10 Heroes of New Orleans Cuisine
By John DeMers and Rhonda Findley
The world-famous cooking of New Orleans is sometimes treated as though it's about things: fresh seafood from the Gulf, lakes and bayous, fresh game from the forests, swamps and skies, fresh produce from the rich, river-silted fields. But we say, hold on, there. The world-famous cooking of New Orleans is really about people. Read more about the people behind the fine food in this article from New Orleans Gourmet!
Poorly rewarded but rich in their offerings
The restaurant business being what it is, the vast majority of those people labored for years unknown, poorly rewarded (before chefs became media superstars) and almost certainly forgotten shortly after their deaths. Yet the history of this city's cuisine is also the history of those people -- who applied themselves to the preparation and service of food and wine with a special twinkle in their eye, an extra spring in their step, and the occasional stroke of genius. The 10 people we have in mind did a lot of jobs over many years, lived with a lot of titles, and knew both fortune and misfortune. We call them something simpler than all that, though. We call them our heroes.
The restaurant business being what it is, the vast majority of those people labored for years unknown, poorly rewarded (before chefs became media superstars) and almost certainly forgotten shortly after their deaths. Yet the history of this city's cuisine is also the history of those people -- who applied themselves to the preparation and service of food and wine with a special twinkle in their eye, an extra spring in their step, and the occasional stroke of genius. The 10 people we have in mind did a lot of jobs over many years, lived with a lot of titles, and knew both fortune and misfortune. We call them something simpler than all that, though. We call them our heroes.
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Lafcadio Hearn -- This colorful journalist and man about town is thought to have written the most comprehensive cultural account of turn of the century New Orleans. Hearn's La Creole Cuisine is said to be the most accurate account of Creole cooking techniques and ingredient listings prior to the 20th century.
His accounts of New Orleans as a city prone to mystery, decadence and romance have endured to this day. Born to a Greek mother and Irish father in 1850, Hearn moved to New Orleans after his scandalous affair with a free-woman of color rocked prudish Victorian Cincinnati. Finding haven here, Hearn's editorialist status at the current newspapers of the day, both the now defunct Daily City Item and the Times-Democrat, kept him in tune with the fashionable currents and political climate of the day. His accounts of New Orleans and the evolution of Creole culture and cuisine are unparalleled.
Madame Begue -- The first lady of female chefs and famous for her three-hour second breakfast now known as brunch, Madama Begue opened her French Quarter dining establishment in the mid-19th century. A German immigrant of the Kettenring family, Elizabeth Dutrey Begue's legacy began as traditional fare from her native country. It evolved to include Creole and Cajun dishes, however, after she joined forces (and households) with her bartender, Hypolite Begue, upon the death of her first husband.
It is noted that in 1884 during the Cotton Centennial, Begue's superstar status and the quality of her cuisine brought throngs of tourists to her dining establishment. Madame Begue died in 1906 but her reputation and her brunch creations live on, primarily in the name of Begue's restaurant at the Royal Sonesta Hotel and in the traditional eatery in her best-known location, Tujague's.
Jules Alciatore -- Son of the founder of famed Antoine's restaurant, Antoine Alciatore, Jules began his culinary contribution as chef at this revered New Orleans dining landmark since 1840. Some of his more lasting ideas include Oyster's Rockefeller, pommes de terre soufflés (puffed potatoes), and pompano en papillote -- fish in a parchment bag cooked in a special wine sauce. Jules took the reins of the kitchen in 1887 after years of tutelage by his mother plus apprenticeships in the great kitchens of Paris, Strasbourg and Marseilles -- the family's hometown.
Upon Jules' return to New Orleans, after a brief stint as chef of the famous Pickwick Club, his mother summoned him to head Antoine's. To put this change of guard into perspective, it is interesting to note that Antoine's has been in operation 40 years longer than Galatoire's and 80 years longer than Commander's Palace. Jules' prowess in the kitchen is largely responsible for the reputation and praise Antoine's has received. Over the years, it has hosted nine presidents, the King of England and even His Holiness Pope John Paul II.
Jean Galatoire -- Most recognized as the mastermind behind the first great movement of Creole cuisine and patriarch of a family restaurant operation that has endured for a century, Monsieur Jean immigrated to America from the foothills of the French Pyrenees in 1880 and opened an inn in Birmingham, Alabama. Twenty years later he abandoned Birmingham for the cosmopolitan life of New Orleans. In 1905, five years after his move to Nouvelle Orleans, Galatoire purchased Victor's restaurant, renamed it appropriately and set off on a culinary course to that would forever change New Orleans cuisine and social life.
The first restaurant proprietor to adjust classical French cuisine with an eye toward locally available ingredients, Galatoire created an elegant cuisine that has become a rite of passage for those wanting to trace the city's culinary roots. An equal rite of passage is standing in line waiting for the doors to open on Friday and experiencing ground zero of the creation of such traditional New Orleans mainstays as trout amandine, shrimp remoulade and the mysterious and never published Galatoire's recipe for trout Marguery.
Count Arnaud -- New Orleans DOES have royalty -- but it also has it's own definition of royalty, as anyone toasting Rex on Fat Tuesday should understand. Count Arnaud, the founder of Arnaud's in the French Quarter and inspiration for some of the city's finest Creole dishes, was actually just Arnaud Cazenave, a young guy from Pau in southwest France who came to New Orleans to study medicine but decided to sell liquor instead. It was, perhaps, even before he opened the doors of Arnaud's on Bienville Street that his gracious hospitality convinced New Orleans he must be fresh from some chateau. Count Arnaud he became for the rest of his days. Or, for short, The Count.
Though he would later be eclipsed in terms of theatrics by his daughter, Germaine Cazenave Wells, during her decades running the restaurant, the Count did show an inate understate of food, wine and people. He was the most appealing of hosts, sipping on cocktails all night every night while making points in conversation with his ever-present cigar. Among the dishes attributed to Cazenave are shrimp Arnaud (the best version of shrimp remoulade ever), oysters Bienville and a rendition of trout meuniere with veal stock enriching the sauce.
Owen Brennan -- Something tells the Irish liquor salesman named Owen Brennan simply wanted to launch a restaurant. As it turned out, though, he launched a dynasty. After a few warm-up acts in the French Quarter, Brennan took over the old Vieux Carre Restaurant on Bourbon Street and put his name in front of the previous name, evolving it over time into Owen Brennan's French Restaurant was, then as now, considered a bit confusing.
Brennan himself died young, before his family could move their namesake eatery from Bourbon to its current lovely location on Royal Street. His three sons now operate Brennan's, famous for some of the longest, most caloric and probably most alcoholic "breakfasts" on the face of the earth. Owen's sister Ella became the matriarch of her own side of the family, operating Commander's Palace, Mr B's and a host of other "Brennan family" restaurants in New Orleans, Houston, Las Vegas and elsewhere. Owen Brennan clearly was a likeable guy. But he surely had no idea how many thousands of people would celebrate his legacy with food and wine each and every day.
Nathaniel Burton -- Another time, another place in the Old South, the Nathaniel Burton's might be a name diners never got to hear -- indeed, even now, his gift to the cuisine of New Orleans is somewhere between ignored and misunderstood. Yet when Burton published his cookbook Creole Feast back in 1978 (co-authored with Rudy Lombard), he seemed quite aware he was using his respected voice to speak out for many who had little respect or voice.
Born in McComb, Mississippi, in 1914, Burton became over several decades the most recognized African-American chef in a city that depended almost entirely on African-Americans to get dinner on the table. He represented not only his race but his many "students," an entire generation, maybe two, of cooks who literally opened and closed most of the city's hotel and restaurant kitchens each day. His own best known job was running foodservice at the Pontchartrain Hotel (followed in this position by the late Louis Evans, a spectacularly gifted protégé). Still, Burton's legacy may not be in dinners but in lives -- lives giving meaning by the chance to cook for a living.
Al Copeland -- Long known as the "fried chicken king," rags-to-riches Al Copeland should retain a place in New Orleans lore as the man with the golden taste buds. Copeland made his initial fortune giving the world Popeye's Famous Fried Chicken and Biscuits, its original spicy recipe perfected in between early morning shifts at a relative's donut shop. After a complex takeover of No. 2 chicken chain Church's by No. 3 Popeye's in the 1980s, the whole deal crumbled over "junk bond" financing. Copeland lost ownership of Popeye's. People felt sorry for him, losing all those millions.
By all accounts, Copeland never felt sorry for himself. He actually retained so many Popeye's recipes that the new corporate owners had to pay him for virtually every chicken wing they served. Plus he had to sell them all the seasonings. Plus he operated quite a few stores himself. Since Popeye's moved away from its true New Orleans home, Copeland has continued to spin out eatery concepts, the best being Copeland's of New Orleans and the new Copeland's Cheesecake Bistro. Copeland's riches may fluctuate now and again, but there are still no rags in sight.
Paul Prudhomme -- Best known as the chef who first blackened redfish (thus setting off a worldwide craze and more than a few home smoke alarms), Chef Paul is a profound ambassador for the Cajun cooking of south Louisiana. After years as a journeyman chef working under European masters all over America, Prudhomme decided it was time for a Cajun to be in charge. He returned to Louisiana, first as executive chef for the Brennan family restaurants spinning out from Commander's Palace in New Orleans and later as chef-owner of the now-legendary K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen in the French Quarter.
Over the years, Prudhomme's open and contagious grin has become synonymous with the spirit of Louisiana. Today, Chef Paul is not only a fixture in his restaurant, on the bookshelf and on public television stations everywhere -- he is even the smiling face on his own line of spices, Magic Seasoning blends.
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Emeril Lagasse -- He's here. He's there. He's everywhere. Turn on your TV and Bam! Chef Emeril Lagasse's charisma and charm have turned grocery shopping and stirring the pot into more fun than Disney World. Enrollment is up in cooking schools around the world and aspiring cooks are learning that musician and actor aren't the only jobs capable of "kickin' it up a notch." Cooking has become entertainment and husbands, wives, sons and daughters can't get enough of the cornerstone of the TV Food Network.
As the world's most recognized celebrity chef, devotees flock to New Orleans to experience his personal culinary mission to rebirth and renew not only Cajun and Creole cuisine but to seek out and utilize all of the food resources Louisiana has to offer. At age 26, this feisty Fall River, Massachusetts, native commandeered the helm of the Brennan family's Commander's Palace in the footsteps of Chef Paul Prudhomme.
After a 7 1/2 year partnership with the grand-dame of Louisiana cuisine, Ella Brennan, Emeril went on to open his own namesake restaurant, Emeril's. Ten years, six wildly successful restaurants (New Orleans, Las Vegas and Orlando), five cookbooks with over 2 million sold, and one prime-time sitcom later, Emeril Lagasse sets new standards in entertaining from the kitchen for chefs in the 21st century.
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About this article: This article originally appeared in New Orleans Gourmet Magazine.
