CHAPTER XXV. Creole Cookery. New Orleans is noted for its excellent cooking. The fame of the Creole Cuisine has so often been the theme of song and story, and has received such flattering tributes from some of the worlds greatest minds, that a brief allusion to the noble art seems a fitting conclusion to a Guide Book, whose object has been to give the stranger true glimpses of life in New Orleans. Creole cookery is not the least part of this life. It has come down as a precious inheritance through long generations of model housewives, and realizing this, THE PICAYUNE proposes in this chapter to lead the tourist right into the heart of the Creole kitchen, by giving selected extracts from the introductions to the recent editions of THE PICAYUNES Creole Cook Book, carefully compiled from recipes that have given to the Creole cuisine the unique an** interesting and helpful place it occupies in the worlds cookery. INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION OF THE PICAYUNES CREOLE COOK BOOK. In presenting to the public this Creole Cook Book, THE PICAYUNE is actuated by the desire to fill a want that has been long felt, not only in New Orleans, where the art of good cooking was long ago reduced to a positive. TANTE ZABELLES TRIUMPH—GUMBO FILE. science, but in many sections of the country where the fame of our Creola cuisine has spread, and where with slight modifications incident to local supplies of food articles, many of our most delightful recipes may be adapted by the intelligent housekeeper with profit and pleasure. The Creole negro cooks of nearly two hundred years ago, carefully instructed and directed by their white Creole mistresses, who received their inheritance of gastronomic lore from France, where the art of good cooking first had birth, faithfully transmitted their knowledge to their progeny, and these, quick to appreciate and understand, and with a keen intelligence and zeal born of the desire to please, improvised and improved upon the products of the cuisine of Louisianas mother country; then came the Spanish domination, with its influx of rich and stately dishes, brought over by the grand dames of Spain of a century and a half ago; after that came the gradual amalgamation of the two races on Louisiana soil, and with this was evolved a new school of cookery, partaking of the best elements of the French and Spanish cusines, and yet peculiarly distinct from either; a system of cookery that has held its own through succeeding generations and which drew from even such a learned authority as Thackeray, that noted tribute to New Orleans, the old French-Spanish city on the banks of the Mississippi, where, of all the cities in the world, you can eat the most and suffer the least, where claret is as good as at Bordeaux, and where a ragout and a bouillabaisse can be had, the like of which was never eaten in Marseilles or Paris. But the Civil War, with its vast upheavals of social conditions, wrought great changes in the household economy of New Orleans, as it did throughout the South; here, as elsewhere, she who had ruled as the mistress of yesterday became her own cook of today; in nine cases out of ten the younger darkies accepted their freedom with alacrity, but in many ancient families the older Creole negresses, as they were called, were slow to leave the haunts of the old cuisine and the families of which they felt themselves an integral part. Many lingered on, and the young girls who grew up after that period had opportunities that wil never again come to the Creole girls of New Orleans. But soon will the last of the olden negro cooks of ante-bellum days have passed away and their places will not be supplied. The only remedy is for the ladies of the present day to do as their grandmothers did, acquaint themselves thoroughly with the art of cooking in all its important and minutest details, and learn how to properly apply them. To assist them in this, to preserve to future generations the many excellent and matchless recipes of our New Orleans cuisine, to gather these up from the lips of the old Creole negro cooks and the grand old housekeepers who survive, ere they, too, pass away, and Creole cookery, with all its delightful combinations and possibilities, will have become a lost art, is, in a measure, the object of this book. But far and above this, THE PICAYUNE, in compiling this book, has been animated by the laudable desire to teach the great mass of the public how to live cheaply and well. The moral influences of good cooking cannot be too forcibly insisted upon. There is an old saying that the way to a mans heart is through his stomach. Every housewife knows the importance of setting a well-cooked meal before her husband if she wishes him to preserve his equanimity of temper. Every mother should know the importance of preparing good, nutritious dishes for her children in the most palatable and appetizing manner, if she would give them that most precious of all gifts a healthy mind in a healthy body. People are the better, the happier and the longer lived for the good, wholesome, well cooked daily meal. It is proposed in this book to assist housekeepers generally to set a dainty and appetizing table at a moderate outlay; to give recipes clearly and accurately with simplicity and exactness, so that the problem of how to live may become easier of solution and even the most ignorant and inexperienced cook may be able to prepare a toothsome and nutritious meal with success. The housekeeper is not told to take some of this, a little of that, and a pinch of some other ingredient; she is not left to the chance of guessing accidentally at the proper proportions of component parts of any dish, but the relative proportions of all ingredients are given with accuracy, the proper length of time required in cooking is specified to a nicety, and the relative heat of the fire required for cooking different dishes. In all the recipes the quantities are given for dishes for a family of six. The intelligent housekeeper will thus be able to form a happy medium and increase or reduce proportionately according to the size of her family, the number of invited guests, etc.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 12:50:12 +0000
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