Virtual Gourmet

The Orchestra NEWSLETTER

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IN THIS ISSUE
CAJUN VS CREOLE
By John Mariani

NEW YORK CORNER
LOVE AND PIZZA
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
By John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
ICE WINE FOR FROZEN WINTER
By John Mariani

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On the next video episode of Celebrating Act 2 on February 8, I will be speaking with hosts John Coleman and Art Kirsch about How to Save $$$ On Vacation: Click.

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CAJUN VS CREOLE:
A Tale of Two Gumbos
By John Mariani

Crawfish Boil at Toup's Eatery

         If you ask two Louisiana gourmands the difference between Creole and Cajun food, you are in for an endless debate, preferably over a few Sazerac cocktails or bottles of Abita beer and a mess of boiled crawfish.
     Cajun-born New Orleans food authority Tom Fitzmorris contends, “Creole food is genteel city food, and Cajun food is rustic country food. But both have French dish names and similar ingredients.” But then he says, “There is no real difference anymore. The two cuisines have cross-pollinated each other so thoroughly that the question is academic."

Maybe so, at least in New Orleans, whose restaurants were once dyed-in-the-wool Creole but have now accepted Cajun influences. But there are still distinctions, and the farther west you go into the bayou country, the more the food will be much more downhome and a lot spicier than the Creole food in the east, where the dominant influence has always been French haute cuisine.
Classic Creole dishes rarely seen in Cajun eateries would include oysters Rockefeller (left), chicken Clemençeau, crawfish Sardou, frogs’ legs Provençal, and pommmes soufflé, all still served at Antoine’s (below), opened in New Orleans in 1840, and where, until recently, the menu was still all in French. Indeed, if you want to get a true sense of the refined flavors and style of Creole cooking, a table at

Antoine’s would be a good start.
     So, too, all the classic Creole dishes are on the menu at the revered restaurant Galatoire’s (below, left), opened in 1905 on Bourbon Street—crabmeat ravigote, shrimp Marguery, chicken bonne-femme, and sweet potato cheesecake—served by long-term waiters in tuxedos who will tell you what fish just swam into the kitchen that morning.
    The lighter style known as “New Creole” was pioneered by the late Ella and Dick Brennan at Commander’s Palace in the 1970s, with dishes like crawfish mousse, shrimp and fettuccine, trout with roasted pecans, and bread pudding soufflé. It was from Commander’s Palace that a young chef named Emeril Lagasse graduated to open his own namesake restaurant, where he brought in

global influences to Creole traditions with dishes like sticky buffalo duck wings; jerk Mississippi quail with chorizo sausage and Jamaican salsa; and grilled pork chop with caramelized sweet potatoes, tamarind glaze and green chile mole, along with his own versions of barbecued shrimp and gumbo.
     In fact, gumbo, along with jambalaya, crawfish etouffée, and shrimp remoulade, is a crossover dish found in both Creole and Cajun kitchens. Today even restaurants in the French Quarter have added Cajun versions to their menus, like Mr. B’s Bistro, whose gumbo is a rich broth of Gulf shrimp, crabmeat, and okra, while the latter, on the same menu, is gumbo ya-ya, made with chicken and andouille sausage flecked with hot pepper.
    Aficionados will tell you it’s all about the “roux”—a mix of fat and flour that is browned in a saucepan and used to thicken a dish’s base or sauce. In Creole cookery, the roux is lighter in color and thinner, in Cajun it’s darker and thicker, differences that affect the color and taste of the gumbos.

    I should mention about now that the word “Creole” is applied to the descendants of the first French settlers in Louisiana as well as to the mixed bloods—European, Spanish, Native American, African-American—who inhabited the same territory and spoke a French dialect. “Cajuns” are descendants of French Acadians displaced from Nova Scotia by the British and sent to backwoods western Louisiana (right).
    So, when the redoubtable Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme, who also had worked at Commander’s Palace, opened a no-frills communal seating eatery called K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in the French Quarter (now closed), his intensely rich, blisteringly spicy country-style Cajun food was greeted with far more praise from visiting food writers than many locals, who thought the food was way out of whack with their beloved Creole culinary traditions.

Prudhomme (left) eventually won them over with signature dishes like blackened redfish, eggplant bayou Teche shaped like a Cajun canoe called a pirogue, crawfish pie (like the one Hank Williams sang about in “Jambalaya”) and chicken Tchoupitoulas.
Bayou-born-and-raised Donald Link has straddled both culinary worlds. When he opened a New Orleans restaurant named Herbsaint, he served eclectic items like curried shrimp with chili couscous, and gnocchi with pancetta and Parmesan; but his next restaurant, Cochon (“pig”), was truer to his roots. In his cookbook Real Cajun, Link called his food “Rustic Home Cooking,” offering dishes like Aunt Sally’s black-eyed peas, fried pig’s ears with barbecue sauce, smoked pork chops with watermelon pickle and fried alligator with a chili garlic mayonnaise.
Link also brought to New Orleans the Cajun boucherie (“butcher”), making his own boudin and andouille sausages and bacon. And the farther away from New Orleans you go, the food will more resemble Cochon’s than anything at Herbsaint.

The town of LaPlace even declares itself—to nearby townspeople’s consternation—the Andouille Capital of the World and holds a festival each October to celebrate it.
To taste Cajun boudin and barbecue in its authentic setting, head to Lafayette, on the Vermilion River in southwestern Louisiana, where, since 1937, John’s Boucanière has been turning out hearty smoked meats, boudin sausages and beef briskets.The store has a little walk-in area for ordering and paying, and in the back, three enormous smoking ovens filled with hanging

sausage, trays of beef and pork on a rotisserie, cooking in their own juices. Don’t miss the Zydeco Special—a sandwich of slow-smoked mixed beef and pork sausage loaded up with mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce and tomatoes. Also terrific are the pulled pork po’ boy sandwich, crispy-skinned brisket of beef, and smoky boudin grilled on a hot griddle and served with hot sauce.
The smell of burning wood wafts through the air around Lafayette from early morning until closing time.
That is what Cajun tastes like in its purest form. And it sure doesn’t taste like chicken Clemençeau or pommes soufflé.

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NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani

Since, for the time being, I am unable to write about or review New York City restaurants, I have decided instead to print a serialized version of my (unpublished) novel Love and Pizza, which takes place in New York and Italy and involves a young, beautiful Bronx woman named Nicola Santini from an Italian family impassioned about food. As the story goes on, Nicola, who is a student at Columbia University, struggles to maintain her roots while seeing a future that could lead her far from them—a future that involves a career and a love affair that would change her life forever. So, while New York’s restaurants remain closed, I will run a chapter of the Love and Pizza each week until the crisis is over. Afterwards I shall be offering the entire book digitally. I hope you like the idea and even more that you will love Nicola, her family and her friends. I’d love to know what you think. Contact me at loveandpizza123@gmail.com
—John Mariani

To read previous chapters go to archive (beginning with March 29, 2020, issue).

LOVE AND PIZZA

By John Mariani

Cover Art By Galina Dargery

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Bronx

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

         Finally, after much back and forth, a date was decided upon—a Sunday family dinner at the restaurant, with all Neapolitan dishes. Marco wanted to get there very early, so Tony had to open the place at 7 a.m, when the meal’s preparation began in earnest, with Marco pleading that he work alone.
         “You don’t need any help from my crew?” asked Tony.
         “No, they have enough to do cooking for your customers.”
         “Not even Nicola?”
         Marco thought the better of his demand and said, “Ah, of course, I’d love to have Nicola with me in the kitchen.”                     But Nicola had gotten back from her latest trip very late the night before and needed to sleep in, only arriving at the restaurant around eleven. Apologizing, she said, “So you need me to help with anything, Marco?”
         Marco didn't look up from his cutting board. “Not now,” he snapped. “Everything’s done.” Nicola winced and pretended to sneak out of the kitchen.
     Her family arrived at one o’clock, after Mass at Mount Carmel, everyone still dressed up, a tradition that had fallen away elsewhere in many Catholic communities but was still maintained in Belmont.
         Nicola went back into the kitchen and stood there, waiting for Marco to say something. Then, “Okay, Nicola, I need some help bringing out the food. I will take some of the dishes and I want to explain what they’re eating, okay?”
    Nicola saluted and said, “Si, Maestro,” which made Marco cave and say, “Nicolina, c’e perfetto!” Then he hugged and kissed her. “I missed you this week.”
    “I missed you, too. Okay, what do I bring out?”
    The array of dishes—not too many and not in large portions—began exiting the kitchen, and with each one Marco explained the name of the dish, where it came from, why it is made a certain way, and the provenance of the ingredients.
         The antipasti were cold: fresh mozzarella, which Marco had bought next door from the Greco family; stuffed eggplant and pepper rolls; and some fine Italian salumi. For the pasta he served rounds of semolina gnocchi baked with melted fontina cheese; then came sartù di riso, a baked rice dish containing sausage, chicken giblets, peas and mushrooms bound by mozzarella.
         There was a fish course—baccalà, the salted, very stiff dried cod that needs to be soaked and rinsed for many hours in running water to become edible. Marco cooked it slowly with sweet peppers. (He had decided on baccalà because he couldn’t find the quality of fresh fish he wanted on a Sunday.)
      As in Capri, the main course was quite simple: that wonderful New York strip steak Nicola had so enjoyed, seared and cooked rare, sliced into thick slabs and laid on garlic-rich sautéed spinach, all glossed with a few drops of olive oil.
         Since Marco did not think of himself as much of a dessert maker, he ended the meal with a granita, which was like shaved ice richly flavored with very dark, very sweet espresso and topped with a little whipped cream.
         The bravos were long and loud at the Santini table, and Nicola was extremely proud of what Marco had done, seemingly with little effort. For, although the Santinis had pretty much tasted variations of everything Marco had prepared, all of them agreed they had never tasted any like it.
         Anthony Santini quieted down his family and raised his wine glass, saying, “À Marco di Noè, una vero maestro della cucina!” They all clapped and then Tony, who had been tending to his other guests and only picked from Marco’s dishes in the kitchen, asked for quiet again and said, “Marco, this is what I want the food at Alla Teresa to taste like. If you ever want a job”—he whispered this so his kitchen staff would not hear—“you’ve got one right here.”
         Marco thanked him and said, “If I ever wanted to be a chef year-round, this is where I would love to work, Tony.” Then he thanked the Santinis for coming and bade them goodbye. After they left, he loosened the collar of his chef’s jacket and sat down to have a glass of wine with Nicola, who was smiling but silent.
         “What?” asked Marco.
         “Caro, I think I’d love you even if you couldn’t cook like this, but since you do, I think you are the most perfect man in the world—especially as far as the Santini family is concerned.”
         Marco hugged her close and said, “I am far from perfect, cara, but with practice and your help, maybe I get better, okay?” Then he whispered, “So, can you stay with me tonight?”
         Nicola shook her head, sighed and said, “Oh, how I wish I could, but I can’t.”
         “Perché non? Why not? Can't you call Catherine or your friends and tell your family you’re staying with them?”
         “It’s not that, Marco. It’s that I have to fly to Milan tomorrow for the shows, and I haven’t even unpacked from last night. Please try to understand. This is the most important show I’m doing, and I would never ever disappoint Signora Palma.”
         “Nicolina,” said Marco, looking down at his wine. “I am Neapolitan, but I try always to stay calm. But right now I want to explode!” He didn’t, but he went on: “I didn’t see you all last week because you’re in, where?”
         “Martinique.”
         “And now I won’t see you for this whole next week. Is this the way it’s going to be from now on?”
         Nicola knew how reasonable Marco was trying to be. “No, caro, it's just that spring is a very busy time in the industry. It’s when all the shows are, and the stores start selling their summer lines. There’s no better time for me to make good money.”
         Somehow Nicola knew that her chef-artist lover was not going to be placated by her mentioning money, and she was surprised when all he did was wave his hands in the air and say, “Okay, Nicolina. But this is very tough for me. I know no one in New York, except the Harrisons and they are not my kind of people. But I am proud you have this . . . job. So I will wait another week for you.”
         Nicola was not sure what that meant. “And after that?”
         “And after that, we’ll be together. Or we’re not. My schedule is nothing, but yours changes every day.”
         Nicola thought hard before saying, “Marco, that sounds like some sort of ultimatum.”
         Marco shook his head, looked into her eyes and said, “No, no ultimatum. But I love you and need to be with you. I am homesick, I do not like what I do, and you are the only thing I cling to here in New York. It is you who will determine if I stay or not.”
         Nicola thought it best to accept both the compliment and the opportunity to make everything up to Marco. “I feel the same way about you, Marco,” she said. “Not that I’m going anywhere, but I don’t want to lose you. You’ll see, I’ll come back from Milan and everything will fall into place.”

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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

In Sub-Freezing Winter Ice Wines
Seem To Be Just The Thing To Enjoy

By John Mariani

         The story goes that ice wines were discovered by accident when a German baron left his estate one summer’s day for one war or another, neglecting to tell his peasants to pick the grapes and make wine in the fall. When he returned he found the peasants—who never did anything they weren’t told to do—neither picked the grapes nor made wine, leaving the fruit on the vine to freeze (below).   Quite literally plucking victory from the vines of defeat, the baron found that the grapes had continued to grow ripe with sugar, which was intensified by the freeze that dehydrated them, so that when they were pressed, they gave up very little juice but spectacularly good, intensely sweet white wine, which in German is eiswein.
       The legend seems too pat, but there’s no question that a passion for ice wines developed first in Germany and Austria, where sweet wines made from late harvested, but never frozen, grapes have long been an established part of viniculture. Wines labeled beerenauslese and trockenbeerenauslese, however, are usually attacked in the fall by a botrytis fungus called Edelfäule (“Noble Rot”), which also concentrates the sugars, balanced by minerals and acid, just like Bordeaux’s famous Sauternes and Barsac. Eisweins, on the other hand, are not attacked by the Edelfäule, and they are pressed with ice crystals still within them. They can be as sweet as botrytis-affected wines, but they tend to be richer, more like a liqueur, and are savored as a dessert wine, or as dessert all on their own.
      The picking of the frozen grapes is carefully monitored, for frozen temperatures don’t visit German vineyards much before the third week in November, and to wait for freezing temperatures—even until February—is risky business, because the grapes may just wither away or be eaten by birds (netting is usually placed over selected vineyards). Even then, the grapes are carefully plucked from the vine by hand, discarding the majority that have gone bad, resulting in a yield that may be only 5 to 10 percent of the entire crop. After pressing, the wines are aged for a few months, and the alcohol level stops naturally between 10 and 12 percent. At that point you can certainly enjoy the freshness and fruited character of an ice wine, though it will age and take on more bittersweet, caramel-like nuances over many years.
     While German and Austrian eisweins have long been imported into the U.S., they have for the most part remained little more than golden curiosity pieces. Those who love sweet German wines are more likely to go for the more complex levels of flavor in an aged trockenbeerenauslese, which can be very costly indeed, well in excess of $100 a bottle. Eisweins offer a less expensive alternative and a rush of flavor that is uniquely their own.
      But North American winemakers are nothing if not curious, so several—most auspiciously, Canadians—are now producing some remarkable ice wines that can compete with the best out of the Germanic countries. And, being experimental, they have tried different grape varieties beyond the usual Riesling used in Europe.
        Most prominent of these new ice wines are from the Canadian vintner Inniskillin, with vineyards on the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario and the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia—both with cool climates that can turn to freezing temperatures conducive to making ice wines. Indeed, since Canada is not known for its fine table wines, the arrival a few years ago of these ice wines from across the border surprised connoisseurs, not only for the wines’ brightness and intensity, but for their varietal distinctions, since Inniskillin makes ice wines from Riesling, Vidal, Gewürztraminer, and even the red grape Carnet Franc, which produces a lovely rose-colored, spicy, floral ice wine. They’ve been at it for 35 years.
     Inniskillin makes a wide variety, including five from the grape Vidal, even a sparkling version, all in 375 ml bottles. The Vidals are like cotton candy, with flavors of peach and nectarines. The winery also makes Rieslings and, surprisingly, Cabernet Franc.
      New York State also produces ice wines of good caliber, especially in the Finger Lakes region, as does the state of Washington. Standing Stone Vidal from New York’s Lake Seneca is a delight, with a green-gold color and lovely vanilla nuances. One the best of the Washington ice wines is Covey Run 2002 Reserve Riesling, now 18 years old and aging well. One of my favorites among German entries was a Johannes Selbach Oster Zelt Himmelweiss Riesling, a very pretty example of a traditional eiswein with real breeding. It costs $100 a bottle or more but comes in 750 ml. And the North American bottles are a lot more distinctive in design too.
        The true measure of a contemporary ice wine is not, however, in being an extreme form of curiously crafted sweet wine; it is in its being shown to be adaptable to so many grapes to provide so many tastes and pleasures to be enjoyed in a few, luscious sips, without too much alcohol in the bargain. No longer rarities, ice wines have become gem-like luxuries.

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani, Robert Mariani, Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish, and Brian Freedman. Contributing Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.