Is most food in new orleans spicy?

8/28/2013

 
Guest Blogger - reprinted with permission from Richard Bienvenu who blogs on everything New Orleans. Check him out!

This question I got from Yahoo! answers.

The short answer is no. Most New Orleans food is not spicy.

I am assuming you are referring to New Orleans food as being full of cayenne pepper and such. Most New Orleans food is not this way. That New Orleans food is spicy hot really is a fallacy.

Just How Spicy is New Orleans food? Is New Orleans food spicy? Depends on the dish and who is making it.

Then there is the confusion between what is New Orleans food and what is Cajun food. There is a cross over, to be sure.

This is something that has happened with restaurants across the country making dishes full of cayenne pepper and then calling them Cajun or Creole.

That just ain’t the way it is. To be sure, a lot of Cajun food can be spicy. Crawfish are usually that way, some batches being spicier than others depending on who makes them. I’ve eaten some crawfish that were so hot with cayenne as to be inedible. Some Cajun sausage is hot but not all. Boudin is usually not spicy but Andouille is.

Now, getting back to New Orleans food. You might find some Creole dishes, like shrimp Creole, to be a little on the spicy side but you can always ask and request that they lay off the cayenne.

Gumbos can be spicy as well. Not always though and again it depends on who makes it and how heavy their hand is with the pepper. If you are in a restaurant and want to order gumbo just ask if it’s spicy and ask them to bring a sample. They’ll be more than willing to oblige.

But what makes New Orleans food the way it is is not how spicy it may be or not, but the blend of vegetables and herbs that give it its flavor. An addition of cayenne is just a way to, as Emeril says, “kick it up a notch.”

And I make gumbo a lot and rarely put cayenne in it. That’s something I leave up to the eater to do.

So as far as the constant “fire poo” as you say most food here just is not that spicy to cause that. You’d have to add the extra hot sauce or cayenne to have that wondrous experience. And, again, when you eat out just ask about the spiciness. Most of it, I think, will be to your liking.

louisiana: the best specialty grocery store

8/9/2013

 
Guest Blogger: Jim Riley is an aspiring author with two novels under contract and a third in progress. These pro-Louisiana novels are unique among the books being published today.

Louisiana: The Best Specialty Grocery Store

Specialty meat stores are becoming more and more popular.  Franchises of this ilk are popping up faster than crab grass and red ant mounds.  The grandest of all of the specialty meat stores is the state of Louisiana, Sportsman’s Paradise.  The aisles are a tad messy at times as the groceries walk on all fours or dart in and out of the saline marsh or the boggy swamps and have fins, feathers and scales. 

The big box stores have nothing on Louisiana.  For the relative cheap price of a hunting and fishing license, it takes longer to stand in line at most of the box stores than it takes to harvest some of the freshest and tastiest seafood and nutritious game known to man.  What a small price to pay to have access to the biggest specialty grocery store in the world with the widest variety of game and wildlife available even to the most casual of outdoor enthusiasts!

Some of our specialties on Aisle One have become world famous:  crawfish, oysters and alligators come to mind.  These ingredients are most requested by the majority of our visitors to the Crescent City or our Red Stick capital.  They may be mixed by some of our home town condiments:  spices (Slay ya’ Mama or Tony Chachere seasonings) and hot sauces (Tabasco or Louisiana Hot Sauce)  in a gumbo, jambalaya, or pastalaya, but everyone visiting the Sportsman’s Paradise considers the trip incomplete without tasting at least two of the three more famous specialty groceries from our market.

On Aisle Two, we find an amazing array of seafood:  catfish, crabs, shrimp, red snapper, black drum, tarpon, speckled trout, bass and sac-a-lait (at the other end of the aisle in north Louisiana, these are called white perch).  Whether fried with Louisiana Cajun Crispy Fish Fry, blackened, thrown on a plank and roasted or tossed in a pot of boiling water with some Louisiana Fish Fry Crawfish, Crab and Shrimp Boil, these ingredients are best served with plenty of neighbors and friends to share with. Nobody needs to hoard these specialties like the gold in Fort Knox.  Have seconds.  There is plenty for everyone.

On Aisle Three, we find our feathered friends:  mallards, teals, geese, turkeys and doves.  Our grocery store sits in the middle of the migration zone for the northern birds headed south for the winter.  They stop in to feast on our wonderful plant life in the shallow waters in the swamps and marshes.   Our Cajun ancestors created feasts from the same winged favorites that we enjoy so much today.  The holidays would not be complete without the Thanksgiving Turkey or the Christmas Goose.  We’ve even found a way to combine three of our feathered fowl in a turduckin, a drooling combination of turkey, duck and chicken that is moving up the national charts in recognition.

On Aisle Four, we find our lesser known exotic offerings:  alligator snapping turtles, raccoons, nutria, swamp rabbits, and gar fish.  The market for these exquisite edibles is in its incubator stage, but when the folks in other areas find out just how tasty they are when properly prepared, there is no limit to the demand and our store will have to re-stock on a continuous basis.

The most fun with the Louisiana Grocery is the shopping.  Take a kid fishing or hunting in this Sportsman’s Paradise and you will have a friend for life.  While some folks may enjoy the drudgery of standing in line for a can of microwavable porridge, I prefer to do my own shopping for the boundless bounty in the great state of Louisiana.  The tug on a fishing line or lining up the sights on a mallard veering into the decoys gets your heart racing like no other shopping experience.  Try it.  You’ll like it.