I will be the first to admit, I am not a football fan. While I understand enough of the game to understand why it takes six months to go from practice to championship each year, I am pretty much in the dark when it comes to how anyone got to the big even known as the Super Bowl. Indeed, I still need to google what time the game starts tomorrow.
What I do know is that the Super Bowl is a great excuse for a party. And I also know that there is one good food town being represented in the game and that would be New Orleans.
Recently I went down to New Orleans for a much needed food vacation. If you have never taken a food vacation, you are missing out. I love to drop in on a city and consume everything interesting I can find. Now this is not one of the Bizarre Foods kind of trips where I intend to eat the bugs, entrails and other debris a culture may throw at a hapless visitor. No, my trip was about wanting to explore the French Quarter, drink Sazeracs and learn how to cook Creole food.
When I was New Orleans, it was impossible to miss the football fever of the residents of New Orleans. Everyone from the shop keepers, to the bar tenders, to the bankers, to the oil men all had Saints fever. I think everyone except for Philippe, the super-cool used cookbook dealer in the French Quarter (more on that soon).
Chicken and sausage gumbo for the the Super Bowl
I thought when I was there, if the Saints make it to the Super Bowl, I should make Creole food and that is what I intend to do tomorrow. I plan on using techniques that I learned from Sandra at a little cooking class I took at the New Orleans School of Cooking. This woman was a wealth of knowledge and I learned more in three hours about the history of the delta region and how it influenced each dish, than many “Yankees” get in a lifetime.
I am a huge fan of going back to the basics for food, and Sandra taught a bare-bones gumbo with the philosophy that if you don’t have the basics down, you don’t have gumbo. My recipe starts with her basics and adds more vegetables to lighten it a little. It is not a light meal, but it is a heck of a lot more satisfying than chicken wings and queso dip.
A Super Bowl of Gumbo
I will be the first to admit, I am not a football fan. While I understand enough of the game to understand why it takes six months to go from practice to championship each year, I am pretty much in the dark when it comes to how anyone got to the big even known as the Super Bowl. Indeed, I still need to google what time the game starts tomorrow.
What I do know is that the Super Bowl is a great excuse for a party. And I also know that there is one good food town being represented in the game and that would be New Orleans.
Recently I went down to New Orleans for a much needed food vacation. If you have never taken a food vacation, you are missing out. I love to drop in on a city and consume everything interesting I can find. Now this is not one of the Bizarre Foods kind of trips where I intend to eat the bugs, entrails and other debris a culture may throw at a hapless visitor. No, my trip was about wanting to explore the French Quarter, drink Sazeracs and learn how to cook Creole food.
When I was New Orleans, it was impossible to miss the football fever of the residents of New Orleans. Everyone from the shop keepers, to the bar tenders, to the bankers, to the oil men all had Saints fever. I think everyone except for Philippe, the super-cool used cookbook dealer in the French Quarter (more on that soon).
Chicken and sausage gumbo for the the Super Bowl
I thought when I was there, if the Saints make it to the Super Bowl, I should make Creole food and that is what I intend to do tomorrow. I plan on using techniques that I learned from Sandra at a little cooking class I took at the New Orleans School of Cooking. This woman was a wealth of knowledge and I learned more in three hours about the history of the delta region and how it influenced each dish, than many “Yankees” get in a lifetime.
I am a huge fan of going back to the basics for food, and Sandra taught a bare-bones gumbo with the philosophy that if you don’t have the basics down, you don’t have gumbo. My recipe starts with her basics and adds more vegetables to lighten it a little. It is not a light meal, but it is a heck of a lot more satisfying than chicken wings and queso dip.
Eat well. Live well.
Brian
Recipe:
Chicken and sausage gumbo