Friday/Saturday, February 21/22, 2020
La Thai's Deal For Uniformed Customers. Popcorn. K-Doe. Margaritas. Ceviche. Fish, GA. Mama. Woolworth's. Madeira And The Founders.
Eating Around New Orleans Today
Today makes me think of the sadly gone La Thai restaurant, and something special and wonderful they did for first responders. If you're a fireman, policeman, or a member of the military, you will got fifteen percent off your check at La Thai Cuisine. That's the Semiesuke family's flagship restaurant on the corner of Prytania and Robert, as well as a candidate for the honor of the best Thai restaurant in the city. The Semiesukes opened the city's first Thai restaurant in the late 1980s, and have had many since--notably the Bangkok Cuisine. The price break for our first responders and fighting men and women ran for three months at least, and covered lunch or dinner--everything but the bar tab. We miss this one, in a class by itself.
La Thai Cuisine. Uptown: 4938 Prytania,
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Annals Of Snacking
A long-running but probably apocryphal story has it that this was the day, in 1630, when the Native Americans introduced British settlers to popcorn. They popped a bunch of it, then sat down and watched The Birth Of A Nation. No. There was nothing new about popcorn. It had been grown and popped for many centuries.
Music To Eat Gumbo By
Ernie K-Doe (real name Kador) was born tomorrow in 1936. His famous song was Mother-In-Law, but he played all kinds of New Orleans music for decades. The cooking of this mother-in-law is not mentioned, but it's a long-running topic of controversy. K-Doe died in 2001. He shares a birthday with my own beloved mother.
Food Calendar
Tomorrow is National Margarita Day. The essential ingredients are tequila, lime juice, a splash of triple sec, Cointreau, or some other orange-flavored liqueur, and ice. The rim of the glass is coated with salt, but Lu Brow at the Swizzle Stick Lounge came up with an improvement: only dip half the rim of the glass in the salt. That way you can take it or leave it.
And as a perfect coincidence: it is also Pan-American Ceviche Day. Ceviche is a cold appetizer of fish (or sometimes shellfish) marinated in lemon or lime juice, with a little salt and sometimes chile peppers and other savory, crisp vegetables. The fish starts out raw, but the acidity of the citrus juice changes the proteins in the fish such that it comes out with the texture and flavor of cooked fish--even though it's still raw. Ceviche was created during the Spanish colonial days in Peru. From there it spread to almost all Latin American countries, each of which added its own flavors and ingredients. So many variations on ceviche can be made that restaurants (notably RioMar) sometimes serve several kinds of ceviche, with different seafoods and marinades. It's a delicious appetizer, the lightness and the acidic marinade giving a lift to the palate as the flavors satisfy at the same time.
Delicious-Sounding Places
Fish, Georgia is in a farming area off US 278, about fifty-six miles west of Atlanta. It is on a tributary of Fish Creek. There's not much there; it looks as if the standard culinary culture is to reel in a namesake animal and cook it over your campfire. The nearest restaurant, however, is much less Lenten: it's called just Steakhouse, three miles away in Rockmart.
Annals Of The Lunch Counter
Frank W. Woolworth opened his first store in Utica, New York tomorrow in 1879. Woolworth's would become the first chain store. It was treated by locals as part of the fabric of New Orleans. We once had at least half-dozen Woolworth's stores around town. A shopping trip to Canal Street would not have been complete without a stop in one of the two big Woolworth's for a grilled cheese sandwich, crinkle-cut fries, and a cherry Coke.
Mother's Day
Tomorrow would have been the 108th birthday of Aline Gremillion Fitzmorris, my mother and the person to whom I owe much of my enthusiasm for Creole food. She was born in rural Avoyelles Parish, near Cottonport. Her enormous family (she was the fourth-youngest of twelve) moved to New Orleans in 1918, which caused her to object when I once referred to her as a lifelong Orleanian. She grew up in the French Quarter and was valedictorian of St. Louis Cathedral School. Everybody who knew her remembers the goodness of her cooking. I still think of her versions of chicken gumbo and seafood gumbo, red beans and rice, bread pudding, lost bread, and baked chicken as definitive. My favorite description of her talents came from one of her brothers: “Aline can make a meal from nothing.”
Founding Fathers
Tomorrow is also the birthday (1732) of George Washington. The father of our country had, among many other distinctions, a strong interest in good food and wine. (That was common among many of the Founding Fathers.) His favorite wine was Malmsey Madeira, a sweet, fortified, oxidized wine that's sort of a cross between sherry and tawny port.
Edible Dictionary
Madeira, n.--A red wine produced on the Atlantic Ocean island of the same name. It is commonly drunk as an after-dinner wine. But it's just as widely used in cooking. It's a classic ingredient in, among other things, tournedos Rossini. Madeira has long been part of Portugal, and the wines there have elements in common with ports. They're fortified wines--meaning that their alcohol is elevated by the addition of brandy. They range from dry to sweet. Madeira has a unique story. It was thought to be a poor wine until a shipment of it in barrels made a long voyage in a ship. All the sloshing around caused the wine to oxidize a bit, which softened the wine and added the perfect flavor note. Now it's oxidized on purpose, as sherries and some other wines are. Malmsey Madiera--the sweetest--has long been admired in England and was much liked by Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other American founding fathers.
Food Namesakes
Words To Eat By
"Shellfish are the prime cause of the decline of morals and the adaptation of an extravagant lifestyle. Indeed of the whole realm of nature, the sea is in many ways the most harmful to the stomach, with its great variety of dishes and tasty fish."--Pliny the Elder.
