My great-grandmother taught me how to love people through food. That knowledge and ability is my greatest inheritance. Mamman, as I knew her loved to cook but most of all, loved to feed her family. Every Sunday was a special event at Mamman’s table. White linen and crystal, sterling silver flatware gleaming, the midday dinner proceeded at a leisurely pace with those she loved gathered around. The food was not opulent, just delicious – shrimp salad, oyster rice dressing, peas in a roux all made regular appearances along with her dark, rich chicken stew and dumplings. Not the pallid affair most associate with the dish, Mamman’s chicken stew started with a dark roux seasoned with celery, bell pepper and onions served over steaming rice.
Loulie, our housekeeper loved me with food too. For the first ten years of my life, she cooked every meal we ate at home. The freezer was filled with stuffed peppers and other goodies stashed for weekends when she wasn’t there. But when I was ten years old, all that love went away.
Over the course of a few short months, my great-grandmother died suddenly and Loulie retired. Suddenly, my mother who hated cooking had to feed her family of four and it did not go well. Some people say you can taste the hand that stirred the pot. I know from personal experience if the cook abhors the task, you can taste it. I grieved not only for my Mamman and Loulie, but also for their delicious food.
Slowly, I began to experiment. First with simple things like scrambled eggs and grilled cheese sandwiches, once I found my way around the kitchen, I felt right at home.
I developed an interest in the weekly food section and Times-Picayune writer, Miriam Guidroz became my first teacher. On WYES-TV Julia Child was teaching America how to cook and I was an avid pupil.
My mother was thrilled. By the time I was in 7th grade, I rushed home from Ursuline every afternoon eager to cook dinner. A supermarket two blocks away provided any needed ingredients with some specialty items coming from Radosta’s Italian grocery on Carrollton Avenue. Pouring through the Joy of Cooking, I experimented to my heart’s content.
There were some failures. A Mother’s Day lemon pound cake stands out in memory as one of the worst. The recipe called for a cup of oil, but no one explained to me I couldn’t use oil leftover from a fish fry. I remember my grandmother Nana eating her way through that abominable slice of cake, insisting “Really Poppy! It’s good!”
Away at college, I became the cook at Cal Arts dorm restaurant, Mom’s Café. Given total freedom to cook whatever I wanted, I taught fellow students to love red beans and rice, jambalaya and other Louisiana specialties. The best lesson I learned at Cal Arts was that cooking gave me the same thrill as theater and inherently, I realized food would be a safer and happier path for me.
My education continued in restaurant kitchens from California to Connecticut then back in New Orleans, my life took another dramatic turn when I became a teaching assistant at Lee Barnes Cooking School. Lee’s motto was “Love To Eat? Learn To Cook!” After a few months she convinced me I could become a cooking teacher myself. Lee introduced me to Madeline Kamman, author of Making Of A Cook and a renowned teacher herself. I enrolled in her professional course spending six months in a New Hampshire inn, studying and cooking alongside five other students, six days a week. I graduated with a chef’s diploma and but most important to me, cooking teacher certification.
For many years I had the opportunity to share the knowledge of New Orleans’ food with an unending stream of tourists, eager to learn how to make a roux. Believing that knowing the true origins of a dish makes it tastes better, I explored food history, learning not just how its done, but why we’ve always done it that way. Our historic foodways became my primal focus.
In 1998 I was introduced to the Slow Food movement discovering there was an international organization ready to help me save our endangered foods. Quickly I focused on rescuing traditional New Orleans foods like Creole cream cheese and rice calas from extinction, urging people to “Eat It To Save It.” Those words came straight from my Mamman. When requesting I finish my meal, instead of “clean your plate,” she would implore, “Poppy, eat it to save it.”
Given the opportunity to write on these favorite topics, I was able to further spread the word. A revision of Madame Bégué’s Recipes of Old New Orleans Cookery led to the Tujagues and Pascal’s Manale cookbooks. Then, fourteen years ago I created Louisiana Eats!, WWNO’s first locally produced radio show. Heard on NPR affiliates statewide and podcast internationally, that platform has allowed me to celebrate our food and our food heroes in ways I could never have imagined.
When I produce Louisiana Eats! weekly, I always make sure to smile into the microphone. Imagining a listener experiencing a rough day, I hope they hear my smile and catch a bit of contagious happiness. With my smile, I send love across the airwaves, just as surely as the love that stirred my great-grandmother’s pot.
