for what co-owner Chef Keith Frentz says is “simple Southern fare.”

That’s because for the past 17 years, Keith and his wife, co-owner Nealy Frentz, have hit on a comfy alchemy of food and atmosphere that has made Lola a success.

The duo, who both went to Johnson & Wales University culinary school in different cities, met just before Hurricane Katrina when they were sous chefs at Brennan’s. Keith was born and raised in Covington; Nealy is originally from California. 

The Lola Menu

The menu — featuring an assortment of Southern-inspired dishes with a focus on seafood — is what brings customers back. Another highlight is the restaurant’s charming set-up; it conjures up the small town-feel of Covington during the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it served as a transportation and commerce hub for the Northshore.

The brick-walled main dining room is part of the original depot and features a large painting of a pig by Simone Burke. (Keith says he won’t ever sell it, even though he has had offers.) Also on the walls are the daily specials – listed on a brown Kraft paper “poster.”

What’s fascinating is that the kitchen and an adjacent dining room are fashioned out of railroad cars. Of note is “The Doodlebug” – a Model 75 Gasoline Engine Driven Rail Car commissioned on Nov. 24, 1925 by the Columbus & Greenville Railway Company and built by the J.G. Brill Company. After years in service, it was retired in 1948 and went into private ownership, eventually moving to downtown Covington. Refurbished in 2017, the car’s exterior was painted the same green as that of New Orleans streetcars.

Red Beans and Rice, Made the Lola Way

Red beans and rice, which figures prominently as a Monday special, is one of Keith’s favorite things to make, though he admits gumbo is up there, too. (Both were big sellers for take-out during the COVID-19 pandemic.)

As it turns out, Keith didn’t grow up eating or even making red beans.

“I never experienced red beans until I was working at Brennan’s, and one of my old friends, cook Kenney Riley, taught me how to make them,” says Keith.

Riley instructed, “One pound of beans, one pound of butter, 10 pieces of bacon, and the trinity [onion, celery, bell pepper].” Keith remembered thinking that was a lot of butter for one pound of beans; but, after Riley added the sausage, Keith realized it was the best thing he had ever tasted. 

The red bean bug had bit, and Keith proceeded to develop the recipe he now uses at the restaurant.

Keith’s Secret Ingredients

Now, some may think that the butter would be the secret ingredient, but for Keith it is bacon fat. 

“I always cook bacon for my sandwiches, so I always have at least eight sheet pans of bacon made on Monday,” he says. “The excess bacon juice goes into the beans.”

Another must-have ingredient is Camellia Beans, which Keith says are the only ones he will use.

“I don’t soak them because they cook really fast,” says Keith. “They are going to reduce down and smash each other. Once I get them to a boil, I put them on low because unfortunately, I have burned a lot of red beans.”

Mondays at Lola

Keith’s Monday morning routine is this: “First thing I do when I arrive is put my pot of water on, then add the butter, all the dry seasonings such as paprika, salt and pepper, cayenne, dried parsley, garlic, and thyme, then red beans, and I let it boil for a while,” he says. “Next, I will add the trinity and smoked sausage. When the bacon is done, I will add the bacon fat.”

When completed, the red beans and rice is served with cornbread.

And on Tuesdays…

The red beans and rice often sells out on Mondays, but when it doesn’t, Keith will make red bean hummus or red bean succotash on Tuesdays. His red bean succotash is a variation on part of a dish that earned him the title of King of Louisiana Seafood in the 2012 Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off. The full award-winning dish was a cornmeal-dusted wild Des Allemands catfish with Camellia red bean & local crawfish succotash, braised collards, and house-made tartar sauce.

Has Keith ever used red beans in other dishes? Yep, in a red bean gumbo. “And it was good!” he exclaims.

Here’s hoping to find that dish on the Lola menu soon! But if not, red beans and rice will remain a well-seasoned favorite at Lola.

Lola, 517 N. New Hampshire St., Covington; (985) 892-4992; http://lola.kitchen/; on Instagram @lolacovington; Hours: Mon.- Fri. Lunch, Dinner Fri. and Sat.

Highest Quality, Premium Beans, Peas & Lentils

In 1923, L.H. Hayward began sourcing and selling the finest red beans he could find at the old French Market in New Orleans, and his son, Gordon Hayward, trademarked “Camellia Brand” after his mother’s favorite southern flower. Today, Camellia is a 4th generation family-owned company in New Orleans and has continued to sell the highest quality dry beans, peas and lentils available for 100 years.

Grown in the United States, these non-GMO beans, peas and lentils consistently outrank the highest USDA grade and meet the higher “Hayward Standard” — a term coined by trusted farmers the family has worked with for generations. Always freshly harvested the same year they’re sold, they’re cleaned six times before being packaged in our iconic cellophane bags. That freshness ensures our beans cook faster and are consistent in taste, color, and texture. Camellia products are also BRC-certified, meeting the international standard for food safety practices and proof of our commitment to responsible food production.

100 Years of Beans Done Right

Camellia Brand has been bringing people together to make memories and enjoy family meals for a century, and our customers are the most important ingredient to that success. Just like a pot of red beans that is slowly simmered and lovingly tended to, the best things in life take time. We’ve always put our heart and soul into everything we do, and that’s the recipe that has kept us going for 100 years and counting.

Cooking a pot of Camellia red beans into a state of creamy perfection is an authentic, soulful Monday tradition that people look forward to every week. It’s kitchen therapy — the ultimate comfort food — and Camellia is at the very heart of this tradition. New Orleanians and Southerners — by birth or by spirit — are devoted to the Camellia brand and have built a community around how to cook, season, savor, and celebrate with Camellia beans. None of our competitors can stake a claim to the same quality, tradition, or passionate following.

Here’s to another 100 years of beans done right!

When You Really Love Red Beans

How much does Saint John Chef Daren Porretto love red beans?

He has a tattoo of one on his finger.

For this New Orleans-born and-raised chef, the city and its food are his passions, and he shares them at the French Quarter restaurant. Through those passions, Saint John customers get a culinary awakening — a conversion, perhaps — of Southern and Louisiana food that goes beyond tradition.

The proof? The moment a waiter places the pork belly cassoulet down on a table, there is a pause: Take a photo, inhale the heavenly aroma, or just dive into the flavor? Most people do all three, as simultaneously as they can, when it comes to this brunch favorite.

A Cassoulet Made with Camellia Beans

Making the cassoulet is a two-day process that starts by soaking Camellia Great Northerns overnight. Then, it’s time to render the meat (Andouille sausage, tasso and ground pork belly), throw into chicken stock, and add vegetables including the trinity (onion, bell peppers, celery), plus garlic, bay leaves, salt and pepper. 
“All the usual suspects,” Chef Porretto says, cooked to the right balance, so the mixture is buttery and smooth.

Finally, the pork belly is braised in root beer and topped with a cornbread crust.

A combination of flavors, the cassoulet creates a historical connection between its French origins and Louisiana, with beans as the common denominator.

 And Porretto wouldn’t use anything other than Camellia Beans.

“I feel like I don’t have a choice to use anything else,” says Porretto jokingly.

Camellia Beans is what his grandmother relied on when the two of them cooked together. And when Porretto worked in New York City for a year, she made sure he was well-stocked. Her care packages included at least three different types – usually white beans, red beans, and one other.

“New Orleanians stick to our roots,” he says. “It’s like if you go to the grocery store, and there’s no Camellia Beans, you go to another store to find it. It’s something ingrained in my DNA.”

It’s that DNA — along with a dedication to Southern and Louisiana food — that Porretto and restaurant owner Eric Cook are bringing together in a modern, updated cuisine that never forgets its roots.

Hoppin’ John Oyster Salad

Another example of their culinary philosophy is the Hoppin’ John oyster salad, a fresh take on the New Year’s Day Southern tradition of serving cabbage or greens (symbolizing money, or dollar bills), with blackeye peas (symbolizing prosperity, or coins), and cornbread (symbolizing gold) – all with the goal of starting the new year with good luck.

Instead of cabbage, the salad features Bibb lettuce topped with crispy fried Gulf oysters. It is then ringed by a combination of crumbled bacon, chopped red peppers, and slow-cooked, smoky blackeye peas, “which bring a great flavor and texture to it,” says Porretto. Dressed with a green remoulade — not the traditional pinkish-hued version — it is a light, flavorful combination that melds Louisiana and Low Country traditions.

Red Beans and Rice

And what about the red beans and rice? The classic dish was added back to the menu — Mondays only, as per New Orleans’ custom — with Porretto putting just as much thought into it.

 However, he is keeping that favorite more traditional, as any New Orleans native would.

Saint John, 1117 Decatur St., (504) 581-8120, saintjohnnola.com, on Instagram; 
Hours: Brunch and dinner, Weds.-Mon.

If you can’t say Camellia, say “La La”!

Ms. Bonnie Stanzak was born in New Orleans in 1948 – just a few years after we began packaging our beans in the iconic cellophane bag with camellia flower logo and selling them in big supermarkets like Schwegmann’s. Her grandmother, Maw Maw, made red beans as far back as she can remember. She says “I think one of my first solid foods was my Maw Maw’s red beans. She made the best red beans I ever tasted. They were always so creamy and tasty. She always told me that if I thought she made the best, it was because she used the best – Camellia Beans. As a young child I couldn’t say Camellia, so I would say ‘La La.’ I’d ask, ‘Maw Maw can I have some La La beans?’”

Bonnie Stanzak’s Maw Maw when she was young, living life to the fullest and cooking the best red beans!

Searching for childhood’s lost beans.

Bonnie grew up and moved to New York City as a young woman, and her beloved Maw Maw passed away. She tried to re-create her Maw Maw’s red beans and rice, looking all over for a “La La” brand of dried red beans, and of course no one knew what she was talking about. But when she returned to New Orleans for a visit, problem solved! She says, “When I asked the New Orleans taxi driver if she ever heard of ‘La La’ beans, she said no, but the best beans she liked was ‘Ca-mel-LA.’ That seemed to strike a chord, so when I went to a store and found them! When I made that first pot of beans, I knew that I had found my Maw Maw’s beans. I mashed them up in the last 30 mins of cooking like she always did, and tasted them: nice and creamy! They are truly the best. And now my daughter, son and grandchildren are enjoying Maw Maw’s ‘La La’ beans.”

Remembering a true Southern lady and cook.

Bonnie’s Maw Maw lived in the New Orleans area, and from what Bonnie has shared with us, she was a typical New Orleanian – enjoying life to the fullest! Says Bonnie, “She was a fantastic Southern lady and cook. Her seafood gumbos and red beans were unbeatable. I have a picture of her at about age 25 in a bathing suit, hair cut short, smoking and showing a lot of skin for those days! She was the first feminist that I knew! She raised my mom on her own, working as a seamstress from the time she was 11 until retiring at 65. She cooked on weekends, freezing food so there was always a hot meal on the table when she got home. Camellia Beans were always a part of the weekend cooking.”

Maw Maw as Bonnie remembers her, and the inscription Maw Maw wrote in a cookbook she gave her granddaughter.

Here’s to another 100 years of Maw Maw’s “La La” red beans and rice.

Stories like Bonnie’s are the heart and soul of Camellia Beans, making every day special at our headquarters in New Orleans. Bonnie finished her story with best wishes for the family mealtime traditions of the future: “I could go on and on about this lady and am very proud to call her my Maw Maw and to be part of the Camellia family to carry on this wonderful tradition. Happy 100th Birthday Camellia! Maybe the world enjoy your product for 100 more!”

It’s in New Orleans’ neighborhood restaurants where you’ll find the heart and soul of the city’s cuisine.

Since it opened in the 1970s, Joey K’s Restaurant and Bar has been keeping Uptown well-fed, with Southern and New Orleans dishes that have been on the menu since day one.

Always on the Menu
One such traditional New Orleans dish that has always been on the menu is the red beans and rice.

“I’ve never seen an actual recipe written down,” says co-owner Tommy Spain.

The chefs are still using the same recipe, but each has their own flourishes. And while the base is the same, what you get “… really depends on who’s making it, to be honest with you,” Spain adds.

Chef Weston Banks has been here for five years with a short break in between. The other chef is Dexter Johnson, who has been cooking at Joey K’s for 17 years.

“It’s a mixture of both of them,” says Banks, referring to the restaurant recipe and his own. Banks learned his craft at home and while working at other restaurants around town.

How Joey K’s Cooks Red Beans

There are a few constants; among them, using Camellia Beans and not soaking.

“We just put them in the pot, add water, our spices, let them cook,” says Banks. “Once we let them cook, we add smoked sausage and seasoning, onion, bell pepper, and a ham base.”

The dish is available every day as a main or side dish, and while it doesn’t always sell out, it is a best seller.
Why do customers like their red beans and rice? “They are the right amount of firmness, which I think comes from not pre-soaking the beans,” says Spain. “The other thing people have a tendency to do is to over-salt them, and they get too soft. And, we don’t season so much that it hides the taste.”

The restaurant is a regular stop for the New Orleans Secrets Tours’ Magazine Street Foodie Tour. Tour co-owner Mark Aspiazu likes Magazine Street because it is walkable and has good restaurants for stopping and sampling the food.

“It’s one of my favorite places to eat,” says Aspiazu about Joey K’s.

The red beans are “cooked perfectly, scream authenticity, and are creamy and delicious,” he says. “I can get red beans and rice anywhere, but not these, which are the best in town.”

“How could I not bring guests here?”

In fact, the popularity of Joey K’s red beans was celebrated when the restaurant was one of the final four competitors in the inaugural Bean Madness tournament (created and organized by the Red Beans Parade). 64 New Orleans restaurants and chefs were pitted against one another to see who makes the city’s best red beans.

From the Beginning to Present Day
While Joey K’s was founded in the 1970s, it was originally one block away and called Tony’s. It was owned by Joey K’s mother, and passed on to him when she passed away in the late ‘70s. He then moved the restaurant to its current location and named it after his daughter Joey Kay, later shortening it to Joey K’s. In the late 1980s, Cindy and Sam Farnet bought the business, and more recently, Spain and his wife purchased a portion of it.

Spain pulls out an original menu from the late 1980s to compare it to one from 2022. There are menu items that are now long gone, but the classic Joey K’s offerings remain, including red beans and rice, white beans and pork chop, beef brisket, chicken cordon bleu, and the “All You Can Eat Catfish” Friday special. Prices, alas, have changed: red beans and rice was once $4.25, and today it is $11.95.

What hasn’t changed is what brought people here in the first place – the food.

In fact, Spain admits he eats the red beans and rice every day, maybe even twice a day!

Joey K’s Restaurant and Bar, 3001 Magazine St., (504) 891-0997; joeyksrestaurant.com; on Instagram; Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9 p.m

It’s a bustling scene inside Mother’s Restaurant. Visitors simultaneously look around, taking in this old school New Orleans eatery, while perusing the menu and trying to make a decision about what to order. Should they get the restaurant’s Famous Ferdi Special, a combination of ham and roast beef “debris” with its juices unabashedly soaking into the po-boy bread and down the sides? Perhaps Jerry’s Jambalaya, named after the late owner Jerry Amato, or the signature red beans and rice. Regulars go straight to the always-in-motion serving/deli line to get their favorite dish. Tables are overflowing with Mother’s food and those who enjoy it, a testament to the enduring popularity of this restaurant.

Much of that has to do with brothers Jerry and John Amato, who bought the restaurant in 1986. And much has to do with the staff — such as Miss Pat, who has been there for more than 30 years and has done a little bit of everything.

It’s family. It’s New Orleans. It’s about the relationships between people, as well as with food.

A Recipe is Born
It was Jerry – with culinary training from previous hospitality jobs, studies at Delgado Community College and The Culinary Institute of America – who had an innate sense of what tasted good and which flavors worked together. He was always able to take traditional New Orleans dishes and elevate them.

“Jerry really brought a culinary take on it,” says Charles Pizzo, who does public relations and social media marketing for the restaurant, about the food at Mother’s.

An example is the red beans and rice.

The origin of the red beans and rice recipe at Mother’s starts with the founders, Simon and Mary “Mother” Landry, who opened the business in 1938 on Poydras Street. It was there where they fed the neighborhood’s longshoremen, warehouse workers, and others looking for po-boys and hearty New Orleans dishes.

Years later, Chef Odie Mae Peters refined the red beans and rice recipe.

“She tweaked the recipe a little bit,” says Pizzo. “She added more ham because Mother’s cooks its own ham.”

When Jerry arrived on the scene, he saw all the leftover ham fat as the result of trimming, and realized it could be used in the red beans, among other dishes.

“It is a secret ingredient to a lot of Mother’s old-time dishes,” shares Pizzo.

Chef Roland Swazy agrees: “Though it’s no longer fashionable, it’s fat that makes the red beans taste good. And Mother’s happens to have a lot of ham trimmings available.”

After the ham fat is rendered, then the vegetables — onions, green onions, bell peppers and garlic — for the red beans are cooked in it.

Mother’s ham is cooked at the restaurant. “We only use Chisesi Brothers ham,” says Alex Salas, daytime manager, who has been at the restaurant for 16 years.

In addition to cooking the vegetables in the rendered ham fat, the ham bones, which are cut in half, are boiled with the red beans.

Pizzo notes that the ham is not salted. The flavor is enhanced by Mother’s secret sauce, a glaze that covers the ham when it is cooked. Ham chunks are also used in the red beans recipe, as is smoked sausage from Creole Country that is made to Mother’s specifications.

Mother’s uses Camellia Red Kidney Beans. The beans are not soaked, but instead, they’re put through a few rinses to help release the starches. (The restaurant also has specialized equipment so it can cook the beans low and slow at a controlled rate.)

The beans are then boiled in half chicken stock and half beef stock, a.k.a. “debris gravy.” The stocks are made in-house.

The Legacy Continues
Chef Swazy has been put in charge of carrying on the restaurant’s culinary traditions. Swazy started as a dishwasher in 1987 and worked his way up to become head chef, learning what made Mother’s so special along the way.

“Chef Jerry Amato, who mentored me, was big on the need for consistency. Regulars come to Mother’s Restaurant year after year, and they want and expect everything to taste the same,” says Swazy. “While some restaurants try to be cutting edge, Mother’s aims to be traditional. We’ve seen adult children bring their elderly parents in to eat,” he added. “These are folks who worked in what were once office buildings along Poydras Street, such as the Lykes Building or One Shell Square. They tear up and get emotional, telling us ‘Your food tastes exactly like I remembered it.’”

And that’s why Mother’s Restaurant remains beloved.

Mother’s Restaurant, 401 Poydras Street, mothersrestaurant.net, (504) 523-9656. Hours: 7 days 7 a.m.-10 p.m.

Arkesha Baquet is a busy woman. It’s just a half-hour before opening at Li’l Dizzy’s in Tremé, and menus must be reviewed, supply deliveries confirmed, and she needs to peek in the kitchen to check on the Creole-Soul food favorites this beloved eatery is famous for.

If a restaurant can embody a city’s culinary history, traditions, and heart — as well as its past, present and future — then Li’l Dizzy’s is it.

Arkesha, and her husband Wayne Baquet Jr., are second-generation owners of the restaurant founded by Wayne’s father, Wayne Baquet Sr., in 2004.

The Baquets and Their Long-Standing Culinary Legacy
The family has a long, rich culinary legacy in New Orleans. Before Li’l Dizzy’s, there was Zachary’s on Oak Street, and before that, Eddie’s in the Seventh Ward, run by Wayne Sr.’s father, Eddie Baquet Sr. Eddie learned the business working for his aunt and uncle, Ada Baquet Gross and Paul Gross, at their restaurant, Paul Gross Chicken Coop. The Chicken Coop opened in the mid-1940s and was among the first Black-owned restaurants in the city.

Li’l Dizzy’s is the last of the Baquet family restaurants that’s still in operation today, and Arkesha and Wayne Jr. took it over in February 2021, after Wayne Sr. retired during the pandemic. (Those who are curious will appreciate this tidbit: the café was named after Wayne Sr.’s grandson Zachary, who played the trumpet at St. Augustine High School and was nicknamed Li’l Dizzy after famous trumpeter, Dizzy Gillespie.) Says Arkesha, “It’s a family business where a lot of people like to come with their families.”

Some Things Have Changed, While Others Have Stayed the Same
With Arkesha and Wayne Jr. at the helm, only a few things have changed: the restaurant just serves lunch, the buffet has been removed, and service is now tableside and take-out. Food is served in take-out containers for the ease of both customers and staff.

What hasn’t changed are the recipes. Those have been part of the Baquet family lore for generations. Wayne Sr.’s wife, Janet Jourdain Baquet, created the recipes. A few are by his mother, Myrtle Romano Baquet.

The red and white bean dishes, credited to Janet, are legendary, and the recipes can be found in “The Baquet Family Cookbook”.

The two recipes are the same, except for the beans used, but as Arkesha learned early on, the white beans better be Camellia’s Great Northern beans – and not lima beans.

“People will have a fit,” says Arkesha. “Because, I’m telling you, when we first opened up (post-pandemic), and we started selling white beans, the question almost every customer asked was, ‘What kind of white beans are these?’ They did not want those lima beans.”

Arkesha was asked this question so many times, that she even called Wayne Sr. about it.

“He said, ‘If you give them something else, they’re not going to be happy,’” says Arkesha.

Soaking the Beans and Secret Ingredients
Some additional things that haven’t changed are the way the red and white bean dishes are made — using Camellia Beans — and soaking the beans overnight.

“My mother said that it’s sacrilegious not to soak your beans,” Arkesha says. “I don’t know how you would get away with them being good. That’s what would scare me; are they going to be hard?”

One ingredient that gives the bean dishes a special kick is the notable hot sausage the Baquets make in-house. The hot sausage can also be served alongside the beans, or customers can choose options like smoked sausage or fried chicken.

The red beans are served only on Mondays and usually sell out, while the white beans are served only on Tuesdays, and are just as popular.

Customers can thank head chef John Cannon (who some may know for playing the tuba in the Stooges Brass Band) and lead cook Lawrence Miller: Cannon makes the red beans, and Miller makes the white beans.

Li’l Dizzy’s Third Generation
Li’l Dizzy’s third generation includes Arkesha and Wayne Jr.’s children, Jene and Jace, who can be found helping out on Saturdays. Wayne Jr., who is the president of a wholesale company, is there, as well.

“We’re all here on Saturdays,” says Arkesha.

And they’re dedicated to keeping the Baquet culinary legacy alive.

Li’l Dizzy’s, 1500 Esplanade Ave., lildizzyscafe.net; on Instagram; (504) 766-8687; Mon-Sat. 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Opening During the Pandemic

Opening a restaurant is always a risk, and Allison and Glenn Charles took on an even greater one when opening Nice Guys in June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the duo – natives of New Orleans – had a dream, a plan, and were determined to move forward.

They haven’t looked back.

The restaurant took off, so much so that the Charleses are in the process of expanding Nice Guys into a former Japanese restaurant that was next door and renovating a Canal Street space as a second location.

The Secrets to Their Success

What could be the restaurant’s secrets to success? The Charleses’ savvy business sense: they took a long-empty building on Earhart Boulevard and renovated it into a place that is welcoming and casually chic.

The not-so-secret-secrets are Chef Fred Andrews and the menu, featuring classic yet innovative dishes that New Orleanians know and love. The restaurant’s tagline is “New Orleans food with a twist!”

A great example would be the red beans and rice.

Andrews boils smoked turkey legs in a seafood boil, such as crab, before adding them to Camellia Red Kidney Beans — which he doesn’t soak — during the cooking process.

He then adds the “trinity” — onion, celery, bell pepper — plus garlic, red pepper, salt, pepper, and pickled ham, and a “whole list of secret ingredients,” he says.

Andrews cooks the red beans and rice the day before serving, so the flavors are enhanced overnight.

The restaurant serves red beans and rice on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, and “we always sell out each day,” says Glenn Charles. “People love it, and I think it’s because of the smoked turkey meat that we use.” (And whatever the secret ingredients are!)

An Original Take on Traditional Dishes

What else do the restaurant’s customers love? The menu’s original takes on traditional dishes. Shrimp and grits is now SLG (shrimp, lobster, and grits) and French fries are Earhart Attack Fries – a combination of marinated chicken, hot sausage, smoked sausage, bacon, jalapeños, and seasoned fries topped with crawfish cheese sauce and a fried egg. And then there are chargrilled oyster options, including the Oysters Rockefeller version.

Even snowballs get a special twist with little bottles of alcohol flipped into the icy mixture, while daiquiris get their own enhancements of fruit and more.

Allison Charles points out that the Wednesday special of the seafood hot box features a combination of seafood rice with potatoes, sausage, and corn boiled in crab boil, and is finished with Nice Guys’ garlic butter and the seafood of your choice (though some people like to add turkey legs).

Nice Guys Finish First

It’s no wonder that online reviews for the restaurant are raves and often include kudos to the wait staff.

About their success, Allison Charles says, “We were blessed, really blessed.”

It’s no longer a secret that Nice Guys do finish first.

Nice Guys Nola, 7910 Earhart Blvd. NOLA 70125, (504) 302-2404, https://www.niceguysnola.com/

Keeping New Orleanians Well Fed Since WW II
Leni’s Cafe is like going home, a place where you will find comfort food just like what your mom or grandmother — and let’s not forget dad and grandfather — made.

From a grilled cheese to a cheeseburger, omelet to egg sandwich, and red beans to white beans, this Baronne Street diner’s plate breakfasts and lunches have been keeping New Orleanians well fed since at least World War II.

Since 1978, the Warehouse District restaurant has been owned by Pete Patselikos.

He is, however, not Leni. That would be a previous owner (circa early 1960s), Leni Kampitsis; Leni is short for Eleni, a Greek name, and Greece is the country from which Patselikos hails.

“After the purchase, I continued what she had created,” says Patselikos, talking about the menu, which at its heart is American Greek diner food with New Orleans dishes.

That includes red and white beans.

The Secrets to Leni’s Red Beans
Patselikos claims there is no real secret to his red beans — “cook the red beans, put in the right seasoning” — but as you talk to him more, a few key elements pop out.

“We don’t soak the red beans,” he says, adding that people often soak them because of the quality. That’s not an issue at Leni’s because the restaurant uses Camellia Beans.

“Start by putting the beans in cold water, let them boil,” says Patselikos, “then put in the seasonings including pepper and celery, as well as sausage and ham.”

And don’t forget to add tomato paste to give it some color, Patselikos advises, sharing that butter is also added.

Only on Mondays
This process starts sometime between 5:30 – 6 am, and the red beans are done by 9:30 am, when they are creamy.

“We make them only on Mondays,” says Patselikos.

“Very traditional,” Patselikos’ wife Despina Patselikos says, referring to the New Orleans’ custom of making red beans and rice on Mondays. The origins of the Monday tradition can be traced back about 100 years to when women would simmer the beans on a stove during the day while they did the wash.

Customers can get the red beans and rice as is or with “Whatever you want that’s on the menu … it’s usually with smoked sausage. Some order a pork chop. A lot of people like to have it with fried shrimp,” says Patselikos.

#WhiteBeanWednesday
Then there is Leni’s white beans and rice, only served on Wednesdays. Instead of using Great Northern Beans, the restaurant uses Camellia’s Large Limas.

Why?

“That’s what they were making 45 years ago,” says Patselikos, who says he is continuing the legacy of the previous owners, such as Leni.

Classic & Time-Tested
And for a long time, Greeks have owned the restaurant. Before the current owners, there were Pete G. Michailakis and Gus Michailakis during the late 1960s and 1970s (they were either the same person or related to each other), and prior to that, Leni Kampitsis. A newspaper article from 1941 shows Margaret Wellbat — who may or may not have been Greek — owned the restaurant and that she was fleeced out of $15 by a Robert E. Byrd pretending to be in the army.

During the 1920s, the space was home to Monarch Sheet Metal Works and around World War I, it housed Murray Welding and Metal Works.

Now in 2022, there is no denying that when a customer walks into Leni’s Cafe, they will be served time-tested classic New Orleans dishes — such as red beans or white beans and rice — Leni’s style.

Leni’s Café, 741 Baronne St., 504.523.0069; Hours, Mon.-Fri. 6 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

1905 Alabama diner ad featuring camp stew

Across the Yellowhammer State, cooks of every description have been lighting fires under old kettles and cooking camp stew for well over a hundred years. From the Tennessee Valley in the northern part of the state to the Mobile-Tensaw Delta on the Gulf Coast, camp stew is available nightly in hundreds of households, barbecue shacks, meat and three joints, and of course, hunting camps. The fortunate among us may find the dish in the backwood taverns that dot the rural countryscape across the region. Camp stew is so ingrained in the psychology of Alabama eaters that it made the 100 Dishes To Eat In Alabama Before You Die list published by the Birmingham News, a journal with roots that stretch back to the 19th century.

1912 barbecue stand as for camp stew

What It Is & Where to Find It
Snack bars at fiddler conventions, pro-wrestling matches, National Guard Armories, high school football games, beauty pageants, and Baptist homecomings held across the entirety of the state reliably have big pots of camp stew burbling on the range. If you’re not from Alabama you may ask yourself, what is this dish? It’s the stuff of fever dreams: a potent witch’s brew of all manners of meats, vegetables, and starches including but not limited to common ingredients such as pork, beef, and chicken serving as proteins with tomatoes, onion, and corn filling the role of vegetables. Worcestershire sauce is a crucial component. Wild game like alligator, squirrel, quail, and feral hog may also be found in an adventurous cook’s stew.

A 1913 Alabama newspaper article mentions that Democrats and suffragettes alike enjoy camp stew

Beans: A Must-Have Ingredient
Butter beans, Limas, or Baby Limas are often included, and you may even find Great Northern beans or Pintos depending on what part of the state you’re exploring. “If it ain’t got beans in it, it ain’t camp stew,” is a common refrain heard when discussing the dish. Piscine versions of camp stew may be found as you explore diners and cafés alongside rivers like the Choctawhatchee, Black Warrior, and Escatawpa.

A 1908 recounting of a camp stew feast served to Alabama prisoners

Feeding the Masses in Good Times and Bad
In the early 20th century the penal colonies of the day were not immune to the charms of camp stew. The Montgomery city jail cooked a few large vats of the stuff to feed their prisoners at Thanksgiving time. Montgomery would prove itself to be a critical nexus in the furtherance of the popularity of camp stew as the 20th century gathered steam. Saloon keepers in the heart of the city began using the dish as a powerful magnet to get the drinking men to frequent their establishments. With purchase of a cocktail or cold draft beer, these enterprising business owners would set out a bowl of the stuff with nary a charge. When the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 struck, the good citizens of Alabama swung into motion and launched a camp stew-based charitable festival and sold a thousand tickets to a massive stew party held at the legendary Pickett Springs Resort near Montgomery. All the moneys were remitted to the citizens of San Francisco to assuage their suffering.

A 1931 advertisement seeking the services of a camp stew and barbecue man

A Badge of Honor
No less a luminary than legendary woodsman, author and naturalist Horace Kephart would soon integrate the cooking of camp stew into the regimen of becoming an official Boy Scout. In that halcyon era, a young scout had to demonstrate proficiency in the preparation of camp stew to earn his cooking merit badge. Want to become an Eagle Scout? Fire up that pot of camp stew, and it better taste good. By the time the 1930s came along, a regional derivation of camp stew called Lumberjack-style was being practiced in Jefferson County in the central portion of the state, but the details of what was surely pure deliciousness have been lost to the sands of time.

In 1949 the first canned camp stew made its way to market

A Canned Version, Extra Heavy on the Meat
At mid-century, a canned version of camp stew was being offered in Birmingham grocery stores but the enterprise was not fully formed enough to attach a name brand to the product. That would change as the Reynolds-Holston Canning Company of Troy, Alabama, soon waded into the fray with their own canned version of the food stuff. No strangers to marketing, the ads of the day trumpeted their product as being “extra heavy on meat”, and “100-year-old formula” was often prominently mentioned as well.

1960 ad for an Alabama barbecue stand featuring camp stew

Fundraising for Civil Rights & Putting Restaurants on the Map
As the Civil Rights-era dawned, camp stew played a prominent role in fundraising activities. Black women fanned out across Montgomery County, Alabama, selling fried catfish sandwiches, chicken and dumpling plates, and yes, camp stew. The money was plowed straight back into the movement, and these humble foods helped foment real change across the region. One now-successful restaurateur threw what she called “Heaven and Hell suppers” as she was trying to raise money to get her business going. A fiery camp stew would be served followed by ice cream and pound cake. Martha’s Place is now in its fourth decade and feeds upwards of 500 people daily. Camp Stew helped Martha Hawkins make her dream a reality. Camp stew is writ into the genetic code of Alabamians. The elixir has a thousand mothers and a thousand fathers, each claiming primacy. Truth be told, there is no “one true camp stew”. It’s the one that is currently in front of you that will most likely serve as the best one you ever ate. That is until you visit Aunt Hazel and Uncle Ralph’s cabin near Wetumpka this weekend, when a new ranking will be loudly and enthusiastically affirmed.

A young camp stew cook tending to his kettle in the early 1980s

This post hails from R.L. Reeves, Jr., a Texas photographer and writer who is living and documenting life in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. His recipes and cooking notes can be found on his food and culture blog, scrumptiouschef.com

NOTE: As of 10/2024, Mahoney’s is under new ownership and doesn’t serve red or white bean dishes and the French Quarter location ​is now closed​.

Mahony’s Po-Boys & Seafood’s Casey Levy had just received an urgent text from his staff at the French Quarter location. It wasn’t about the air-conditioning acting up or a delivery that hadn’t shown up yet. Nope – his staff wanted to know how soon he was going to bring the white beans over. White beans and rice — they are periodically on the menu as a special — are a favorite for staff and customers at Mahony’s.

Quality and consistency on the menu
For both the red bean and white bean dishes at Mahony’s, that meant using Camellia Beans.
“The quality and consistency achieved from about a century of maintaining those standards – how could we not want to use a local brand that lives that?” said Levy.

For every white bean there is a season
The white bean specials — Mahony’s uses Camellia Bean’s Great Northern variety — only happen about six months a year, divided somewhat by seasons. During the fall and winter months, that version is “looser, more old school style,” and is served with griddled shrimp with house seasoning that adds sweetness to it. The creamier version usually comes out during Hogs for the Cause, a culinary benefit in late March, and like the festival, is pork-centric.

Red beans: always on the menu
The red beans, which are always on the menu, are also made creamy. For that dish Levy “went to the drawing board … back to basics of what I learned early on in my family’s restaurants …. red beans old school, let the ingredients talk to themselves and figure out how they will handshake together.”

But instead of soaking the beans overnight using cold water, Levy said “we use hot water and add the smoked ham hock right away, with soaking only needed for five hours.”

After that, the smoked ham hock is removed, the beans are rinsed off quickly, then put back into the pot. “The absorbing of the smoky water into the beans gives them a different ‘bite’ when eating the beans. Lets you have that porky goodness without all the heavy oils needed,” said Levy.

Always cook the garlic in bacon fat
“Add your normal trinity, then garlic rendered in bacon fat,” said Levy, “a bay leaf and a little salt and pepper. We don’t add much seasoning at all.” They let the mixture simmer for a bit with the bay leaves and spices, then add in thin-sliced andouille sausage. “This will cook into the beans and give them that ‘lil extra flex,” says Levy.

Near the end of the cooking, when the red beans are creamy, a dab of Tabasco sauce is mixed in, before it is served with popcorn rice, smoked sausage and jalapeno butter cornbread. Some customers opt to have fried chicken with it.

Keeping it old school
“Like with many restaurants in Louisiana, the varying ways that they cook their beans lends to a great sampling of old school and newer flavors that can exist in the ‘kitchen sink’ cooking of the red and white beans world,” says Levy. “I like to think that ours has a taste and ‘feel’ that lets people remember a simpler way of cooking them and create that simmering of memory that made them fall in love with red beans in the first place.”

Mahony’s Po-Boys & Seafood, 3454 Magazine St., (504) 899-3374; 901 Iberville St., (504) 717-2422, mahonyspoboys.com

Where everyone knows your name
Café 615, Home of the Da Wabbit restaurant, with its iconic, vintage Bugs Bunny themed neon sign, began as a drive-in restaurant in 1948. Today it continues to be the place Westbankers (and others in the know) go for great New Orleans food. On a typical Monday, which is red beans and rice day, of course, it’s packed with diners. The waitresses are in nonstop motion and seem to know everyone by their first name. This familial feeling – not to mention the restaurant’s famed red beans – brings the neighborhood here, and that’s how owners Donna and Eric Savoie like it.

A restaurant history in neon
The Savoies bought this Gretna landmark in 2004 and renamed it Café 615, Home of Da Wabbit, keeping a link to its previous owner, “Da Wabbit” Licciardi, who won the building in a card game in 1946. Before Licciardi owned it, the business was a drive-up diner and bar called Kerner’s, which was also known as a place to gamble. Today, this old-school New Orleans tradition and the food keep bringing people back. “That’s how our business has grown – by just word of mouth or just locals,” says Dawn.

A red beans recipe for 300…and counting
When Eric recounts their red beans and rice recipe, he thinks in bulk – he says they serve about 300 portions on Mondays for lunch and dinner. He constructs his dish in steps: “We start with 50 pounds of dry beans. Add around 10 to 12 large bay leaves, then add two cups of liquid smoke and eight large smoked ham hocks. We boil it until the beans are soft, then add four cups of chopped garlic and 35 pounds of smoked sausage cut in quarters. We cook that until the garlic is soft, then add two pounds of non-salted butter. Then let it cook for two to three hours.”

Two pounds of butter – yes indeed!
The butter, he says, makes the mixture creamy. Eric then adds three or four stalks of celery chopped, 15 bell peppers, and 25 large onions, all chopped, which are all cooked down. “You don’t cook it until you can’t see the seasoning, because you still want to see the seasoning. We just cook it until it’s translucent, so it’s soft, but visible, and then we add salt.” The dish is completed with a side of a pork chop or smoked sausage.

Red beans, white beans… but always Camellia Beans
The only beans Eric will use, which also include the Thursday special of white beans and rice, are Camellia Beans. “It’s a family tradition,” said Eric, to use the beans. And it’s one that can’t be messed with. It’s staple and most people that come in are getting the red beans,” Dawn notes. “It’s a New Orleans thing.”

Pork chop or smothered rabbit on the side
For the white beans and rice – which can be ordered with pork chop or smothered rabbit (not the “wascally” kind) – Eric uses a different cooking technique: “We boil navy beans in plain water until they are soft, then we add regular onions, green onions, pickled meat, salt and pepper to taste. We check it until the pickled meat is tender and the beans are soft and creamy. Way easier than the red beans!”

Café 615, Home of Da Wabbit, 615 Kepler St., Gretna, 504-365-1225, cafe615.com

Edgar Chase IV has fond memories of red beans and rice, starting from when he was a small child. “In New Orleans, it is your Monday night meal. It’s also Carnival — going out to enjoy the parades and have some red beans and rice,” explains Chase.

He learned how to make the dish from his grandmother, Leah Chase, also known as the Queen of Creole Cuisine, whose culinary skills brought people from across the globe to Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New Orleans – and made them fans for life. Leah Chase started in the family business after she married Dooky Chase, Jr. in 1946, and her culinary prowess was never short on admirers. The list includes Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush and musicians Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, to name just a few. In fact, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History in Washington, DC celebrates her life and legacy with an exhibit featuring artifacts like her cooking pot, restaurant menu, and one of her iconic bright pink chef’s jackets. And there was even a Disney movie that drew inspiration from her true story: The Princess and the Frog.

Let that bean work!

Edgar Chase IV took over when Chef Leah passed away in 2019, and he’s honored to carry on her legacy. “Growing up, everyone [in the family] worked in the restaurant,” said Chase, who started out washing dishes and busing tables at around 14 years old. Chase added, “I always wanted to hang in the back of the kitchen.” He’d watch his grandmother, then go home and re-create a dish from the restaurant, then bring it in for her to taste. “Her palate was so amazing, she picked up any misstep,” Chase said. “She would say ‘You need more of this … cook longer…’ and whatever she said, it came out better.” Among those dishes was red beans and rice. “We start with the smoked ham shank and smoked sausage, add salt, pepper and thyme and really just cook slowly to let that bean work,” he said, “then we finish with black pepper and vegetable oil to cream them up.”

The beans are going to speak for themselves.

“When you are cooking with Camellia Red Beans,” said Chase, “you are starting with quality. And you don’t have to do too much to red beans and rice to make it shine.” Chase is among those in the kitchen making the dish, including his cousin Cleo Robinson and Mister Bynah — better known as “Mister B” — who are making sure the red beans and rice are ready when the restaurant opens. Robinson is also the cook for the restaurant’s famed fried chicken, which is served with red beans and rice. Other dishes that lure in diners are the shrimp Clemenceau, stewed chicken, crawfish étouffée, Creole gumbo and Leah Chase’s famous gumbo z’herbes, a dish traditionally served for the Catholic observance of Holy Thursday. 

More than the sum of its food.

Leah and Dooky made sure that the restaurant was always more than just a place to eat; it was also a safe community gathering spot during segregation, and as such it played an integral role in the Civil Rights movement. In honor of this history, it was recently placed on the state’s Civil Rights Trail. Dooky Chase’s Restaurant continues to stay its course in the community as a culinary icon, a gathering place,  a way of life – and a celebration of New Orleans.

Written by Sue Strachan

To understand how important the Fiorella family has been to the food culture of New Orleans, just ask the folks who line up early at Fiorella’s Cafe in Gentilly, waiting for the doors to open. They wait for that hot and crunchy, award-winning fried chicken that is perfectly seasoned down to the bone. Some are there for the wide variety of po-boys on the menu. And many are there early on Mondays for first dibs on the hearty, smoky Monday red beans and rice before they sell out.

Family Recipes from a French Quarter Restaurant

Owners Kelly and Calcie Fiorella are carrying on a family tradition, with family recipes, based on the original Fiorella’s Restaurant on Decatur Street in the New Orleans French Quarter, which was operated by their dad, CJ Fiorella, until he closed it 1999. As that restaurant’s origin story goes, CJ was a New Orleans grocer of Sicilian descent who just wanted a good cup of coffee. Every day CJ would make his way to the French Market to buy fresh produce. After taking care of business, he would stop in the Market Place Restaurant and purchase a coffee. One day in 1984, the restaurant’s owner, Anthony Bianca, who knew CJ and his family and their love of cooking, approached him and offered to sell him the restaurant. It took a bit of pushing from a friend, but CJ finally accepted, and Fiorella’s was born.
CJ renamed it Fiorella’s Cafe and brought a large amount of the family’s own recipes to the restaurant. Not completely satisfied with the menu, he began to walk around the French Quarter and look at the different menus to see what others were doing. Since this was a family style neighborhood spot, he wanted to make sure he offered red beans and rice on Mondays, served butter beans another day, and stayed true to a typical New Orleans menu – but with a Fiorella spin.
“When my brother and I decided to reopen the family restaurant here in Gentilly, I said to him, I’m the one doing all of the cooking,” said Kelly Fiorella. He was not only excited to be back in the kitchen but also to bring back the original family recipes, including the famous fried chicken (they go through about 80 to 100 pounds of it per day).

How do you red bean, Fiorella’s?

Fiorellas Cafe in Gentilly on June 14, 2021.

One plate you will only find on Monday is red beans and rice – a recipe that was handed down from Kelly’s grandmother. “It was a tradition, and it was always with Camellia beans,” he said. “There were always little bags of Camellia beans in the pantry,” he said. “She also had stacks of Camellia white beans, red beans, navy and black-eyed peas. I can remember always seeing that little Camellia logo.”
On a typical Monday, Fiorella’s goes through about 10 to 12 pounds of Camellia red beans, according to Kelly. It’s all made fresh Monday morning and usually sells out by mid-afternoon. And when it’s gone for the day, it’s gone. Fiorella’s red beans recipe is a hearty one. You will find the hint of bacon with the onions, bell peppers, and garlic. They add ham, pork shoulder, and andouille sausage. The key to a good pot of beans, Kelly says, is to cook them low and slow.

Fiorella’s Weekday Specials – A Schedule to Live By

Kelly also uses Camellia’s large lima beans for the Thursday special of butter beans and rice. “I love the butter beans,” he said. “They’ve got so much flavor to them.” Other weekday specials include meatloaf on Tuesdays, Italian sausage and shells on Wednesday, and shrimp Creole on Fridays. The menu also includes favorite family classics like meatballs and spaghetti, veal parmesan, hamburger steak, fried seafood, a variety of po-boys, and of course, the fried chicken. In both 2016 and 2017, Kelly and Calcie earned the “best fried chicken” award at the National Fried Chicken Festival.

“It’s all family recipes,” said Kelly. “The red beans is a family recipe handed down.”

Fiorellas Cafe in Gentilly on June 14, 2021.

Kelly’s love of cooking was sparked early on, when visiting his grandmother. “Every time you walked into that woman’s house, it smelled like she was cooking a pot of red gravy or something,” he said. “That’s my grandmother’s meatballs that we use with the spaghetti. She taught us her recipes.”
The history of those who came before him is important to Kelly. Black and white photographs of relatives decorate the walls and serve as reminders of the legacy he wants to continue and build upon. The building itself has historical importance, too. The Fiorellas have had a longtime friendship with the Bologna family that formerly operated Teddy’s Grill at this location. To pay homage to that friendship and what the restaurant meant to the Gentilly neighborhood, two black plastic bull heads from Teddy’s Grill watch over the dining room. “We always just wanted to stay true to what is tradition in New Orleans,” Kelly added.

Written by Eric Olsson

Unfortunately, due to losses from Hurricane Ida in 2021, Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine is now officially closed after serving soul food to generations of New Orleanians.

Since Celestine Dunbar was a child, Camellia beans have been a part of her life in one way or another. “I can see my mother right now using one of those little packs of Camellia beans,” said Dunbar. “I can’t remember her ever not using them. They were just a part of our family.”

Cooking for her family is how Dunbar gained the confidence to open Dunbar’s Creole Cooking on Freret Street in 1986. “There were seven children, and it was their job to get up in the morning and make breakfast for the family. Then, they would turn around and start making lunch. I helped out and cooked a lot.” 

In the beginning, Dunbar’s offered deli sandwiches in keeping with the deli business she’d taken over at that location, but eventually she began to cook hot meals at her house and bring them in to sell. Many of the recipes were ones that her parents and grandmother taught her to make. Each day she would bring in a different special. Monday was red beans and rice. Tuesday was cabbage and barbecue chicken. Wednesday was meatballs and spaghetti. Many of these specials are still served to this day, and all of them are the same family recipes.

Celestine Dunbar never stopped cooking

For almost 20 years, Dunbar’s Creole Cooking was a fixture on Freret Street, but that all ended in 2005 after she lost the restaurant to the floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina and the fight with insurance companies that followed. To keep the Dunbar’s name out there, she went back to her roots of cooking in her own home kitchen and selling the food elsewhere. Her first stop was the food court at the Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans. After five years of serving students Uptown, she went on to deliver hot pre-plated meals to the workers on lunch at the Chalmette refinery.

This allowed Dunbar time to save up and purchase a new location, and she found that location in 2017 at 7834 Earhart Boulevard in New Orleans. Though the name of the restaurant changed to Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine, everything else stayed the same when they moved into the bigger location. Longtime friend and chef, Frank Jones, rejoined her as head of the kitchen. “He knows all of the recipes,” Dunbar said about Jones, who has been with her for over 30 years. “Frank does it all.”

“All they want is Camellia beans” 

As lunchtime hits, locals come out for the red beans and rice. “We sell them every day,” Dunbar said. “They’ll buy the red beans and rice before they’ll buy anything else.” She admits that over 60% of sales are for the red beans with fried chicken. On most days they go through about 12 pounds of Camellia red beans and up to 25 pounds a day during Carnival season leading up to Mardi Gras.

The recipe for the beans has been the same since the beginning. “We start with the trinity (white onions, green bell pepper, and celery) along with a lot of water,” Dunbar stated. “Then, you boil the trinity with garlic, green onions, granulated garlic, and a little parsley until the vegetables have become soft. You add your meat and seasoning (a special blend of black pepper and cayenne pepper) when the beans are about 90% done. This gives it it’s flavor.”

There are two tricks she offers for making the beans nice and creamy. The first trick is to add vegetable oil in the beginning. Dunbar says that by doing this, it will not only prevent the beans from boiling over and ruining the seasonings but will also help make the beans creamy. The other trick, or secret she learned from her mother all those years before, is to use Camellia brand red beans. “Camellia brand beans are just the best red beans there is. They are pink, fresh, and you just always get a beautiful red bean.”

Giving back to the community

Like many restaurants throughout New Orleans, Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine worked with the Chef’s Brigade NOLA, a united coalition of restaurants and chefs working together to offer food to those in need during the COVID pandemic, including front line responders, and healthcare workers. Dunbar said that they use Camellia brand lima beans and serve them with baked chicken seasoned with the “Louisiana Trinity” over a bed of white rice. The Chef’s Brigade produced up to 60,000 meals a day, utilizing independent restaurants throughout Orleans Parish to feed at-risk residents and neighbors throughout New Orleans.

Dunbar is happy that the restaurant can do its part in giving back to the community. She understands that the people of New Orleans have been an integral part in the continued success of her restaurant and rallied behind her to keep Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine going. Though there have been many ups and downs and stressful days, she always looks forward to what is to come – and there are exciting new plans. And through it all, she says that one thing will be certain, “people will come from all over the world and ask for those Camellia red beans and rice with fried chicken.”

Unfortunately, due to losses from Hurricane Ida in 2021, Dunbar’s Creole Cuisine is now officially closed after serving soul food to generations of New Orleanians.

Written by Eric Olsson

If the walls could talk.

Pimm’s Cups, intrigue, first dates, proposals of varying sorts, assignations, Creole flavors and a place to rest after a long day in the French Quarter — Napoleon House hasn’t changed much since 1914 when this famed bar and restaurant was opened by the Impastato family.

But if the walls could talk, Napoleon House would start telling tales from an earlier time when the building was owned by Nicolas Girod. Nicolas was a businessman, mayor of New Orleans from 1812 to 1815, and a dreamer and schemer. Soon after inheriting the building in 1814, he began to alter it, creating the three-story building that we see today. Legend says the work was done in preparation for the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose supporters — rumored to include local pirates Jean Lafitte and Dominique You — were planning to help him escape from exile in Saint Helena and come to New Orleans.

Napoleon died before this alleged escape plan came to fruition, but his portraits still preside over the Napoleon House on the faded plaster walls, and the stern bust of his countenance surveys the dreamily illuminated bar and restaurant where cocktails and classic New Orleans cuisine rule the day and night.

Red Beans on Monday

In 2015, executive Chef Chris Montero of the Ralph Brennan restaurant group took the helm at Napoleon House, where he is also the general manager. Montero, who’s from an 8th-generation New Orleans family and well-versed in classic Creole cuisine, kept many of the original Impastato family recipes, merely tweaking them with artisan-made ingredients. At the top of that list of was Monday red beans and rice.

Montero grew up sampling different red beans and rice styles: his grandmother preferred ham hock, pickled pork, and a spicy smoked sausage; his mother rendered pork and sausage. For his own version of red beans, Montero harkens back to his grandmother’s classic Creole cooking. “I make it with chicken stock,“ he said.

Sausage that tastes good and does good.

One of the two sausages Montero uses in Napoleon House red beans is a Creole smoked sausage that has a local — and philanthropic — origin. As part of “Silence of da Hams,” a team that competes in Hogs for the Cause (a barbecue competition held in New Orleans that’s an annual benefit for pediatric brain cancer), Montero helped develop the sausage. It’s also available in grocery stores, and a portion of its sales goes to Hogs.

Camellia in the (Napoleon) House

Montero also uses Camellia Brand beans. As he put it, “To me this is the only brand people buy.” Montero leaves the important job of preparing the dish at Napoleon House to Josh Bierria, the restaurant’s production chef. A “behind-the-scenes” person, Bierria is an essential part of the team, said Montero. “Josh’s Camellia red beans and rice have become a big item on Goldbelly.com” said Montero, adding, “Two weeks ago we shipped 200 cases of red beans and rice in a day, all over the U.S.” Would Napoleon have liked red beans and rice? Montero contemplates for a moment and answers, “Why, not?!”

Written by Sue Strachan

Forty-five years ago, Leo Christakis decided to purchase Mena’s Palace in the French Quarter as a way to move back to Greece. When he learned that the restaurant was for sale, he told his brother, Leo, “Let’s buy it, make some money to save up, and move back to Greece.” His brother agreed. But as the years went on and the business continued to thrive, Christakis and his family began to build relationships and friendships with those who lived around the restaurant. “In my culture,” he said, “you go to a friend’s house, and they ask you what do you want to eat? What do you want to drink? Then, we sit around and talk, and drink, and eat. That is how we do it here, that is how we take care of our customers.”

“He refuses to buy any other brand than Camellia.”

“It’s all he’s ever cooked with,” said Leo’s daughter and restaurant co-owner Ellie Christakis, referring to her dad. “One time, an order came in for lima beans. Our supplier had sent a different brand and we had used them because we had to make some lima beans. He tasted it. ‘No. These aren’t Camellia,’ he said. ‘Don’t order anything but Camellia.’ And we definitely learned our lesson. The color was different. The taste was different. It’s amazing what a difference Camellia makes.”

Start with the trinity.

At Mena’s they start their red beans with the trinity (onions, bell peppers and celery). They sauté it down and add smoked sausage as the seasoning meat. Once the red beans are added, they cook them for a long time to get to that creamy texture and serve them with fried chicken or smoked sausage on the side. Ellie Christakis explained that the family uses Camellia products at home, too. She makes the Greek soup ‘Fakes’ with Camellia lentils. The soup (pronounced ‘Fah-kehs’) is traditionally made with lentils, water, red onions, garlic, bay leaves and a tomato puree (if you want it reddened) and served with an added drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and lots of vinegar. “There’s another one called a ‘Fasolada’ and it uses a Great Northern Bean. And we only use Camellia,” Ellie Christakis said of the soup that many consider to be one of the national dishes of Greece.

Here for the community.

One thing that has been certain about Mena’s Palace and the Christakis family is that they have always put the needs of the neighborhood first. Whether it was coming back from Hurricane Katrina or riding out the pandemic, their top priorities have always been to treat everyone like family, keep prices low, serve big portions of high-quality food, and remain consistent. “We appreciate our customers and the relationships and friendships we have with them,” Ellie Christakis said. “New Orleans is such a nice city, especially in the French Quarter. There are so many good people. A lot of warmth and love.”

New Orleans is home.

“I wanted to move back to Greece, but never did,” said Leo Christakis reflecting on his decision to stay in New Orleans and continue operating Mena’s Palace with his family. “You get to understand the people, and I loved that. I wanted to see the customers happy and the rest took care of itself. I am 77. I’m still working, and I still like it.”

Written by Eric Olsson

Etta Sullivan, Lily Taylor, and my grandma Nellie Sullivan. Photo courtesy of R.L. Reeves, Jr.

This post hails from R.L. Reeves, Jr., a Texas photographer and writer who is living and documenting life in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. His recipes and cooking notes can be found on his food and culture blog, scrumptiouschef.com

“Boy you’re not gonna amount to a hill of beans.”

That was my grandma Nellie Sullivan’s standard exclamation anytime I did something that got her ire up.

That was about as strong a ‘talking to’ as I ever received, but in the Cumberland Highlands of Eastern Kentucky that was plenty stout enough.

In the early part of the 20th century a hill of pinto beans had such little worth the good mountain people of the region quit growing them.

It was cheaper and less taxing on the granny women who tended the gardens to just saddle up one of the family’s mules and ride down to Bargo’s General Store and buy a big sack for a few pennies.

That’s how the invective “…hill of beans” came to be.

I’ve lived all over the southern region of the United States and have never found bean-loving cultures as strong as the ones in Eastern Kentucky and Louisiana, specifically New Orleans.

Let’s discuss:

Ham hock vs Creole or hot sausage.

The standard protein for a bowl of Appalachian pinto beans is a giant ham hock with plenty meat attached. You lower it into the broth along with the dry beans and magic occurs over the next two hours as the beans turn tender and the silky ham meat falls off the bone.

Here in New Orleans we do the same thing but with the addition of Creole or ‘hot’ sausage serving as a meaty garnish that straddles a bowl of Camellia kidney beans.

There is a deep love in this part of Louisiana for ‘pickle meat,’ a hold-over from the pre-refrigeration era in Louisiana. If your family had a surfeit of fresh hog meat they had to figure out a way to preserve it to last them through the winter. Pickling that fresh meat ensured that they would have plenty protein to last them throughout the year without the luxury of a big Frigidaire in their kitchen.

That pickled pork meat was and is a standard part of the red beans kettle.

When I was a little kid, hog killing time was marked by the first frost. That’s when the pigs kept in my grandpa Big Jim Sullivan’s pen knew the end of their days had come. Pickling was my grandma’s forte and was reserved for vegetables. Big Jim had a smokehouse in the backyard with 50-pound bags of saltpetre at the ready. The fresh meat was covered with a blend of that sodium nitrate along with regular salt and that combination cured and preserved the meat to great effect.

Hickory smoked, cured ham hocks were part and parcel of every pot of pinto soup beans that my grandma ever made.

Corn bread vs French bread.

I still remember the look of disdain I received from a New Orleans waitress when I asked after cornbread on a vacation here back in the 80s. “We don’t serve that dawlin” she flatly stated. My mind raced. How was I supposed to soak up the likker in the bottom of my bowl? A foot-long loaf of French bread quickly arrived to table, and it was fine but not in the same league as a pone of hot cornbread garnished with a hunk of cow’s butter. If you opened a diner in Eastern Kentucky and did not serve cornbread you’d go belly up within a month. If you tried the same thing in New Orleans sans French bread you’d shutter just as quick.

Any day of the week vs Monday.

Across the Appalachian mountains of Eastern Kentucky folks hit the kitchen on a nightly basis to cook up a kettle of pinto beans. There is not a traditional “bean day.” Here in New Orleans we do things a little different. Monday is the day that cooks across the city fire up the bean pot to feed family and friends. Restaurants here further the tradition by putting sandwich boards on the sidewalk in front of their establishment with quaint artwork trumpeting the kitchen’s bean output for the day.

Fried potatoes vs rice.

Every pinto bean cook in Kentucky has their own particular way they fry their potatoes as a standard side for their beans. My daddy would cut Irish potatoes into crude batons and slowly cook them in rendered hog lard with plenty yellow onion til the potatoes were crisp and the onions were tawny brown and fully caramelized. You’d then take the potatoes and put them in the bowl with the beans and make a heavenly mash.

In New Orleans we simply boil up a pot of good rice, put the rice into the bottom of the bowl and pour the beans over the top. If you’re really feeling enterprising you may also toss a cube of bouillon in the rice kettle.

Piccalilli vs hot sauce.

That rich pot of beans you’ve been simmering on your stovetop all day needs an acidic counterpoint to give it a little jolt. In Kentucky that call is answered by piccalilli, a lightly-fermented jar-bound melange of vegetables that have been treated with vinegar and allowed to mature in a dark cupboard. In New Orleans we crack open a bottle of Crystal or Tabasco hot sauce and douse the beans with the liquid fire.

Chile spice is foreign to the Kentucky tongue, where people will talk of how a bell pepper “lit them up.” Down here on the bayous we love our hot peppers, and are always figuring out ways to get a little extra heat in our dishes.

I’m left to wonder who has the stronger bean culture, Kentucky or Louisiana?

Neither. This is not a zero sum game. Each place has a clutch of dedicated eaters and cooks who pour their heart into their bean kettles. I’ve been fortunate to call both states home and you won’t find a place on earth with more welcoming people – and you can’t beat the cooks or the food cultures of either.

As you walk up to, the aroma of fried chicken fills the air. People from all over the world line up and wait, sometimes hours, to enter Willie Mae’s Scotch House, a small two-room restaurant in the historic Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. They’re attracted by not only the aroma of perfectly fried chicken, but also by the accolades from the Food Network, the Travel Channel and the James Beard Foundation, which declared it an “American Classic Restaurant” for carrying on the traditions of great regional cuisine.

At one time, Willie Mae’s was just a corner spot that was only known within the neighborhood. It started out as a bar in 1957, then after moving to its current location, a beauty salon was added in the front because Willie Mae Seaton always wanted to be a beautician. She began to cook in the small kitchen behind the bar to feed the customers and soon after, they were telling her that she needed to open her own restaurant. In the early 1970s, the beauty shop was closed to make room for those who were coming in to eat the smothered veal, pork chops and that crispy, spicy fried chicken.

As word got around, the dining room, which seems more someone’s house than an actual restaurant, began to fill up. In May of 2005, the award from the James Beard Foundation put the old scotch house on the radar of every food critic, journalist, and tourist from around the country, and the lines stretched longer. But just months later, the restaurant was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed it.

After almost three years of rebuilding, with the help of countless volunteers and family members, Willie Mae’s Scotch House reopened to great acclaim. Willie Mae stepped aside and her great-granddaughter, Kerry Seaton-Stewart, carries on the tradition of the famed family-owned restaurant. The national praise of their fried chicken took off.

“Then of course there’s the trinity – celery, bell peppers and onions.”

Kerry Seaton-Stewart grew up in the kitchen with her great-grandmother and grandmother. “She had me in the kitchen with her my whole life,” Seaton-Stewart said, who began working at Willie Mae’s as a teenager. “She would require that I cooked all of these cultural meals. All the traditional meals. At school, they would fix red beans for lunches and I would just play with it because they were not my grandmother’s beans. I was always comparing and measuring the standard of red beans.”

But Seaton-Stewart knew that adapting to changing times was important to keep the restaurant moving forward. She noticed that those who lived outside of the southern region were not accustomed to eating lots of pork and fatty meats like they used in the pot of red beans or butter beans. “I felt the vegan wave coming on and I just wanted to be ahead of it and be inclusive,” she said. “That way, if people came in and they weren’t all pork eaters they can still eat it. I’ve been making them vegan for 14 years now.”

By switching the red beans and butter beans, which are large lima beans, to vegan, she felt that the actual flavor of the two dishes were lifted. One of the enhancements she found while doing taste tests with family and friends, was to include extra bay leaves. “Bay leaves are a must,” she said. “Then of course the trinity – celery, bell peppers and onions – and then some garlic.”  But the not-so-secret ingredient is in the red beans themselves.

“We use Camellia because it’s just a better grade of beans.”

Seaton-Stewart said that you can tell that the quality of Camellia beans is better than any other brands simply by the way they are farmed and cultivated.” You don’t have all the rocks in there and broken beans,” she said. “Camellia is high quality and they just cream better so you know when you cook them it’s going to make a good bean sauce. No other beans are going to be creamy like that.”

Expanding the tradition

Willie Mae’s Scotch House has been as popular as ever. After 60 years at the corners of St. Ann and Tonti in the Treme neighborhood, Seaton-Stewart expanded into the Central Business District food hall, Pythian Market, in 2019, with a condensed version of the restaurant. The new location still features the same iconic fried chicken and red beans and rice and will help meet the supply and demand to the loyal longtime following of locals and tourists to keep the legacy going.

“Red Beans tells the story of the culture of New Orleans,” Seaton-Stewart said. “It means home to me. It makes me think of my family because we have so many good times and great memories eating a pot of red beans.”

Written by Eric Olsson

In the middle of the ever-changing Bywater neighborhood in New Orleans, there is an unassuming yellow store front at the corners of Dauphine and Piety streets. Take one step inside the small grocery store and it’s like you are stepping back in time to the early 1970s.

The building that houses Frady’s One Stop has been around for more than a hundred years. Before Joseph Frady bought the going-out-of-business Flick’s Meat Market in 1972, it was an open-air fruit stand. Frady bought the meat market with two goals in mind: to turn it into a corner grocery store and to serve the best cold drinks and sandwiches. 

After Frady’s One Stop opened and word spread around the neighborhood about the food, locals began to ask for more than just sandwiches. To accommodate the customers, Frady had a small kitchen installed behind the counter with deep fryers and a stove and began to serve hot lunches and daily specials. Year after year, the list of po-boy sandwiches and daily specials could be found scrawled across the black chalkboards that decorate the interior.

A red beans tradition.

“Right away my father started to serve red beans and rice on Mondays because they were coming in and asking for it,” said Kirk Frady, who now runs the food store. “My dad was born and raised in New Orleans and grew up like that with my grandmother. Monday was wash day, and red beans and rice. People came into Frady’s and expected that.”

You’ll not only find packages of Camellia Beans being offered for sale on the grocery store shelf, but it’s also a Monday ‘lunch special’ that is served to-go with either smoked sausage or chicken, a vegetable (such as mustard or collard greens) and a dessert (bread pudding or a cobbler) for a price that has had loyal locals and in-the-know tourists coming back for decades.

“I don’t know where the recipe came from.”

“We usually cook four to five pounds of Camellia Red Beans every Monday,” Kirk Frady said. “I don’t know where the recipe came from. My dad hired a cook, an older lady, and she lived next door. She would soak the beans overnight, then she would come in and cook them. And it’s still the recipe we’re using today.”

To make the beans extra creamy, Kirk Frady says to use lots of butter along with mashing the beans in the end. To get that extra depth of flavor, besides onions, bell pepper, and garlic, he recommends using lots of celery. “We’re big on celery,” he said.

“We’ve always used Camellia. They have always been here and are established in New Orleans.”

Frady’s One Stop has established itself as a mainstay in an old neighborhood that is rapidly evolving around it. Away from the colorful residential streets that are lined with rows and rows of double shotgun houses and Creole cottages, the industrial spaces are being reclaimed and transformed as artists and musicians move in. Bed and breakfasts are sprouting up to meet the demand of tourists visiting this quirky, laid-back part of New Orleans.

“It’s a working-class neighborhood. We get a lot of carpenters and electricians, who are working on these old houses, come in to eat with us because it is an easy meal,” Kirk Frady said, “but with the Bywater being such a destination now, we’re selling a lot more groceries, like beans and hot sauces in little gift baskets because they want to take them back to where they are staying or send them back home. Even though they did not grow up with wash day and soaking beans, they know the drill and they want to take Camellia red beans and a Barq’s with them.”

“No Wifi at Frady’s. Sit and talk.”

At its core, Frady’s One Stop is still an old-world type of neighborhood grocery store, but deep down it’s one of the best spots to grab a bite to eat in New Orleans. While a small portion of the menu changes daily, the list of the sixteen po-boys offered along with the selection of breakfast that is served all day remains a fixture, just like the sign that reads “No Wifi at Frady’s. Sit and Talk.” So take your red beans and rice to go, sit outside on one of the colorfully painted benches, enjoy the charming neighborhood and know that no matter how much the area changes around you, the folks at Frady’s know what it means to be New Orleanians.

Written by Eric Olsson

Abita Springs is a quaint village deep in the piney woods of the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about 45 minutes from New Orleans. Once a spa town where New Orleanians came to escape the summer heat and swim in the many local springs, it retains not only its 19th-century architectural charm but also its old-timey general store, right in the town’s CBB (central business block). With an emphasis on local tradition, Artigue’s Abita Market is a family business that serves the little community’s loyal residents, many of whom live in historic Victorian cottages close enough to walk to the store. Customers also include cyclists passing by on the nearby Tammany Trace bike path and day-trippers from New Orleans who come to check out the town’s attractions, including the quirky UCM Museum and the local Abita Beer microbrewery. 

A Small Town with Big Flavor

In addition to the grocery essentials required in any small Louisiana town, like Cajun spices, T-Rey’s local andouille sausage, spicy boiled peanuts and plenty of red beans, lima beans and blackeye peas, Artigue’s also offers a fresh daily specials menu, brought to life by chef Trey Herty. The menu features a rotation of classic Louisiana hot plates and po-boys plus local family recipes like Mom’s Red Beans and Rice with Pickled Meat, T-Rey’s Smoked Boudin, Louisiana Catfish Meuniere and Artigue’s famous Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo. And not to be missed are the side dishes, from tasty Boudin Balls with Pepper Jelly Dipping Sauce to Stewed Green Baby Limas, Baked Yams and Collard Greens.

Artigue’s Red Bean Secrets Revealed

The menu at Artigue’s evolves along with the seasonal produce that’s locally available, while also staying true to New Orleans traditions such as Red Beans and Rice on Mondays. Sometimes the menu is more Cajun and other times it’s more Creole, but at Artigue’s it’s always Louisiana. So how does Artigue’s do red beans? Chef Trey essentially follows his mom’s recipe and adds in a few “chef hacks” along the way. (His mom, Reba, makes the best red beans he’s ever had.) For seasoning meat he uses products he developed – T-Rey’s Specialty Meats Smoked Sausage and Pickled Meat – which customers can also buy in the store. Chef Trey always browns the sausage in a separate pan and deglazes the pan with vegetables to impart a rich umami flavor to his red beans, and he keeps the spice lineup simple and classic: salt, black pepper and cayenne, with garlic added at several different stages of the cooking process and a couple of dashes of Louisiana Hot Sauce when serving. Can’t get much more Louisiana than that!

Never mind moonshine – it’s potlikker that traditionally fueled the South, from the mountains of Appalachia to the tumbleweeds of Texas. Potlikker is the rich liquid left over in the pot after a long, slow simmering of greens (like collards, turnips or mustards) when seasoned with a bit of salty meat (like ham hock, smoked turkey wings or slab bacon). This leftover cooking liquid might seem like something to discard for those not in-the-know, but as it turns out, potlikker is divine, providing such a transcendent experience when soaked up by cornbread (or even sipped on its own) that you’ll quickly learn to savor it down to the last drop.

The original nutritious green drink?

Potlikker originated as a staple in the African American cuisine of the American South – a culinary tradition known worldwide as Soul Food. This nutrient-dense liquid was – and still is – used as a base for soups and other dishes. Simmering greens such as in this Potlikker and Blackeye Pea recipe for such a long time causes nutritive goodies like vitamin K, vitamin C, vitamin A, iron and a host of minerals to leach out into the cooking water, creating the kind of nurturing drink that should probably be bottled and marketed as a wellness elixir! And when the greens are simmered down with a few beans or field peas, it only adds to the flavor and the nutritive value.

The Great Potlikker and Cornpone Debate

But potlikker’s influence doesn’t just stop at the dinner table—oh, no. It’s played an outsized role in provoking strong feelings in Southern art, literature and politics over the years, creating plenty of interstate rivalries and public outcry over how best to eat the dish. Perhaps most notable is a 1931 squaring off between Atlanta Constitution editor Julian Harris and Louisiana Governor Huey Long. Harris crumbled his cornbread into the potlikker to eat with a spoon, while Long did the far less “fashionable” thing by dunking his handheld cornbread hunk into the juices. The entire South was thrown into a tizzy, but Long eventually got the last word on potlikker: In 1935, he included an explanation of all its merits as part of a long-winded filibuster on the U.S. Senate floor.

Bean Liquor vs. Potlikker

Similar to the debate over whether “real chili” contains beans or not, Southerners differ in their ideas of how to spell the word “potlikker” and what goes in it. While it’s well established that the broth from cooking beans is called “bean liquor” or “liquor” and that the word “potlikker” refers to the liquid from cooking greens, there are plenty of folks who throw field peas or beans in with their greens and still call the leftover liquid potlikker. Either way, home cooks and chefs alike are finding delicious new uses for potlikker these days, from cocktails (potlikker martini, anyone?), to potlikker vinaigrette for salads, to outside-the-box potlikker breakfast stews. And when beans and greens get together with plenty of potlikker? That’s the kind of second-and-third helping dish that’s warming down to the bones. In any case, don’t forget the cornbread!

Written by Sarah Baird, a writer and editor based in New Orleans. An award-winning former restaurant critic for the city’s alt-weekly and seasoned tippling enthusiast, her work appears regularly in print and online for Lucky Peach, Food52, AFAR, Pacific Standard, Saveur, The Atlantic, Eater, The Village Voice, PUNCH, The Guardian, GOOD, Liquor.com and beyond. 

At the base of many Cajun and Creole favorites is a simple foundation of gently sautéed vegetables. In fact, it’s step one in rustic, family-style recipes for gumbo, étouffée, jambalaya, and of course, red beans and rice.

The three essential vegetables in this foundation are onions, celery and green bell pepper, and because Louisiana is predominantly Catholic, the Holy Trinity, or the Trinity for short, took hold as its moniker. In fact, Chef Paul Prudhomme was the celebrity chef who popularized not only Cajun cuisine, but the use of the Trinity as well. Now, from home cooks to chefs, everyone agrees that deliciousness flows from this universal starter, providing a savory base for other ingredients to build upon.

The ratio is traditionally three parts onions to two parts celery to one part bell pepper, but some prefer equal amounts of each, and others take a shortcut by using a container of pre-chopped Trinity readily available in grocery stores. For those who cook red beans religiously every week, chopping the Trinity and sautéing it in butter, oil, or fat leftover from browning sausage or seasoning meat, creates an aroma and basis that practically ensures red bean success.

The heat from sautéing breaks down the flavorful vegetables, releasing their trapped liquids onto the hot surface of the skillet or dutch oven. An intense flavor develops as the water evaporates, leaving behind residual sugars that caramelize the vegetables until a desirable richness is achieved. Similar to the idea behind French mirepoix and Spanish & Latin American sofrito, the Holy Trinity supports and improves the dishes it’s used in, and red beans and rice is no exception.

Photo courtesy of Philip M. Denman

Clarence “Buster” Holmes: “I’m Not a Chef. I’m a Cook.”

If you are a New Orleanian of a certain age, you might have heard of Buster Holmes’ restaurant and bar, which opened at its Burgundy Street location in the French Quarter in 1960, during the Civil Rights era. It was a unique and important communal dining spot for people of all races, classes, and origins – a place where wealthy businessmen and lawyers, university professors and jazz musicians sat cheek to jowl with college kids, dock workers, cabbies and hotel chambermaids, all united in hunger for Holmes’ renowned home cooking. (In 1960, you could get a big plate of red beans at Buster’s for 16 cents!) Modest to a fault and friendly to everyone, Buster refused to call himself a chef, priding himself on serving everyday home-cooking that happened to be about the best there was anywhere.

King of Red Beans

Hailed as the undisputed “King of Red Beans,” the Plaquemines Parish native downplayed the unique nature of his signature dish. “My red beans are really nothing different,” he said in 1981. “But they are cooked right. I put in all the seasonings – onions, garlic, bell pepper – at once and let the whole thing cook down. In terms of spice, Buster wielded a light touch, preferring to let his diners season their beans to their own tastes.

Jazz Was Always on the Menu

Holmes’ restaurant was an informal clubhouse for musicians and served as a magnet for second-line parades and jam sessions and as a place to hustle gigs and relax after performances. Regulars included jazz legends such as Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, George “Kid Sheik” Cola, Alcide “Slow Drag” Pavageau, Matthew “Fats” Houston and Harold Dejan, to mention just a few. In 1970, Buster sold his red beans from a truck at the very first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, prompting a New York Times review of his restaurant that set mouths watering worldwide for a taste of Holmes’ soulful cooking. After that, you were likely to run into tourists and celebrities at Buster’s place, too, including Woody Allen, Vincent Price and too many rock ‘n rollers to count. 

Returning the Favor

Holmes also made room for the poor and homeless of all ages, often giving away food or selling it at cut-rate prices. “ ’Course I feed ’em when they come in here and tell me they’re hungry,” Holmes told The Times-Picayune in 1979. “God’s been good to me, and I’m just returnin’ the favor.” As musician, author and journalist Tom Sancton, author of the memoir Song for My Fathers, recalled, “Buster was someone that welcomed everyone. He brought together people of all walks of life … through music and food.”

See Buster’s Famous Red Beans and Rice Recipe

Keeping it Old School

Red beans weren’t the only home-cooking on Buster’s menu. He served garlic chicken, pork backbone with turnips, shrimp creole, trout amandine, crab soup, oyster stew, shrimp & okra gumbo and many more classic New Orleans dishes – most of which can be found in the iconic Buster Holmes Restaurant Cookbook, first published in 1980 and featuring a forward by New Orleans food writer and historian Poppy Tooker.

Holmes’ family was from the country, and he grew up hunting and cooking wild game (they’d been driven from their home in the swampy town of Ironton to New Orleans, displaced by the infamous 1927 Mississippi River flood), and his country roots are well represented in his cookbook, which features recipes for possum, dove, raccoon baked with sweet potatoes, broiled squirrel, nutria sauce piquante and garfish balls. Buster Holmes passed away in 1994 – on a Monday, the traditional day to serve red beans and rice – but he lives on in the red beans lore of New Orleans.

The King of Red Beans in the Red Bean Hall of Fame

Buster Holmes also has a place of honor in the Camellia Red Bean Hall of Fame exhibit at New Orleans’ own Southern Food & Beverage Museum.

Preserving Farm Heritage in Louisiana

For nearly four decades, Coykendall’s passion has been preserving the farm heritage — the seeds and stories — of a small, farming community in Louisiana. A Tennessee native, the 74-year-old horticultural genius is a true Renaissance man and a celebrity in a growing movement that places a premium on farm-to-table cuisine and locally sourced, organic, heirloom food and flavor.

Master Gardener & Seed Saver

Coykendall is a classically trained artist, who studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and for 20 years, he has been the Master Gardner at Blackberry Farm, one of America’s most celebrated destination resorts. In his role at Blackberry Farm, Coykendall cultivates the property’s seven acres of farm land that supply the resort’s award winning restaurants with fresh from the ground, heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables. His work also takes him around the world, searching for seeds and beans and the cultural knowledge of how to grow them.

An Annual Pilgrimage that Became a Treasure Trove

What has inspired Coykendall most is his annual pilgrimage to a small Louisiana community he stumbled upon 40 years ago. Drawn to the Washington Parish area as a college student in 1973, John forged relationships with local farmers and gardeners in the community, where over the decades he has recorded the oral histories and cultural wisdom of farmers and gardeners. Housed in more than 80 beautifully illustrated journals are saved and safeguarded rare varieties of the crops they once grew. Now, the Emmy nominated documentary Deeply Rooted produced by Christina Melton, tells the story of John Coykendall’s journey to save our seeds and stories.

Watch Deeply Rooted, Proudly Sponsored by Camellia

Read Debbie Elliott’s NPR story about John’s work and the Deeply Rooted documentary, watch a preview, and below, hear from Camellia Brand CEO Vince Hayward about our support of John’s efforts to save these culinary and farming traditions.

Since 1923, Camellia brand beans has been deeply rooted in southern dining traditions that bring people together. Our New Orleans-based, family-owned company is proud to support efforts to preserve our culinary heritage through this program and Louisiana Public Broadcasting. The film is currently being nationally distributed and broadcast through American Public Television.

Pictured from L to R: Producer Christina Melton, John Coykendall, Chef Kevin Belton, Vince Hayward (CEO of Camellia Brand), Allison Hayward, Adrienne Ehrensing.

A new exhibit about the history of Red Beans in New Orleans debuts at the SoFAB Museum

Have you “bean” to the Southern Food & Beverage Museum lately? It’s the new home of “Red Bean City,” an exciting exhibit on red beans created by Camellia Brand® and Bent Media. The Grand Opening is on August 3, and the Camellia Family and friends will be there to celebrate! We’ll also raise a birthday toast to New Orleans’ most famous red bean lover, jazz hero Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, who was born on August 4, 1901.

Red Bean City, an exhibit by Camellia Brand

The ongoing romance of New Orleans and red beans is a story that is about to be told! The Red Bean City exhibit at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum, explores how and why this beloved dish is an unstoppable weekly ritual and a symbol of local culture and way of life in New Orleans. The Hayward family of Camellia Beans tells their story going all the way back to 1836, and you’ll get a look at how a New Orleans trumpet player, a small army of creole cooks, a chicken king’s secret chef, and the people of New Orleans helped propel the red kidney bean to worldwide acclaim.  

Red Bean Kitchen

In the exhibit, take a seat in the “kitchen” and soak in the feeling of warm, happy family gatherings then and now. Can’t you just smell the red beans simmering on the stove? Post your family’s red bean recipe secrets (Mawmaw won’t mind, right?) on the Red Bean Secrets wall – you’ll be in good company there among Red Bean Hall of Famers like New Orleans jazz hero Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong (who signed his letters “red beans and ricely yours”) and red bean restaurateurs Willie Mae Sutton, Buster Holmes and Warren Leruth.

Bean Culture Worldwide

Beans and Rice are celebrated dishes all over the Americas and the Caribbean and are closely related to the cultural identity of each region. The exhibit takes a tour through some of the most beloved beans and rice traditions around the world and traces the migration of this food pairing from Africa and Europe.

Join the Red Bean Parade  

Ever heard of the Krewe of Red Beans? Their famous red bean parade marches the streets of New Orleans every year at Mardi Gras, but year-round at the Red Bean City exhibit you can put on one of the Krewe’s spectacular handmade bean costumes and snap a “parade” selfie.

National Culinary Register

The Hayward family of Camellia Brand Beans is also celebrating another great honor: Camellia Brand is now on the National Culinary Register! The Register is an expansive list of culinary products, processes, inventions, traditions, and establishments that are at least fifty years old and have contributed significantly to the development of American foodways. The first and only register of its kind, the Culinary Heritage Register is an initiative designed to explore and preserve the complex history of food and beverage in America.

New Orleans is a Red Bean City

When a young Paul Prudhomme moved to New Orleans to take a sous chef position at the Le Pavillon Hotel in 1970, the city’s obsession with red kidney beans came as a shock. Though a native Louisianian, he grew up thinking red kidneys were, in his words, “just another dried bean, like pinto beans and lima beans.” But according to Susan Tucker’s New Orleans Cuisine, he soon discovered that red beans were “a cultural phenomenon, a tradition dating back for hundreds of years.”

Red kidney beans are as ubiquitous a symbol of New Orleans as the fleur-de-lis, a rite as common as Carnival. The city’s culinary connection to the lowly red bean is mighty, stretching over centuries, across distant cultures and peoples around the globe. The bean is so symbolic of the city that a newcomer, or culinary dilettante, could be fooled into thinking that the red kidney bean was native to Louisiana, which it is of course not. But, still, “this is a red bean city here”, the famed fried chicken and bean cook Willie Mae Seaton of her eponymous Scotch House was quoted as saying. In Sara Roahen’s Gumbo Tales, she said, “That’s it. If you don’t have no red beans you just out.”

“A Favorite Dish Among Creole Families”

No one knows for sure why and how New Orleanians began to eat red beans and rice. “Red beans are to New Orleans what the white bean is to Boston and the cowpea is to South Carolina,” reporters for the Federal Writers Project wrote in 1938. No definite answers exist in the historical record, though it probably travelled over with early nineteenth-century exiles from the French Caribbean.

The dish appears in cookbooks around the turn of the century, with The Picayune’s Creole Cook Book, one of the first locally published recipe books, being one of the first to include instructions on how to cook a pot of kidney beans.

“Red Beans are a favorite dish among Creole families,” the book discloses in a chapter heading containing seven different red bean recipes (including one for red or white bean polenta!). “The great amount of sustenance to be found in this and the White Bean commending it especially as a food for growing children and adults who labor hard. The beautiful color and excellent flavor of the Red Bean has won for it a place among the most highly esteemed legumes.” A recipe for Red Beans, Plain Boiled suggests that “this is an excellent way of preparing red beans for Fridays and fast days.” The recipe for Purée of Red Beans ends with a mention that “thus prepared, red beans may be eaten by the most delicate invalid with excellent results as to recuperation.” Bacon and Beans à la Créole reveals that “this is a favorite dish with the little Creole children, and is most wholesome and palatable.”

Mondays Were Red Bean Days

Monday is the day most often associated with the dish because, as the well-trod story goes, the first day of the week was washing day, and the woman responsible for providing a household with a clean set of clothes was also obligated to feed the household that evening. Cleaning and cooking left little time and attention for both, so a pot of red beans was left on the stove, simmering long and gentle throughout the day.

It’s a good tale, with perhaps some truth and historical value to it. But we can also look to other cultures, other histories, for similar tales linking a specific day with a long-simmered pot of beans.

Sabbath and Sundays Were Bean Days, Too

Hamin, sometimes called cholent or, in Spain, adafina, is a food of the Jewish diaspora. Traditionally this fava bean stew is prepared on the Sabbath, simmering for hours because no work could be done and no fires lit on this day of rest. Heinrich Heine, a intellectual heavyweight of 19th century Germany, described cholent as “the very Food of heaven, which on Sinai, God Himself instructed Moses In the secret of preparing.”

Similarly, as one theory goes, the origin of Boston Baked Beans can be traced back to the pilgrims, who adopted the practice of simmering beans in salt pork and some sort of sugar for hours from the local First Peoples. The preparation of this one-pot dish appealed to the Pilgrims because it allowed them to start the cooking on Saturday night, so as to have food to feed the family, while not having to work to do so, on the Sabbath.

Sunday’s Hambone Made Monday’s Red Beans

The other theory is that we eat red beans on Monday to reuse, or perhaps upcycle, the hambone left over from Sunday’ s dinner. Little to no historical evidence proves this theory, though Peter Feibleman, a New York-born writer raised in New Orleans, gives it a good try in American Cooking: Creole and Acadian: “a ham bone is considered the whole point of the ham. Without it, you could hardly live through Monday, for on that day, as everyone knows, you need it to get a lyrical taste into what sounds at first like the drabbest of local recipes — the classic Monday dish of red beans and rice. The secret is known to you though if you’ve sat as a child in a New Orleans kitchen on a Monday and seen the cook either crack the ham bone or make sure that one end of it is open. . . . If it is, the thick marrow from the bone leaks into the simmering beans, coats them, cooks slowly with them, seems to drain them of starch and produces a silky food that is more like incredibly tender meat that like a vegetable.”

New Orleanians like Feibleman, both born and adopted, have tried their best to put into words exactly why they cherish a bowlful of Monday red beans and rice. John Churchill Chase, the beloved New Orleans cartoonist and reporter, recorded a song local children used to sing while jumping rope: Red Beans and Rice, quartée red beans, quartée rice, little piece of salt meat to make it taste nice, lend me the paper and tell me the time, when papa passes by he’ll pay you the dime.

Louis Armstrong’s Favorite Dish

Image Courtesy of Louis Armstrong House Museum

New Orleans’ s favorite son, Louis Armstrong, would often famously sign letters and autographs with, “Am red beans and ricely yours, Louis.” In his memoir Satchmo, Armstrong writes of learning to cook red beans and rice at a young age. His sister, whom he called Mama Lucy, cooked courtbouillon, creole gumbo, cabbage and rice, jambalaya, but his favorite dish of hers was red beans and rice. While courting his fourth wife, the Bronx-born Lucille Wilson, the then immensely famous, and wealthy, trumpeter asked, “ Can you cook red beans and rice?” She learned, and they were remained married until his passing. “As for red beans and rice, well, I don’t have to say anything about that,” Armstrong wrote. “It is my birth mark.”

The Bean Ratings

Gene Bourg, former restaurant critic for the Times-Picayune, of course wrote about red beans, but it was a simple act that symbolized his, and his city’s, love for the bean. In 1985 he chose red beans over stars, the New York Times oft-repeated symbol, to rate, one through five, the city’ s burgeoning restaurant scene. The bean rating is still used today.

Buster Holmes, The King of Red Beans and Rice

Buster Holmes, the dearly departed chef and proprietor of a restaurant of the same name, was perhaps the greatest red beans cook that ever stirred a pot. According to writer Jeff Hannusch’s article titled “Red Beans and Rice” in New Orleans Magazine (March 1984), Holmes said of the dish: “I can see it only getting more and more popular. I cooked beans and rice for chefs and people all over Europe, and they couldn’t get enough of them. . . . New Orleans has always been a red bean town, and as far as I can see it always will be.”

The last word will go to someone not associated with New Orleans, Michael Franti, a California-born musician and poet who with his band Spearhead wrote the most loving ode to New Orleans’ s unofficial official dish. From a verse and chorus of their song “Red Beans and Rice”: Most people on the planet eat beans and rice. Some can’t afford beef or they think cows are nice. Red beans and rice, red beans and rice, red beans and rice, Make everything nice Red beans and rice, red beans and rice, red beans and rice I could eat a plate twice. So nice. So nice. So nice.

Rien Fertel is a Louisiana-born and based food writer, historian, and teacher. He grew up in his family’s chain of restaurants across the country. His work has appeared in Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Southern Living, Spirit, Saveur, The Local Palate, and many other publications. He holds a PhD in History and teaches in New Orleans.

Red Beans & Rice is an iconic New Orleans dish that’s talked about, debated, cooked, and beloved across the southern United States. And just like other traditional rice and bean dishes that prevail throughout North and South America, it inspires tremendous local pride and is a key component of our cultural identity.

Red Kidneys: From Ancient Mexico to the Caribbean and Beyond

In ancient Mexico, the Olmec, Maya, Toltec, and Teotihuacan peoples, and eventually the Aztecs, grew kidney beans. The beans were originally grown alongside corn and squash; beans were trained to climb the stalks of corn. The agricultural trifecta provided much-needed nitrogen to replenish the soil and a well-rounded diet to its eaters. The three moved together upward into the Caribbean and throughout the North American mainland.

On November 4, 1492 Christopher Columbus “discovered” the kidney bean on the island of Cuba, writing in his diary, “The country is very fertile . . . They have beans of kinds very different from ours.” He called these American beans fabas, because they reminded him of favas of Western Europe, and the Latin name stuck: phaseolus. The American beans were taken back to Europe and adopted into local foodways centuries before tomatoes, peppers, corn, and potatoes. According to Beans: A History, kidneys were largely deemed peasant food for centuries, a history revealed by its eventual Latin designation, Phaseolus vulgaris, aka the vulgar, or ‘common’ bean.

French Glandoulat

Kidneys buttressed and amplified stewy dishes throughout early modern Europe. Like in Glandoulat, a southwestern French dish in which red kidney beans join pork, carrots, spices, Armagnac, and goose fat.

Rice and Beans – A Classic Combination

The classic combination of rice and beans, or some starchy substitute, has long been equated with sustaining life. “Rice is god,” a Hindu proverb says, “but lentils are my life.” In many corners of the world, rice and beans, peas, or lentils are often paired — the Japanese celebrate certain holidays with a bowl of white glutinous rice and red adzuki beans. But nowhere are beans and rice more prominent than in the Americas, both North and South, where the pairing of grain and legume is often the unofficial national dish.

Brazilian Feijoada

In Brazil, the unofficial national dish is Feijoada, a stew of black beans and salted pork commonly served alongside a heaping of rice.

Cuban Frijoles Negros

In Cuba, they eat Moros y Cristianos, ‘Moors and Christians,’ a name given for the combination of black beans (Moros/dark) and rice (Christians/white), as well as Frijoles Negros, where the black beans are served on top of, or alongside rice.

Nicaraguan & Costa Rican Gallo Pinto

According to Rice and Beans, A Unique Dish in a Hundred Places, Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans fight over who invented Gallo Pinto, or ‘spotted rooster,’ another melange of black or red beans and rice.

Caribbean Rice & Beans

Caribbean Rice & Beans (often called Caribbean Rice & Peas) is a popular Sunday lunch dish made with red kidney beans, rice, scotch bonnet peppers, and coconut milk.

Hoppin’ John

The red beans and rice equivalent in other parts of the South, especially in South Carolina, is Hoppin’ John, a mix of salt pork, rice, and blackeye peas or cowpeas (some French-speaking Louisianians might call this dish jambalaya au congri). Cowpeas are the preferred legume in the Carolinas. George Washington Carver, the African-American scientist, said of the lowly cowpea: “As a food for man, the cowpea should be to the South, what the White, Soup, Navy, or Boston bean is to the North, East, and West: and it may be prepared in a sufficient number of ways to suit the most fastidious palate.”

African Red-Red

Hailing from Ghana, African Red-Red is a red stew made with blackeye peas and served with rice and plantains. Blackeye peas were brought by or with enslaved West Africans to the Americas, first to the mid-Atlantic seaboard, likely alongside rice.

Rice: Red Beans’ Most Popular Partner

Some rice was grown in Louisiana as early as the 1840s, with some imported from the rice capital of South Carolina. Rice cultivation in the state finally took off in the 1870s, with a massive expansion occurring around 1900. Today, Louisiana is ranked third in the production of rice in the United States, after Arkansas and California.

No one knows for sure why and how New Orleanians began to eat red beans and rice. “Red beans are to New Orleans what the white bean is to Boston and the cowpea is to South Carolina,” reporters for the Federal Writers Project wrote in 1938. No definite answers exist in the historical record, though it probably travelled over with early nineteenth-century exiles from the French Caribbean.

Rien Fertel is a Louisiana-born and based food writer, historian, and teacher. He grew up in his family’s chain of restaurants across the country. His work has appeared in Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Southern Living, Spirit, Saveur, The Local Palate, and many other publications. He holds a PhD in History and teaches in New Orleans.

The south Louisiana specialty meat tasso resembles ham or pancetta and is a lean cut of pork that’s cured, spiced and smoked for hours to create the finished product. Although tasso can be eaten by itself, its ultimate purpose is to help season a wide variety of Cajun and Creole dishes, including red beans and rice.

Tasso (pronounced “TAH-so”) is a perfect seasoning for slow-cooked beans of all kinds, including red, black, blackeyes, butter, cannellini, navy, and Great Northerns. A little tasso goes a long way, but liberal amounts can’t hurt a dish, either.

Add Tasso to Your Trinity

When making traditional Louisiana-style red beans, start by combining tasso with the “holy trinity” of onion, celery, and bell pepper. Tasso takes the place of — or can be used in conjunction with — other seasoned meats used to sauté the trinity, such as ham hocks or bacon, infusing the base with a smoky, spicy flavor.

Tasso also complements gumbo, étouffées, soups, jambalaya, shrimp and grits, vegetables such as collard greens and Brussels Sprouts, casseroles, and pastas, especially for carbonara and cream sauces. Some food lovers like tasso as a pizza topping, while others eat it plain or on sandwiches.

Make Your Own Tasso (Or Buy It)

Home cooks can find lots recipes for making their own tasso. The preferred cut of meat is from the pig’s shoulder. Although sometimes described as “pork butt,” it’s actually not from the swine’s nether regions. The meat is cut into long strips, almost like a hearty beef jerky, before it’s seasoned and smoked.

Spices used to season the pork vary according to individual recipes but can include salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic, sugar, hot sauce, mustard, paprika, cinnamon, vinegar, and/or Worcestershire sauce. Fire up your home smoker with pecan, hickory, or oak wood, and smoke the meat for at least a couple of hours.

If you’re not up to the task of making your own tasso, commercial versions from companies like Poche’s, Richard’s, and Savoie’s are available in grocery stores, not to mention the mom-and-pop meat markets and butcher shops that dot much of Louisiana.

Rooted in the Rich Cajun Boucherie Tradition

Tasso came about during Louisiana’s pre-refrigeration age, when every bit of a slaughtered pig was turned into something edible, whether andouille, boudin, cracklings (aka gratons), patés, sausages, pork rib stews, or other delicacies. Even organ meat was used to make the local terrine known as hogshead cheese.

Cajuns perfected their charcuterie skills thanks in part to the presence of early German settlers who lived alongside them in Louisiana’s swamps, prairies, and riverside settlements. The all-day Cajun hog-butchering party known as the boucherie is fondly recalled as a fun-filled but labor-intensive community affair by many older Cajuns — a tradition that is rapidly disappearing because of the preponderance of refrigeration and the industrialization of food production.

Popularized by Trailblazing Chef Paul Prudhomme

Although Germans influenced Acadiana’s sausage-making traditions, so too did other cultures. The word “tasso” itself is derived from the Spanish word “tasajo,” for dried, smoked beef. Scholars point out that Spanish colonists lived near New Iberia, La., in the 18th century, and there were meat-smoking practices among Native Americans in the area.

Curiously, tasso was largely unknown in New Orleans until famed Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme introduced it there as a key component in his recipes. Despite its resurgence, tasso is one of America’s “delicious and distinctive foods facing extinction,” Slow Food USA has written in including it in its Ark of Taste. “By identifying and championing these foods, we keep them in production and on our plate.”

Tasso is a win-win ingredient for your New Orleans-Style Red Beans & Rice and other dishes. You can’t beat the flavor, and you’re tapping into one of America’s unique culinary traditions, rooted in the rich culture of Cajun Louisiana.

Chickpeas, the Ancient Beans Used ‘Round the World

Chickpeas, also known as garbanzos, are ancient beans. Remains have been found in the Middle East that date back more than seven millennia. The ancient world associated them with Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and they were thought to help with reproductive difficulties. More recently, in the 18th century, they were roasted as a coffee substitute. Most people today know them as the main ingredient in hummus, the Middle Eastern bean paste that takes its name from the Arabic word for chickpea.

Chickpeas are known as channa in Trinidad and are a constant in Trinidadian food. Fried and seasoned with a variety of spices, channa is a street snack that’s perfect for munching any time but seems to go particularly well with cocktails. Chickpeas appear in many types of soups and stews, but are at their best when served in a dish like Caribbean-style chickpea and potato curry that’s also known as channa aloo.

The History of Curries

In the Caribbean region, curries have their origin in the waves of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent who arrived in the 19th century. In New Orleans and the United States, they are traditional as well, dating back to the days of the clipper ships when captains brought exotic spices back from their journeys that transformed traditional dishes into savory delights.  This curry displays the thriftiness of many housewives in both areas, uses potatoes to complete the dish and places the history of three continents squarely on the plate.

Caribbean-Style Chickpea Curry

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons butter

1 large onion, minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper, or to taste

3 tablespoons Madras-style curry powder

1/2 cup Steen’s cane vinegar (or distilled white vinegar)

1 1/2 cups Camellia Brand Garbanzo Beans, soaked overnight (3 cups, plumped)

3 cups coarsely chopped potatoes

Directions:

1. In a large frying pan, heat the butter and sauté the onion, garlic, and ginger until the onion is soft but not brown. Add the curry powder and the crushed red pepper, stirring so that they do not stick or burn. Gradually add the vinegar and stir until you have a smooth paste. (You may have to add more.)

2. Add the soaked chickpeas and the potatoes; stir well to cover them with the paste. Remove from heat and allow to marinate for at least 2 hours.

3. When ready to cook, place the chickpea and potato mixture into a large frying pan or in the bottom of a Dutch oven, and add enough water to reconstitute the paste and prevent scorching. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 2 hours or until the chickpeas and potatoes are fork tender. Check occasionally and add more water if necessary to prevent scorching.

4. Serve hot with mango chutney, raisins, freshly grated coconut or with the Indian bread known as roti.

Written by Jessica B. Harris, a culinary historian, journalist and acclaimed cookbook author who has been honored for spreading the word of African and Caribbean cuisines around the world.

Cajun Country Is Rice Country

This Louisiana Grown Staple Is a Bean’s Best Friend

Louisiana’s early French explorers first introduced rice cultivation into Louisiana in 1718. The great development of the state’s rice industry came as the result of the opening up of the broad, flat prairie region in the southwestern (Cajun) part of the state where rice thrives in the water-logged, silt-rich soil, and the development of a system of irrigation that made the use of harvesting machinery similar to that used in the wheat fields of the Northwest possible.

Since that time rice production has expanded to other areas of Louisiana, especially the northeastern portion (Monroe area), and 29 Louisiana parishes now claim rice as a top crop. One third of it comes from Jefferson Davis and Acadia parishes with the latter’s city of Crowley claiming to be the capital and, hence, is the home of the International Rice Festival, held every year on the third weekend in October. It is Louisiana’s largest and oldest agricultural festival.

The Long, Medium, and Short of It

Rice varietals are classified as being of the long, medium, or short grain type. Long grain rice, most commonly grown type in Louisiana, is slender and long, medium grain is plump but not round, and short grain is round. Within these varietals, rice is sold in brown, parboiled, and regular-milled white forms.

Plain White Rice? Not

When rice is harvested from the field, machinery is employed to remove stalks and detritus. It is then subjected to milling to remove the husk, which encloses the kernel. In the case of parboiled rice, a steam pressure process is used for milling. After drying, the parboiled rice is subjected to further processing to remove the hull and it is then polished. Brown rice is processed through a shelling device, which removes the hull. The resulting brown rice retains the brown layer around the kernel. In the case of white rice, the hull and the brown layers are removed and the kernels are polished.

Exotic Varieties Get Louisiana Jazzed

To keep up with consumer demand for exotic flavors as well as sustainability, Louisiana rice farmers have become more innovative in their choices of planting rice strains, while others have changed their growing methodology.

In 2000, the LSU AgCenter began a project designed to increase rice production in Louisiana by developing a new strain of jasmine rice capable of being cultivated in the state’s hot, wet conditions. With a desirable robust flavor and appealing aromatic qualities, jasmine rice has long been a favorite of rice connoisseurs, but until recently the strain could be grown only in Asia. A new Louisiana variety was created through careful cross-pollination and resulted in a premium-quality, Louisiana-grown product that’s marketed internationally as Jazzmen Rice. It is available in both white and brown varieties.

Like Jazzmen, additional special purpose rice strains are generally grown on a limited acreage and, because of their unique cooking characteristics, they should not be comingled with standard long-grain varieties. They include Toro-2, a non-aromatic, long-grain sticky rice; Della, an aromatic, long-grain rice favored for its unique popcorn aroma and taste characteristics; Dellrose, with characteristics similar to Della but with a high grain yield, high milling yield, and greater disease resistance.

Other Louisiana rice farmers, such as Kurt Unkel of Cajun Grain in Kinder, started borrowing from organic and biodynamic growing principles. Unkel now grows a highly nutritious brown rice that includes disc-shaped native wild grains once classified by the U.S. government as a “noxious weed.” Cajun Grain has become a favorite amongst Louisiana farmers’ market shoppers and chefs for its high protein content as relative to other rice products.

Cajun Country Rice

Camellia Beans partners with Cajun Country brand rice for sales and shelf-stocking support in Wal-Mart and Winn Dixie stores throughout the region. Owned by the Falcon family, Cajun Country rice products include long grain white and brown rice, medium grain white rice, jasmine rice, and popcorn (Della) rice. Cajun Grain is the recommended rice for serving with Camellia products.

The Falcon family, in the rice business since 1942, sells additional rice varieties under the brand names Falcon, Toro, Home Country, Laredo, and Jackpot rice. Like their Cajun Country rice, all of their products are true products of Louisiana, grown on Louisiana soil, by Louisiana farmers, and milled and packaged at the historic Falcon Rice Mill in Crowley.

The Complete Protein: Rice and Beans Alone…

Protein is made up of amino acids, 12 of which are manufactured by the human body. Another nine, called essential amino acids, must be obtained from food. A complete protein is a protein that contains all of the essential amino acids. Animal proteins are complete, including red meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, and dairy.

Non-animal sources of complete proteins are soybeans, blue green algae, hempseed, buckwheat, and quinoa. Other foods are known as incomplete proteins: beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, peas, and corn. When substituting incomplete proteins for complete ones, two or more incomplete proteins must be consumed during the course of a day to fulfill the body’s requirements for a complete protein. The proteins may be consumed together in one meal or separately at different meals.

Beans and rice are the most common meat-free complete protein combination. It is a winning mishmash, just as long as the ratio of beans and rice is close. Beans, a low-glycemic-index food that creates a feeling of fullness, are also full of fiber, potassium, foliate, iron, manganese and magnesium, and they are cholesterol- and fat-free. They’re a superfood. This complete protein also needs complete (or near complete) balance to provide the maximum nutrition.

Here are some combinations that work to form a complete protein:

Beans with whole grains:

• hummus (contains chickpeas and tahini, which is made from sesame seeds) and pita bread
• split pea soup with whole-grain bread
• lentil and barley soup
• black beans and grits
• tortillas with refried beans.

The History of Blackeye Peas

On the African continent where these legumes were first domesticated, blackeye peas were planted on the borders of fields to help keep down the weeds. They were also used to enrich the soil. Cattle grazed on the stems and vines, giving rise to some of the legume’s alternate names: cowpeas and field peas.

A Southern Staple

In the United States, few foods are more connected with African Americans than blackeye peas. Before the early 1700s, they were growing in the Carolina colonies, became one of the area’s first cash crops, and were exported to the Caribbean colonies where they were also prized. In the United States, they appear in early cookbooks like The Virginia Housewife, in which Mary Randolph suggests making a fried bean cake that is garnished with “thin bits of fried bacon.” Today, they come into their own at the holiday season when no self-respecting southerner will go without a dish of blackeye peas for luck on New Year’s Day.

Fritter Heaven

In the Caribbean, they turn up in a myriad of beans and rice combinations but take a back seat to the Congo or gunga pea there. They come back into their own in Brazil. There, in the northeast region, the pea is transformed into a fritter known as an acarajé, which is the traditional street food of Salvador da Bahia. The fritters are made to order and dressed with a selection of fish pastes and hot sauces to the buyer’s taste. No trip to the city is complete without the taste of at least one. The following recipe is for non-traditional fritters that use ginger and garlic and that don’t call for skinning the beans. One bite, though, and you can almost feel the sea breezes blowing off the harbor.

Brazilian-Style Blackeye Pea Fritters

Ingredients:

1 (1-pound) package Camellia Brand Blackeye Peas
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
3 teaspoons ginger paste*
2 teaspoons garlic paste*
Salt to taste
Oil for frying

*Both ginger and garlic paste are readily available in supermarkets, usually found in the fresh produce/herbs section.

Directions:

1. Soak blackeye peas 8-10 hours or overnight.

2. When ready to prepare, place soaked blackeye peas in a food processor with remaining ingredients. Process until a smooth, thick batter forms, with no lumps. Add salt to taste. Empty batter from food processor into a large bowl, and aerate it by beating for 2-3 minutes with a wooden spoon.

3. In a large heavy skillet or Dutch oven, heat at least 2 inches of oil for frying. When ready to fry, stir the batter again, and drop by large spoonsful into the hot oil. Allow to brown, turning each fritter once. Continue to stir remaining batter to aerate it before frying.

4. Drain fritters on absorbent paper, and serve hot with hot sauce, salsa or condiment of your choice.

Makes about two dozen fritters.

Written by Jessica B. Harris, a culinary historian, journalist and acclaimed cookbook author who has been honored for spreading the word of African and Caribbean cuisines around the world.

From Sunday Celebration to Monday Meal

Once upon a time — not so every long ago, actually — families feasted on Sundays and whole hams were a weekly thing. After morning church services, tradition held that folks would gather at Gramma’s house for a proper dinner after the preacher cut the flock loose. In many houses, it was an excuse to loosen the church clothes just a bit and spend the afternoon with extended family and as often as not, the traditional centerpiece was a whole ham sliced and served on the good china.

This regional ritual took place all across the southern US, and for food lovers of south Louisiana, it also provided the makings of a different tradition — a  pot of red beans slow-cooked with a meaty hambone. Cooked on a banked fire or a low burner, ham-spiked red beans became a Monday staple in New Orleans home kitchens and restaurant dining rooms.

Fast forward to modern times, and things have changed. Americans have shifted from family gatherings to late brunches and toaster pastries. Big Sunday suppers are a lot less common, ham comes pre-sliced from the deli counter and there’s nary a proper hambone to be found.

But rest easy friends: you can recapture the traditional magic of gramma’s pork-rich red beans if you know a couple of simple tricks. But first: a little kitchen context.

Hambone Magic

In much of the South, the whole ham represented the very essence of special occasion foods. Whether for a homecoming feast or Easter celebration, it was an at-table event that represents plenty and fellowship. But the Monday magic of the Sunday ham is at the core of the matter. Specifically the BONE at the core of said magically-cured menu item.

From a cook’s standpoint, the “leftovers” from Sunday’s feast contain culinary riches that many modern folks would discard. In addition to the little flecks of meat left behind, the hambone (the sizable shank bone from a hog’s hind leg) is filled with flavor from unexpected sources. The marrow hidden inside the shank adds amazing richness to soups and stews. Layers of tough connective tissue can dull a carving knife,  but melt into silky collagen when slow-simmered for a few hours. And of course, residual fat in the crevices adds its own distinctive flavor.

And not surprisingly, these qualities are EXACTLY what you want in a pot of Monday red beans and rice. The key to unlocking these culinary riches, not surprisingly, is time and patience — not exactly hallmarks of Our Modern Times.

Luckily, there’s are modern-day workarounds at your disposal for this act of delicious recycling.

Spiral Cuts and Slow Cookers

First: Procuring the Bone
While we might not go to Gramma’s house every week, we do live in a world where the pre-packaged “spiral-sliced boneless ham” is readily available. In fact, this kind of party-ready cut is SO popular that there are whole strip mall shops dedicated to this simple product (Honeybaked Hams and Heavenly Hams for example) and sandwiches made with same.

This convenient trend is absolute gold for the canny home cook, because when businesses sell boneless hams, they’ve usually got extra hambones in the freezer, which they usually sell for a few bucks a pound. And as an added bonus, these hambones tend to have plenty of meat on them, as the ham technicians set cutter blades wide so not to dull them on the shank bone. It’s like the meaty core of Gramma’s ham, yours for a pittance.

Second: Cooking Low and Slow
If you’re a crock-pot aficionado, you’re way ahead on this one. The classic “set it and forget it” move so popular with slow cooker folk will extract all the goodness from a hambone, whether you’re making an simple overnight ham stock or starting a pot of red beans while you wait for your morning coffee to brew.

When they’re done, you’ll have all the porky, beany goodness (church clothes optional).

Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice – How to Prepare and Save Time

Our Favorite Recipes For Leftover Holiday Ham

Though sometimes associated with ‘70s-era “commune cooking” – big pots of bland brown stews – in reality, lentils are quick-cooking, protein-packed powerhouses with an earthy flavor that lends itself to all kinds of cuisines and seasonings. Add in the fact that they are inexpensive and can be stored in a cool, dry place for up to 12 months, and it’s easy to see why lentils should be a staple in your pantry.

Available in a variety of colors ranging from yellow to red-orange, green, brown, and black, lentils have been a principal ingredient in world cuisines, primarily Near-Eastern and European, since prehistoric times. Archaeologists suspect they may have been the world’s first cultivated crop as early as 13,000 years ago and together with wheat and barley, drought-tolerant lentils were the agricultural staples of early Greek and Roman cultures. They vary in size and are sold in many forms, with or without the skins, whole or split. They belong to a variety of legume known as a “pulse” – or edible seed – and are both extremely nutritious and quick to prepare.

A Crop Prized in Many Cuisines

Lentils were introduced to the New World by Spanish and Portuguese explorers as early as the 16th century, but did not really catch on in America until the 20th century when they were promoted during World War II as an alternative to meat because of their high protein content – the second-highest ratio of protein per calories of any legume, after soybeans – and low cost. They are also loaded with potassium, folate, and dietary fiber. Like with other legumes, lentils and rice are a common food pairing, and provide a complete protein.

Today, about a quarter of the world’s lentils come from India, where more lentils are consumed than any other place. Indian “dals” are simple lentil dishes – dal means lentil in the language – and curries are lentil dishes seasoned with a “curry powder” mix or various seasonings, including coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, cumin, fennel, cinnamon, chili pepper, clove, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, paprika, and black pepper. Interestingly, though it’s far from the regions commonly associated with lentil-based cuisines, Canada is the largest export producer of lentils in the world. In Jewish mourning tradition, lentils are customary as food for the bereaved, together with boiled eggs, because their round shape symbolizes the life cycle from birth to death. Lentils and sausage are also eaten together on New Year’s Day in both Italy and Hungary, where the lentil’s coin shape is regarded as a symbol of prosperity.

How to Cook Lentils

Dried lentils don’t need to be soaked before being cooked, and only require a cooking time of 20 to 40 minutes, depending on the variety and use. Lentils with the husk remain whole with moderate cooking. Small lentils without the the husk cook very quickly and break down into a thick stew.

• Dried lentils generally require 3 cups of liquid per cup of lentils.
• If you bring the liquid to a boil before adding lentils, they will both cook more quickly and be easier to digest.
• If using lentils in a salad or soup where a firmer texture is desired, subtract 5-10 minutes from cooking time. For Indian dals or other dishes with a thicker consistency and softer texture, add 5-10 minutes.
• Lentils, like all legumes, should be sorted and rinsed before cooking.
• Cooked lentils freeze beautifully for up to 6 months. If preparing to be frozen, slightly undercook your lentils.

Types of Lentils

Brown lentils are the most common variety available in grocery stores. They have a mild, earthy flavor and creamy texture, and soften when they cook, but still retain their lens-like shape. They are commonly served hot in soups and stews but they are also delicious served cold as a salad mixed  with finely minced onion, peppers, and spices, and dressed with olive oil and lemon juice or other vinaigrette. Prepared this way they are a common sandwich filling in meatless diets.

French green, or Puy lentils, have a sharper, somewhat peppery taste. They take longer to cook than brown lentils and retain some firmness, making them a favorite for salads due to their toothsome texture.

Red lentils are brown lentils with the hulls removed. Their mild, sweet flavor is favored in Indian and Middle Eastern dishes. They break down into a golden-colored mush when cooked and they can do double-duty as a gluten-free thickener in other recipes.

Small, black, and shiny, Beluga lentils resemble Beluga caviar when cooked. On the expensive side – by lentil standards; they are still a very inexpensive source of protein – black lentils have a strong, earthy flavor. When the hull of the black lentil is removed, the mildly flavored white lentil is left behind.

Check out our helpful guide to all things lentil here.

Whichever lentil type you buy, you can be sure you will find them easy, adaptable, and delicious. See some of our favorite lentil recipes below:

Easy Vegan Coconut Curry Lentils

A quick and delicious meal; the seasoning can be adjusted to your comfort level of heat. Coconut milk adds richness and a subtle flavor to the dish while tempering the spiciness. Perfect for a cold evening, it can be served over rice or with naan or pita bread for a complete meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 (1 pound) bag Camellia Brand Lentils
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 can unsweetened coconut milk
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 small bunch of green onions, chopped
• 8 ounces baby portabella or button mushrooms, sliced
• 1 bunch baby kale, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger, finely minced or grated
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 3 tablespoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Garnish: chopped cilantro

Directions:

1. In a large heavy pot, melt the coconut oil over medium heat. Add green onions, garlic, ginger, curry powder, and red pepper flakes; cook for about 5 minutes or until onions have softened and aromatics have released their flavors.
2. Add the vegetable broth, cover, and bring to a boil.
3. Add lentils, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, and mushrooms; stir to combine.
4. Turn down to medium heat, cover, and cook for 10 minutes.
5. Turn down to low heat, uncover, add coconut milk, then gently simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. Season with salt and pepper as needed.
6. Just before serving, stir in chopped baby kale.
7. Garnish with chopped cilantro, and serve over rice or with naan or pita bread.

L.H.’s Savory Lentils

Slow Cooker Sweet Potato And Lentil Stew

Curried Lentil Salad

Historic Way of Preserving Meat Adds Piquancy.

Before the advent of refrigeration, preserving foods was a challenge. Every culture developed some version of pickling, or preserving in a salty brine or vinegar. Herbs and spices, such as mustard seed, garlic, cinnamon or cloves, were often added, not only for their flavor, but because they helped with the preservation process. If the food being preserved had a high enough water content, it could be packed in salt alone. Salt pork and salt beef were staples of a sailor’s diet before steam engines made ocean crossings much less time-consuming.

Pork was a cornerstone of the diet of the French settlers who lived in Acadiana, now called Nova Scotia. When the British forced them out of their homeland many found their way south to French-speaking Louisiana, where wild boar was plentiful, allowing the Acadians to retain pork in their diets while evolving its preparation with the different herbs and spices they found in their new home.

A Recipe Born of Frugality.

As Native Americans did with the buffalo, the Acadians, a.k.a. Cajuns, utilized virtually every part of the pig. Before the advent of refrigeration and commercial curing, meat not destined for immediate consumption was often rubbed with a mixture of salt and saltpeter and layered with mashed cloves, ground allspice, chopped onions, bay leaves, and more salt, then stored in barrels where it would last as long as a year.

What Pickle Meat Brings to the Red Bean Pot.

Pickle meat, a.k.a. pickled pork, remains a staple in the Louisiana kitchen, where it is most frequently used to season pots of long-simmered beans, smothered vegetables, or greens. The meat, rendered supremely tender and pre-seasoned from the brine, can be relied upon to break down and saturate the other ingredients in the pot with its delicious flavors. Hold off on adding additional salt before tasting the cooked beans — the salt released from the pickled meat should be plenty to season the pot.

Still Acadiana Made, Now Widely Available.

At most Louisiana grocery stores pickle meat is readily available in hunks, in smaller chunks, or in slices from brands such as Richard’s and Savoie’s — both of which classify themselves as “Cajun” — and Vaucresson’s, which claims Creole as its heritage. No matter, the aromatics and spices used in the brining process are all about the same. If pickle meat is unavailable in your area, it is available online, but you can easily make it yourself:

Pickled Pork Recipe

Ingredients:

1 quart distilled white vinegar
1/2 cup mustard seed
1 tablespoon celery seed
2 tablespoons Louisiana-style hot sauce, such as Tabasco
1 bay leaf
6 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 tablespoon kosher salt
12 whole black peppercorns
2 pounds boneless pork butt, or rib tips cut into 2-inch cubes

Directions:

1. Combine everything except the pork in a non-reactive saucepan. Bring to a full boil and retain at the boil for 3 minutes.
2. Cool the brine and add it to a stainless steel, glass, or plastic container.
3. Add the pork, stir thoroughly, and push the meat down to fully submerge it in the brine.
4. Cover and refrigerate for at least three days before using as a seasoning meat. Drain, rinse, and drain the meat again before use to remove all traces of seasoning aromatics.

Unfortunately, 40 Arpent Brewery closed its doors in 2017.

Louisiana overflows with exotic taste experiences rooted in distinct, specific locales, unreproducible anywhere else. Think crawfish from the Atchafalaya Basin’s Belle River. Hansen’s Sno-Bliz in New Orleans. Blood boudin from Bourgeois Meat Market in Thibodaux. Andouille from Wayne Jacob’s Smokehouse near LaPlace. Isleño caldo soup from down Bayou Road in St. Bernard. And also in St. Bernard Parish, there’s Red Bean Ale from 40 Arpent Brewery Co. in Old Arabi, right on the Mississippi River levee, overlooking the passing parade of cargo vessels, cruise ships, and the venerable riverboat Natchez.

Red Bean Ale is the only beer in the world brewed with the primary ingredients of one of south Louisiana’s signature dishes, red beans and rice. And until distribution expands and plans to bottle the brew come to fruition, you’ll likely only find it on tap at select locations in southeast Louisiana, including the brewery itself, which holds Friday tastings from 5 to 7 p.m. at 6809 N. Peters St.

Go sample it for yourself there, practically under the shadow of the Domino Sugar refinery, just a cannon shot away from the historic site of the Battle of New Orleans. Currently housed in a spartan warehouse, 40 Arpent nevertheless is making waves for its brewing and business innovations: It just won the inaugural Startup St. Bernard competition, and the accompanying grant from the Meraux Foundation will help build a 1,000-square-foot taproom with a bar and deck, seating area, a stage for live music, and space for food trucks.

The Tale Behind the Ale

How did founder and brewmaster Michael Naquin first envision using beans and rice in beer? The idea goes back to his early homebrewing days, when the Houma-born Naquin moved to New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood around 2000. Back then, the much-beloved, now-defunct Acadian Brewing Co. was firing on all cylinders on North Carrollton Avenue. Tippling sessions at Acadian inspired Naquin and his brother to invest in their own brewing equipment. Realizing that his hobby was turning into a real passion with career potential, Naquin paid his dues apprenticing at breweries in Asheville, N.C., and New Orleans, including Zea Rotisserie & Grill and Crescent City Brewhouse.

By this time, having already perfected a red Irish-style ale, Naquin was interested in developing a porter with black beans, and in 2009 he consulted with NOLA Brewing brewmaster Peter Caddoo, formerly of Dixie Beer. “I wanted to make a porter and I wanted to make one that was kind of different and unique,” Naquin recalled. “And I’m like, ‘What’s unique to here?’ Everybody makes beans, right? I’m going to make this black bean porter and I asked Peter … if he had ever made a beer with beans in it before. … He said no. I told him I was thinking about trying, and he said, ‘Yeah, you can totally do that.’ … From that conversation it became the easiest thing to do: Take red beans, which everybody eats here, and then just put it in this beer I was already making and see what that tasted like.” Naquin also found inspiration from Asia, where red beans are often found in beverages and desserts. “I have to admit that maybe even some of the idea came from Hitachino Nest (made by Kiuchi Brewery), which is this Japanese brewery that makes red rice ale. That kind of is where that all came from.”

Not Your Mom’n’Em’s Red Beans

Contrary to expectations, Red Bean Ale drinkers won’t find much in common with the plate lunch they ate Monday at any number of Crescent City joints, from Liuzza’s on Bienville to Charlie’s in Violet. Only Camellia Brand red kidney beans and flaked oat-style brewer’s rice go into this beer. “I cook the beans for four hours, literally till there’s a creamy consistency,” Naquin said. But don’t expect any oils, meats, vegetables, or hot sauce. “People ask, they’ll taste it, and they’re like, ‘Well, this doesn’t taste like a plate of red beans at all,’” Naquin said. “Because that’s what they’re expecting. Smokiness. Onion. Garlic. All this stuff. And that’s not in the beer. … It’s more beer with red beans than red beans with beer. Same thing with the rice. The rice just keeps it light. So it’s got a nice color to it, but when you actually drink the beer, it has this light feel on your mouth, and that’s what we use the rice to do. It just cuts the body of the beer down because you add a lot of protein with the beans. So we’re countering the protein from the bean by using the rice.”

A Lot More on Tap Than Beans

Naquin also taps another secret weapon for his beers: “The Father of Waters.” 40 Arpent uses high-quality municipal water from the Mississippi River, which it purifies even further by using a heavy filter. Naquin described the local water as “super hard,” a trait that leads to an “airier, drier finish” for 40 Arpent’s suds. In fact, Naquin credited the local water with helping distinguish his seasonal Duckwood IPA in particular from its West Coast and East Coast peers. Made with Cascade hops, the crisp, resiny result is what he called a true “Gulf Coast IPA.” “A little bitter” but with a fruity scent, it’s an “American-style ale” (5% alcohol by volume, or ABV) that enjoys wide appeal.

40 Arpent’s most high-profile brew is its year-round Milk Stout, which Naquin says is a major hit among coffee drinkers. The beer evokes cafe au lait, without the caffeine but with “a little chocolate.” Made with Mount Hood hops, the robust flavor comes from the roasted malt, while lactose conveys a hint of milk. Another seasonal 40 Arpent beer is the Delacroix Abbey Ale, named for the swampy Isleño fishing village in eastern St. Bernard that Bob Dylan name-drops in his 1974 tune “Tangled Up in Blue.” Offered around Lent, the golden-orange, Belgian-style ale boasts hints of peach and pear thanks to its fruity esters, while Styrian hops inject some spice and clove. Naquin has wryly nicknamed it “Delacroix Devil” in deference to its 7% ABV.

“Da Parish” Rebounds as Post-Katrina Business Incubator

So now you know the story of the Red Bean Ale’s creation. But how did Naquin set up shop in Arabi, just across the parish line from the Lower 9th Ward? Friends from the parish encouraged him to scout the area, and just a few years after Hurricane Katrina, Naquin liked what he saw. By chance he came across the family who owns Earl J. Doescher Co., an Arabi wholesaler of florist supplies and special-occasion gifts since 1958. Carl Doescher offered up a lot for lease, which Naquin accepted. A south Louisiana renaissance man of sorts, Naquin – besides brewing beer – had spent several years working in the refrigeration trade and also as a barber at a hair salon co-owned with his wife, Emily. Naquin was able to build most of the brewery’s physical plant himself, handling all the plumbing, electricity, refrigeration, Sheetrock, and sheet-metal work. “I pretty much did every single thing in here,” he said. His jack-of-all-trades nature allowed him to overcome basic construction hurdles that would have cost other nascent businesses a pretty penny.

A Measure of Respect for Louisiana’s Unique History

Why is the brewery named “40 Arpent”? It’s an old French unit of measurement prevalent during Louisiana’s colonial era, everywhere from Naquin’s old Houma stomping grounds to St. Bernard Parish. When St. Bernard was settled, land parcels facing the Mississippi had varying frontage widths but consistently ran 40 arpents back from the river. An arpent is about 192 feet, making 40 arpents about 1.45 miles. And in St. Bernard Parish, a drainage canal known as the 40 Arpent Canal runs along the old 40-arpent demarcation. Hence, “40 Arpent Brewery” is a tribute to both Louisiana’s French heritage as well as a salute to St. Bernard’s unique history, which saw both French and Canary Island (or Isleño) colonists settle in the area. By combining the best of the past with a vision for the future, the brewery delivers delicious local flavors for beer lovers, and can be sampled at various locations around New Orleans, including Metairie’s World of Beer, which just hosted a festive launch party for the 2015 Red Bean Ale.

Where to Drink Red Bean Ale

The following list is by no means comprehensive but identifies many venues that have recently served 40 Arpent brews, such as: in St. Bernard Parish, the Old Arabi Bar, within spitting distance of the brewery itself; in New Orleans, Ale on Oak, Avenue Pub, The Bulldog, Uptown, The Bulldog, Mid-City, Cooter Browns, the Hyatt French Quarter, J&J’s Sports Lounge, Jax Brewery Bar, Junction, Spitfire, Toups’ Meatery, Three Muses, and Tujague’s Restaurant; in Jefferson Parish, Lager’s in Metairie; in Baton Rouge, Beausoleil Restaurant and Bar, Boudreaux and Thibodeaux’s, and The Chimes; and in St. Tammany Parish, The Chimes in Covington.

Buy a Keg of Red Bean Ale

Throwing a red-beans-and-rice house party? Order your very own mini-keg from Elio’s Wine Warehouse in Uptown New Orleans!

Unfortunately, 40 Arpent Brewery closed its doors in 2017.

A Properly Made South Louisiana Andouille Might Become a Culinary Addiction

For fans of one-pot Louisiana cooking, a stick of Louisiana andouille (ahn DOO wee) is a beautifully savory sight to behold.

A properly made link of this dense, porky delight carries more heft than a standard smoked sausage (about 2 to 2.5 inches in diameter) and in its cured state can fill a room with the powerful aroma of woodsmoke. Cut into it and you’ll feel a coarse, chunky texture that’s closer to spicy ham than your average kielbasa. Browned in a little oil, chunks of andouille give off the smell of crispy breakfast bacon with a little garlic and pepper thrown in for good measure.

It’s no wonder that andouille is a classic, go-to flavoring meat for many red beans aficionados.

German Roots

Despite having a decidedly French name, andouille owes its trademark flavor to the sausage traditions of a different South Louisiana immigrant group — the Germans.

Beginning in the 1720s, German pioneers from the Rhineland came to the New World and settled up the Mississippi River from New Orleans in modern-day St. Charles, St. James and St. John the Baptist parishes (a region known as the Cotes des Allemandes or German Coast). In the years since, the farmers and sausage makers built a reputation for a traditional sausage-making style that’s as delicious as it is straightforward.

The style calls for chunks of lean pork shoulder to be simply spiced with garlic, salt, black pepper, cayenne and salt, then put in sausage casings and slow-smoked for hours over smoldering pecanwood fires. Before the advent of modern refrigeration, farmers would make andouille as part of the cold-weather hog slaughters (called boucheries) that filled home larders for the warmer months. Thick links of andouille — cured by salt and smoke —would hang in the barn until they made their way to into bean pots or batches of gut-warming gumbo.

And over centuries, the Germans gradually intermarried with Acadian communities and contributing their distinctive foodways to evolving Cajun culture. Their andouille — a prize of south Louisiana’s culinary traditions and staple of local meat-market culture — earned the German Coast town of Laplace the title “Andouille Capital of the World” in the 1970s.

In the Kitchen

Bean cooks should be cautious when approaching andouille, as a properly made south Louisiana andouille might become a culinary addiction. (Don’t laugh. We’ve seen it happen.)

The taste and texture — with plenty of smoke, a jolt of garlic and just a bit of peppery heat — might just raise your standards as garden-variety smoked sausages pale in comparison.

Inside the mahogany brown skin, sizable chunks of pork shoulder (the cut of the hog used for classic pulled pork and picnic hams) are compressed into a cylinder the size of a youngster’s t-ball bat. Once you discard  the inedible protective casing, cut the andouille into thick slices or chunks, always allowing for a few more ounces than your red bean recipe requires. Once the pinkish meat starts to crisp around the edges, your whole house will fill with the aroma of spicy pork goodness, and you’ll have to keep curious snackers away from the stovetop. (The extra few ounces are for the cook to nibble and use to distract persistent guests drawn to the stovetop like moths to a flame.)

As for the red beans:  the chunks of andouille will add a smoky savor to the pot, with the occasional morsel of hammy goodness adding texture to the creamy beans.

KITCHEN NOTE: In many grocery store meat sections, you’ll find products labeled “andouille” that pretty closely resembles standard-issue smoked sausage (albeit with a little added pepper or other flavorings). These products (such as Manda’s, Savoie’s, and Richard’s brands) have a smoother texture than the classic meat market style, and as such don’t have the inedible casing issue. Just slice ’em as you would smoked sausage and brown ’em in the pan.

Getting the Good Stuff

If you’re lucky enough to live in south Louisiana, check your local community meat markets for the real stuff. Small-town butchers pride themselves on this Cajun classic.

Barring that, you can get grocery store sausages called andouille, but with a word of caution. Many commercial sausage makers just add additional spices (cayenne, paprika for color) to regular smooth-textured sausage and call it andouille. And though it might be delicious, it’s no substitute for the real thing.

If you’ve got a direct connection to Cajun Country, you owe it to yourself to try out the real deal, preferably from a local meat market or purveyors from LaPlace, LA.

Here are a couple of recommended purveyors from the Andouille Capital of the World.

Jacob’s World Famous Andouille
505 West Airline Highway
LaPlace, LA 70068
(985) 652-9080,
fax (985) 652-9022,
toll free (877) 215-7589
cajunsausage.com

Bailey’s Famous Andouille
513 West Airline Highway
LaPlace, LA 70068
(985) 652-9090
baileysandouille.com