Best Bites 2023: New Orleans

In New Orleans, the calendar revolves around food as much as it does around Mardi Gras, festivals and football season. From the ripe Creole tomatoes of midsummer to the smokey gumbos of the fall, from oysters to crawfish, we mark our days by degustation as much as celebration. And while we are always down for a good meal and a good time, certain bites from throughout the year linger in our memories. Bites that transport us to other places, to different times in our lives, and that make us smile. Like Popeyes fried chicken at a Mardi Gras parade, or a cauldron of jambalaya at a tailgate, bites that bring joy and comfort and maybe even a surprise or two. So while we’ve eaten too many things to count this year, these are the bites that stood out to us.

Gumbo Boudin from Mama Mia’s Foods

In the 1990s, a rapper from New Orleans’s 7th Ward, Mia Young, known by her stage name Mia X, asked us if we were “Bout It, Bout It,” when she was featured on a song by Master P of the same name. Young went on to write and record numerous hit records including “Unladylike,” which went gold, and “Mama Drama,” which went platinum. These days, Young still rocks the mic, but she also rocks the pots and pans, cooking up classic and creative Creole cuisine in the tradition of her grandmother Viola, who was her primary teacher and inspiration. Young’s cookbook, Things My Grandma Told Me, Things My Grandma Showed Me is both tender and bawdy, and full of classic 7th Ward Creole recipes, or as Young refers to them, “Creole Soul.” And Young even has her own line of seasoning, Mama Mia’s For Whatever Seasoning, which is low on sodium and full of flavor. But it’s her newest creation, her Gumbo Boudin, which has everyone talking.

Boudin is not a dish native to New Orleans, but rather to Cajun country. The traditionally pork, liver and rice-based sausage is yielding and spicy and is either smoked, roasted or uncased and formed into balls and fried. Young’s creative variation is a reduction of a traditional okra gumbo that is smothered down and mixed with tender rice, then stuffed into a natural pork casing. And the end result is a mind game: a sausage that tastes exactly like a delicious Creole gumbo, and the perfect combination of innovation and tradition. The Gumbo Boudin, which is being produced in partnership with 7th Ward stalwart Vaucresson’s (who we have on our list below), will also soon be available in local grocery stores and restaurants. It is a true 7th Ward original from a 7th Ward original.

The Smoked Gumbo at Gabrielle Restaurant

There is gumbo and then there’s Chef Greg Sonnier’s gumbo, and once you have his, you’ll find yourself longing for it again and again. It starts with an impossibly dark roux and a rich, smokey duck stock that is simmered for days, treated almost like a bread starter, as it is continually added to and reduced to almost a demi-glace-like consistency. Combined with the roux, the stock creates a silky, rich base that is thick enough to coat the spoon, but never cloying. The gumbo is studded with various meats – sometimes duck, sometimes hen or chicken, and always with a whimsical housemade sausage that takes the traditional andouille to a whole new level by adding fennel or dried fruit. It is revelatory, and in a city of gumbos, this one had no analogue or equals. A trip to the Treme is always worth it, and Gabrielle Restaurant, which sits on Orleans Avenue just up the street from Dooky Chase, is a throwback to the corner family restaurants that used to dominate the city’s dining scene. Gabrielle, the daughter of Chef Greg Sonnier and his wife Chef Mary Sonnier, is now the restaurant manager, and Greg still does the majority of the cooking, while Mary is the genius behind their stellar desserts. But for us, it is the gumbo that is the brightest star in a constellation of memorable dishes. It’s that good.

Hog’s Head Cheese from Vaucresson’s Creole Cafe and Deli

Hog’s Head Cheese is a delicacy that is too often overlooked, and Vance Vaucresson’s Creole version is a porky, spicy paté-like masterpiece. For over 100 years, the Vaucresson family has been producing some of the finest sausage and meat products in the city (stuff so good, they made our best bites list last year as well), and the hog’s head cheese is exemplary. Vaucresson makes his the old-fashioned way, with actual hog’s heads and trotters, finely minced and spiked with cayenne pepper. Served on a Ritz cracker, the perfectly seasoned head cheese and buttery cracker are memorable. On a recent trip to Vaucresson’s, we were treated to the head cheese alongside a sausage sampler platter, and the result was a 7th-Ward charcuterie plate sent from heaven. When you’re in New Orleans, make sure to hit up the corner of N. Roman and St. Bernard and walk into the living culinary history of Vaucresson’s.

Published on December 19, 2023

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