You know a city loves to have a good time when it measures success by the amount of trash it collects from its streets. Every Fat Tuesday, the New Orleans Police Department pushes the crowds off Bourbon Street at midnight, and the cleanup begins. New Orleans is one of the few places where a heap of beer cans and half-eaten sandwiches is a good sign, for this is a city whose economy is heavily built upon the simple act of having a good time.
The Big Easy isn’t a place just to see — this is a place to experience.
Walk the streets of this Southern city, and you will hear the sounds and taste the foods of a gumbo of cultures that have been simmering for hundreds of years.
Part African, part French and part Spanish, New Orleans is a city unlike any other, and it’s always looking for a reason to celebrate.
The act of eating, drinking and having fun is an industry in New Orleans, so much that the local economy has always been dependent on a heavy flow of visitors.
Noted for corruption and strangled by poverty, the city often seems as if its saving grace may be its penchant for a good time. While it is often ranked as one of the worst places to live, it’s one of the most popular destinations in the world.
Mardi Gras is the culmination of New Orleans’ extremes and hedonistic pleasures — parades roll through the streets with masked riders, brass bands lead second lines through neighborhoods, restaurants serve their fare on sidewalks, and the liquor runs through the streets like a river.
Though the celebration culminating in Mardi Gras lasts only about two weeks per year, the fame and infamy of Bourbon Street rage 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
As a place where breasts roam freely, beer flows like water and tourists stroll in by the thousands, it represents the quintessential anarchy of New Orleans’ carefree attitude, but it’s only a speck on the city’s map of good times.
“We do things down here that influence everyone. When I play down here, everyone appreciates it. … It’s a beautiful thing. There’s no party like New Orleans,” says Louisiana zydeco musician Rockin’ Dopsie Jr.
Thousands of travelers come to New Orleans every year to cut loose and let the good times roll — laissez le bon temps rouler, as the locals say. But when the shirts come back down, the hangovers wear off and the trash is collected and weighed, New Orleans’ extremities can be found in its food and music. As spring rolls around every year, the crawfish are harvested, the fish are fried, and a plethora of festivals and musical events make this city an irresistible destination.
New Orleans consistently ranks as one of most overweight cities in the nation. That’s no surprise; eating here is not just a way to satisfy biological needs, but also an attraction in itself. Louisiana’s exotic foods have an interesting history, with global influences, and travelers come from around the world just to get a bite.
There is far more to New Orleans food than a little seasoning and spice. As the first offspring born to Europeans in New Orleans, Creoles played a hefty part in creating the cuisine that exists today. First documented in the early 18th century, Creoles were a mix of American Indians, Spanish, French, Africans, Italians and Germans.
This blending of cultures influenced local dishes such as gumbo (partly derived form the French dish bouillabaisse) and jambalaya (derived from the Spanish dish paella). Sausage making was perfected by the Germans (which would influence the boudin and andouille sausage styles), while Italians created pastries, and the Indians introduced settlers to corn, ground sassafras leaves and file powder.
Cajun cooking, on the other hand, was born out of ingenuity, creativity and the survival of the exiled French refugees. Arriving from Nova Scotia starting in 1755, the Acadians made a home for themselves in the dreaded and dangerous swamps of Louisiana. Until 1980, there really wasn’t such a thing as “Cajun food” — there were foods Cajuns ate, but there really wasn’t a name for them. Then, when chef Paul Prudhomme accidentally burned a fish, “blackened redfish” was born, and so was the wave of Cajun food that started to sweep the nation.
“It’s the perfect blending of all of the individual seasonings and spices to produce one single, complex, all-encompassing flavor that marries and sets our food dishes apart,” says New Orleans cookbook author and TV personality Frank Davis. “And this developed on the foundation of genuine ethnicity — we cook real Cajun, real Italian, real Spanish.”
New Orleans is blessed with fine dining and world-class chefs such as Mr. Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse, but real specialties are found far from ritzy restaurants. The heart of New Orleans’ culture of food is found just off the sidewalk, on the street corners and in kitchens of working-class neighborhoods throughout the metropolitan area.
Start on Monday with red beans and rice, fry some catfish on Friday, and boil some “mudbugs” on Sunday. In between, there are always dirty rice, etouffee, jambalaya, po’ boys, corn bread, soft-shell crabs and andouille.
It seems as if every neighborhood restaurant has its own specialty — a mufuletta from Central Grocery, a hamburger from Port of Call, oysters from Casamento’s, a seafood platter from Deanie’s in Bucktown, a bowl of gumbo from Mandina’s in Mid-City. When Mardi Gras rolls around, it is all topped off with a purple, green and gold king cake. It could take a week of nonstop eating to try all New Orleans’ specialties.
No local delicacy, however, can compete with crawfish. They thrive in the mud of the swamps and river bottoms, then are harvested by the million and consumed by the ton come spring. Families gather to boil entire sacks of the mudbugs before dumping them on a table and feasting from a communal pile. The modus operandi is simple — peel the crawfish, eat the tail, suck the head, chug some beer and dive back in for more.
To experience the city’s gastronomical adventures is to return home with a stuffed belly and spice on the breath. Remember, eating isn’t just a biological need in New Orleans — it is also an experience unto itself.
As the sun sets over the Crescent City, visitors lick the last bit of gumbo from their bowls and the clubs come to life. Nashville, Tenn., and Austin, Texas, have thriving music scenes, but only in New Orleans can one find such a diversity and quality of live acts seven days a week. Uptown or downtown anynight, one can find just about anything.
Though travelers rightfully feel the need to explore the cover bands, grime and chaos of Bourbon Street, the city’s music scene extends well beyond the French Quarter. Cutting through the edges of the Faubourg Marigny, Frenchmen Street offers a delightful surprise of intimate jazz and blues clubs.
From the candlelit intimacy of Snug Harbor to the world beats of Cafe Brasil and Blue Nile, this street is a mecca for music lovers. Within a four-block stretch, visitors can find all sorts of New Orleans greats — the likes of Charmaine Neville, Kermit Ruffins, Coco Robicheaux and Fredy Omar.
New Orleans jazz may soothe the soul, but nothing can get bodies dancing like zydeco. Part Cajun, part rock and part blues, this unique form of music can be heard blaring from every gift shop on Decatur Street. Every Thursday night, the world-famous bowling alley-dance hall of Mid-City Lanes Rock ’n’ Bowl opens its doors to armies of tourists and locals alike who come to two-step to the washboard-scraping and accordion-laden rhythms of zydeco.
The Crescent City is so packed with original music that it even has spawned its own monthly publication, OffBeat magazine. For 17 years, it has covered New Orleans music and, along with 40,000 copies on the streets every month, it counts more than 10,000 subscribers in all 50 states and almost 40 countries. Every January, the magazine’s Best of the Beat (Louisiana’s answer to the Grammies) awards acknowledge some of Louisiana’s best musical acts, such as Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, Amanda Shaw and Harry Connick Jr.
The musical activities climax in late April and early May, when New Orleans hosts the three-day French Quarter Festival, which this year will begin Friday, followed by seven days of the Jazz & Heritage Festival, which will draw acts from all over the world. As if that were not enough, Festival International de Louisiane — the largest outdoor Francophone festival in the world — will take place at the same time in the nearby Cajun Country capital, Lafayette.
“Music oozes from the pores of the city. … It is an integral part of the New Orleans culture and heritage,” says Jan Ramsey, editor in chief of OffBeat. “There’s literally an orgy of music in New Orleans during Jazz Fest. You can find anything you want — jazz, blues, rock, Cajun, zydeco, jam bands, roots music, Afrocentric music, you name it.”
Jazz Fest 2004 will feature more than 400 acts over seven days with such artists as Bonnie Raitt, Mr. Connick, Lenny Kravitz, Steve Winwood, Shaggy and the Neville Brothers. Though Jazz Fest has little to do with jazz, it does offer an amazing sampling of Louisiana music, with the funky rhythms of Dr. John and the two-stepping zydeco beats of Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers.
In New Orleans, the music never sleeps. When the sun goes down and the Jazz Fest has closed its gates, the clubs open their doors to a lineup of live acts that play throughout night.
The famous uptown club Tipitina’s hosts shows until dawn during the weeks of Jazz Fest. You’ll know what New Orleans is all about when you’re going to a concert at 2 in the morning. Later the same morning, everyone gets up and does it all over again.
New Orleans festival lowdown
New Orleans’ major annual music festivals begin next week, and another festival is held in Lafayette, La. The big three are:
m French Quarter Festival, April 16 through 18. Free. www.frenchquarterfestivals.org.
• Jazz & Heritage Festival, April 23 through 25 and April 29 through May 2. www.nojazzfest.com.
• Festival International de Louisiane (in Lafayette), April 21 through 25. www.festivalinternational.com.
LODGING
The International House, 221 Camp St., 800/633-5770, www.ihhotel.com, is a boutique hotel that embraces local culture, with the occasional voodoo ritual in the lobby.
Columns Hotel, 3811 St. Charles Ave., 504/899-9308, offers a variety of rooms in a 19th-century mansion just steps away from the streetcar.
The 423 stylish and well-equipped rooms of the W Hotel, 333 Poydras St., 504/525-9444, often host celebrities and musicians. The W takes pride in being able to get “whatever you want whenever you need it.”
FOOD
The Jazz Fest and French Quarter Festival will have a variety of local specialties available from local restaurants and vendors.
For a sampling of deep-fried New Orleans seafood in the heart of the French Quarter, head to Cafe Maspero, 601 Decatur St., 504/523-6250. You can usually find it by a line that extends along the sidewalk.
While Mulate’s, 201 Julia St., 504/522-1492, www.mulates.com, serves great fried seafood, the Cajun band always draws a crowd to the dance floor. There are free lessons, and children are welcome.
One of Emeril Lagasse’s creations, Nola, 534 St. Louis St., 504/522-6652, www.emerils.com/restaurants/nola, features Creole cuisine with a touch of “bam” in it. Specialties include cedar-plank-roasted redfish, barbecue shrimp and banana pudding cake.
A mufuletta from Central Grocery, 923 Decatur St., 504/523-1620, makes a great local lunch, but no trip to New Orleans would be complete without an order of beignets from Cafe du Monde, 800 Decatur St., 504/525-4544, www.cafedumonde.com.
MUSIC
Mid-City Lanes Rock ’n’ Bowl, 4133 S. Carrollton Ave., 504/482-3133, www.rockandbowl.com, is famous for its regular zydeco acts Thursday nights.
The old New Orleans favorite Tipitina’s, 501 Napoleon Ave., 504/895-TIPS, www.tipitinas.com, has a regular lineup of local and national acts. Head there after the Jazz Fest for shows that go on until dawn.
For a taste of traditional jazz and some great grub, head to Snug Harbor, 626 Frenchmen St., 504/949-0696, www.snugjazz.com, in the heart of the Frenchmen Street action.
MORE INFORMATION
New Orleans Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, 800/672-6124, www.neworleanscvb.com.
OffBeat Magazine, 504/944-4300, www.offbeat.com. Free; www.frenchquarterfestivals.org.
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