By Jessica B. Harris, PhD
2008 IACP Scholar-in-Residence
 It's become cliché today that New Orleans is a gumbo pot of cultures, but it is
true. The center of the old French Quarter or Vieux Carré is Jackson
Square. Named for an American general the square sits in the middle of
the oldest section of town where the architecture owes as much to the
Spaniards who occupied the city from 1763 to 1800 as to the French who
established their primacy from 1718 to 1762 and then reclaimed it from
1800 to 1803 before it became a part of the Louisiana Purchase. A quick
look around the square will reveal the extent of the city's fusing of
cultures to any lover of architecture. The statue of the 7th president
of the United States sits astride his capering horse in a park in front
of the cathedral named for a French saint that is next to a former
colonial government building: the 1795-built town hall bearing the
Spanish name of Cabildo. Less evident, but a critical part of the
city's cultural mix are the hints of African hands that can be seen in
the intricate wrought iron work that decorates balconies and fences.
These three groups of people were only the first layers of those who
would come to call the Crescent City home.
Following them others would arrive: Cajuns (Acadians) from Canada
who would create the country cooking of the outlying bayous with their
willingness to use wide ranging ingredients, and a love for the spicy
that would flavor the pots. Haitians, Black and white, free and
enslaved would head to New Orleans in the period leading up to their
1804 revolution and become a great, if often discussed influence on the
city's cuisine. Americans, white and Protestant, businessmen and
adventurers would migrate down to what became a major port in the boom
years just before and following the Civil War. They were joined with
Italians from Southern Italy who would take over the French Market, the
oldest in the country, and leave their mark on the selling of the
city's produce, and by Spaniards and Portuguese and Cubans. Lebanese
and Syrians from the Levant would also arrive and add their savory
spices to the mix. The Vietnamese are some of the newest immigrants,
flocking to the American city that bears a French, Roman Catholic
tradition similar to their own. They have again transformed the
agriculture and the shrimping and fishing that is one of the region's
mainstays. Post Hurricane Katrina (August 29, 2005), Latino culture is
arriving again complete with new foods and Central American flair.
We all live side-by-side in the antebellum mansions, Victorian
townhouses of Uptown, the grand edifices of Esplanade Avenue, the
multi-hued Creole cottages and shotgun houses of the faubourgs and the
modern tracts of the recovering suburbs. We shop in Farmers Markets
that celebrate our local produce and sell ingredients like okra and
cushaws, creole tomatoes and file powder. We eat Roman taffy candy and
pralines and know how to brew a fierce cup of coffee that is as hot as
hell, as dark as night, and sweet as love. We love entertaining and we
revel in eating each other's food.
When the Sieur de Bienville braved mosquitoes, snakes, and
hurricanes and founded the city at the site of an Indian portage in
1718, he couldn't have anticipated the heterogeneous mix of peoples who
would come to call the city on the bend in the river home. He certainly
couldn't have anticipated, in the corn porridge seasoned with bear fat
called sagamite of the Native peoples, that the city would create a
rich culinary mix that would draw travelers from multiple continents
and mark it as one of the must-eat spots in the United States.
My city's fusion is evident not only in its history and in the jazz
that comes forth in a joyous cacophony from the brass bands and small
orchestras that seem to play on every street corner, or from the
syncopated rhythms of local children who attach a few bottle caps to
the soles of their sneakers and tap dance their way into some spare
change. For gastronomes, gourmets, and plain old gluttons, my city's
most important fusion turns up on the plate in the myriad flavor-rich
dishes that put the city's history on the plate and are uniquely New
Orleans. Come visit us for IACP's annual convention in 2008.
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