Friday, March 9, 2012.
Eating My Words In Thibodaux.
I'd say this qualifies as a weird coincidence. Two disparate organizations, neither with so much as a suggestion from me, decided it would be fun to stage a dinner with dishes from my (and Peggy's) Lost Restaurants of New Orleans book. That's the coincidence. The weird part is that they chose consecutive days for their events.
Tonight's was at Nicholls State University, the home of the John Folse Culinary Institute. Begun over a decade ago, the JFCI is a full four-year, degree-granting academic program in the arts of operating restaurants and other food services. The students learn not only how to operate all parts of a commercial kitchen, but how to manage a restaurant, from the front to the back of the house. The curriculum also includes business courses among the standard array of non-food requirements.
I told Al Davis--the dean of the school and a novelist--that if I were running the place I'd require two years of French, the lingua franca of cuisine. He agreed, but shrugged his shoulders. "It would have been if this were twenty years ago," he said. "Things have changed."
He was one of the instigators of this idea, along with my longtime friend and colleague Marcelle Bienvenu. She is teaching at JFCI these days, along with writing her 28-year-old column for the Times-Picayune and a succession of books.
Mary Ann helped tremendously by coming along for the trip. It looked as though I'd have to spend the night in Thibodaux if I'd gone alone, but I knew she'd insist on abstaining from drink so we could go home after the dinner, because there is no Four Seasons nor Ritz-Carlton anywhere along Bayou Lafourche. She also shaved a half-hour off what would be my best time en route.
We did the radio show from the Carmel Inn, which looked nice enough to me. The Culinary Institute leases the hotel's large, handsome restaurant as a lab for its students. Two nights a week while classes are in session, they serve dinner there. The house is always packed.
I was astonished to learn that between 300 and 400 students (depending on whether freshmen are counted) are enrolled in the culinary program. That is far more than I would have guessed. Enough to cause growing pains, as the word gets out about what a career enhancement this degree is for would-be restaurateurs. A big new facility is on the way.
We got an advance look at the menu as the budding chefs each brought one of the dishes from it. I could not imagine a more motivated, pleasant bunch of people. A few of them are not just ready for food service, but for the television cameras. One young woman said she was taking a second major: communications. This bodes well for the future of our eating scene.
We began with oysters Dunbar (left, with Jairus Jefferson)--the best dish from the extinct Corinne Dunbar's. The student chef even presented it the same way, with steamed artichoke leaves splayed around the ramekin of oysters, chopped artichoke bottoms, and a roux-based sauce a little like what you'd make for oyster patties. Everybody loved this.
Next came the crab bisque from T. Pittari's (right, with Tracey Comeaux). This was very spicy, the roux was too oily, and the crab boulette had not been fried. I think the cooks took some liberties with my recipe here. Still, it wasn't bad on its own, and people seemed to like it well enough.
After an imitation of the leaf-enclosed house salad from the old Delmonico (with Ross Dover, left), the diners had a choice of entrees. During the radio exposition, I was grabbed by the aroma of the chicken a la grandee (right, with Shawn Henderson), the recipe from the Elmwood Plantation. It tasted as good as it looked, an airline chicken breast surrounded by spicy roasted potatoes and Italian sausage.
Mary Ann chose another Elmwood dish, trout Lafreniere (left, with Gregory Doucet). It's baked fish with crabmeat and bread crumbs. Marcelle decreed that it needed some lemon butter, which I thought was an improvement. Nobody at my table of four went for veal Crozier (right, with Matthew Guillory), from the restaurant of the same name. As I went around the dining room, however, I spoke with several people who did, and they seemed to be happy. (I would not have been, because I remember the wonderful rice that Gerard Crozier used to put on that plate, and it was not here.)
Dessert was the red fruits with glazed sabayon (left, with Denise Boudreaux) from Henri. That dessert originally came from Auberge de l'Ill in Alsace--a place once called the best restaurant in the world. The chefs from there came to Henri twice a year to consult on the menu. They probably would have been dismayed by the look of the version turned out by the Nicholls students, but they would have loved the flavor. Fresh strawberries in a perfect glazed custard sauce? How could one not?
The dinner drew some 125 people--a full house. Some had come from far away, with a few Eat Club regulars, too. I could have sold a lot of copies of the book, but the best price I can get from the publisher doesn't make it worthwhile to me.
We left at around ten and were home about eleven-thirty. This is why I don't cover the restaurant scenes in Thibodaux, Houma, or the rest of Bayouland. We'd come down and spend a week if MA would ease her hotel standards a touch.
