New Post has been published on Red Beans and Eric... err Rice!
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How Do You Red Bean, MARCELLE BIENVENU?
New Orleans has a huge bond with its food unlike any other place in America. The connection goes back hundreds of years. Recipes and cooking methods passed down for generations. The greatest cooks were taught by mothers, grandparents or another close relative right in their own kitchen. Family recipes were tightly guarded and it was lucky to have a written copy of the list of ingredients for the next generation.
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and flooded the homes of thousands. It sent many New Orleanians all over the United States. Many of the displaced individuals were not only lost in their new surroundings, but also lost without being able to order their favorite Creole and Cajun foods. The far-away grocery stores didn’t stock the fresh seafood Southern Louisiana had or many of the Creole/Cajun ingredients they needed to cook at home. Many didn’t have the recipes anymore to help.
Even those who remained in New Orleans were lost. Restaurants were slowly opening. Ingredients hard to get. And hand-written recipes that had been passed down were lost to the flood waters. Readers of the New Orleans newspaper, the Times-Picayune, wrote to food editor Judy Walker seeking recipes for dishes that they lost to the flood. The newspaper set up a recipe exchange to get readers in contact with each other to share “lost recipes.”
As the popularity of the food column grew, the editors decided it was time to publish the lost recipes in a cookbook called, COOKING UP A STORM: Recipes Lost and Found from the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. To help with this huge task, they brought in veteran cookbook writer Marcelle Bienvenu. Marcelle had written cookbooks with Emeril Lagasse along with her own: WHO’S YOUR MAMA, ARE YOU CATHOLIC AND CAN YOU MAKE A ROUX? Book 1 and Book 2, STIR THE POT: THE HISTORY OF CAJUN CUISINE, and CAJUN COOKING FOR BEGINNERS. COOKING UP A STORM was published in 2008 with excellent reviews.
Marcelle is considered the Queen of Cajun cooking. Born and raised in St. Martinville, in south Louisiana on the banks of Bayou Teche, she was around cooking at an early age. Her father showed her how to cook a perfect roux and hunt while her mother taught her the farming side. But it wasn’t until she left in the early 1970′s that she began to appreciate what she had. At that time Cajun and Creole cooking wasn’t a known cuisine outside of Louisiana. Marcelle wanted to change that.
After working at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans and the business side of running a restaurant, Marcelle went on to open her own restaurant. When Chez Marcelle closed in 1984, she went on to a weekly food column called the “Cooking Creole” for The Times-Picayune.
In the early 1990′s, Emeril Lagasse asked her to collaborate on some cookbooks. While working with him, she also wrote her own cookbooks and continued to write for the newspaper.
Her work can still be found in the “Cooking Creole” column in the Times-Picayune newspaper. She also writes for Louisiana Cookin’ Magazine, CajunGrocer.com and other regional publications along with teaching at Nicholls State University in the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute.
I asked Marcelle, “How Do You Red Bean?”
1. Where’s your favorite place to order red beans and rice in New Orleans?
I haven’t eaten red beans and rice in New Orleans in a long time, so I currently don’t have a favorite place.
2. If you make your own, what do you put in it, anything different or unique? Do you use dried beans or canned beans?
When I have time, I use dried beans. In a pinch, I’ll use canned beans (usually a combination of Blue Runner Creole Cream style and Blue Runner red creamy beans. I don’t think my recipe is very different from others – I caramelize onions and garlic, then add chunks of salt meat or ham, and smoked sausage. To that I add the dry or canned beans. Add chicken or beef broth/stock, bay leaves, salt black pepper and Tabasco. Simmer until all is creamy. (If I am using dry beans, I take about half of the mixture in the pot and pulse it a couple of times in a food processor and return that to the pot.)
3. What do you eat with your red beans? Chicken, pork chops, turkey, salads, or do you put enough in it that you don’t need anything else?
If I do serve something else with it, I usually do fried pork chops and a tossed green salad with vinaigrette dressing and French bread.
4. Do you only eat red beans and rice on the traditional Monday or is any day of the week alright?
I eat red beans and rice on just about any day of the week. If I have a ham bone left from a meal, I’ll usually keep it to make a big batch of beans to store in the freezer for later use.
5. What are you working on now? Do you have anything coming out soon?
No new books – I’m currently teaching at Nicholls State University in the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute.
For the latest information on the Queen of Cajun cooking, you visit her website at www.MarcelleBienvenu.com. Don’t forget to check out the giant library of recipes on NOLA.com under “Cooking Creole” or her NOLA.com profile page that links you to the over 1000-posts she has shared for the Times-Picayune!
Keep the red beans cookin’!
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