CRAWFISH PIE?

Hey la bas, or Eh la bas, or Hay la bas, whatever spelling of this Cajun exclamation you choose to use, reports are that the crawfish have buried deeper into the mud during the cold spell this month. There’s no exact season for the mudbugs, but usually, we begin to bring out the crawfish pots in January, and fishermen head for the waters of bayous, rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico to catch these crustaceans (however, 60 to 80 percent of today’s catch comes from crawfish ponds). Below freezing temps have resulted in diminished catches of smaller crawfish, but I’ve also read reports about the high quality of those that are caught. By the time we Mardi Gras in Acadiana, Clovis Crawfish should have emerged, fat and tasty, if the weather holds.

Although I became allergic to shellfish in my fifties, I still read and appreciate recipes that feature this south Louisiana favorite. I especially like the (sound of) crawfish dishes prepared by two of Louisiana’s premier chefs: Marcelle Bienvenu and Stanley Dry.

Marcelle is a native of St. Martinville, Louisiana and has cooked in Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, Brennan’s in Houston, in her own restaurant, Chez Marcelle, the restaurant at Oak Alley on the River Road, and has written several Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make A Roux? cookbooks. Vol. 2 of this title includes an old-fashioned “Crawfish-Okra Gumbo” and “Fried Crawfish Tails,” and in the volume Marcelle edited for The Times-Picayune Creole Cookbook (sesquicentennial edition) she treats readers to “Crawfish Baked a la Creole.” The latter cookbook contains recipes tested by this chef with the assistance of Food Innovations, Inc. I met Marcelle one wintry day when she was the chef at Oak Alley and The Times-Picayune Creole Cookbook had just been launched, a copy of which lay on a counter in the Gift Shop at Oak Alley. As I thumbed through the cookbook, I realized the outstanding job she had done testing the recipes. “You should write your own cookbook,” I told her, and a few years later I was excited to read about her first Who’s Your Mama volume. Ingredients of Marcelle’s recipes include stories about family members centered around the table and photographs showing them at gatherings or outdoors enjoying the temperate Cajun climate. She’s an accomplished raconteuse as well as a premier chef.

Stanley Dry’s Essential Seafood Cookbook is the second of Dry’s publications, and for crawfish lovers, the “Lagniappe” section contains a plethora of dishes featuring the mudbug: “Crawfish Omelet with Penne and Green Peas,” “Spicy Crawfish Spread” served on crackers, “Spicy Tofu with Crawfish,” and an all-time favorite in south Louisiana: “Mini Crawfish Pies.” Dry declares that “these days in Louisiana, crawfish show up in dishes from every imaginable cuisine” — thus, the piece de resistance, “Crawfish Tacos.” Dry writes the “Kitchen Gourmet” column for Louisiana Life Magazine and is a former senior editor of Food and Wine magazine. His articles about cooking, wine, restaurants, and travel have appeared in The New York Times, Food and Wine, and other magazines focused on good food and drink.

Meanwhile, the mudbugs should be stirring soon as the weather has warmed. Crawfish marketers predict that the crustaceans should be a good size with a lot of meat and fat and ready for a tasty étouffée. Eh la bas, I envy those who can partake!

THE ESSENTIAL LOUISIANA SEAFOOD COOKBOOK

Saturday, the wind blew in from the north, bringing winter to south Louisiana. I imagined Cajun cooks taking out their black iron pots and thawing shrimp that had been stored in freezers. Gumbo weather, I thought. I dressed and went downtown where the wind had begun to carry the scent of tapas and paella. The annual Spanish Festival in New Iberia had cranked up, and the door to Books Along the Teche was wide open, beckoning food lovers to a signing of The Essential Louisiana Seafood Cookbook by Stanley Dry, master chef of gumbos, étouffées, jambalayas, and courtbouillion. The wintry day seemed to be an ideal time for him to be presenting his newest book for those Louisiana cooks who were dusting off their gumbo pots. 

Dry, a cherished friend who authors a column entitled "Kitchen Gourmet" for Louisiana Life magazine, was a former senior editor for Food & Wine magazine. He authored The Essential Louisiana Cookbook several years ago, and it’s now in its second printing.  A talented chef and writer, his.articles about food, wine, and restaurants have been published in Food & Wine, Travel and Leisure, The New York Times and Boston Magazine, as well as in our regional periodical, Acadiana Profile. 

Dry’s "Author’s Notes" to his cookbooks reflect his interest in the history of food (he majored in History at ULL in Lafayette, Louisiana) and are tantalizing introductions to equally-tantalizing recipes that range from "Artichoke Hearts, Green Peas & Lump Crabmeat Salad" to "Crawfish Omelet with Penne & Green Peas" and contain ingredients that include fresh, local, and seasonal foods from the waterways and gardens of Acadiana. He offers Louisiana cooks traditional seafood recipes, along with innovative dishes that he tested for two years prior to the publication of The Essential Louisiana Seafood Cookbook.

Recipes in this book were originally published in Louisiana Life magazine, and Dry comments that "all the variations in recipes are…indicative of the free form, improvisational nature of Louisiana cooking. Certainly there are parallels between our food and music. Our food evolved from the hands and minds of cooks, not from books, just as jazz, as well as Cajun and Zydeco music, evolved from the creativity of musicians, not from sheet music. And all of them are still evolving…"

An interesting fact for lovers of crawfish reported by historian Carl A. Brasseaux in the "Author’s Notes:" Crawfish didn’t highlight the Cajuns’ diets early on. Even in the early 20th century, Cajuns only ate crawfish during Lent when they boiled the "mudbugs." Dry reports that 1959 was a banner year for the crustaceans —the year that Breaux Bridge became the "Crawfish Capital of the World," and the Louisiana Legislature began providing funds for research about crawfish farming. Dry says that today "crawfish are found in a dizzying variety of preparations." One of our master chef's  recipes for the mudbug highlights Quinoa, a notable grain on the shelves of natural food stores of the 21st century. The recipe includes crawfish and avocado and is featured in the "Salads and Appetizers" section of The Essential Louisiana Seafood Cookbook.

For those who have dusted off their gumbo pots, Dry touts the "Duck, Andouille & Oyster Gumbo" recipe as "fit for a holiday table," and he utilizes south Louisiana ingredients, as well as dried shiitake mushrooms and thyme leaves, to produce a dish that he warns cooks will take time to prepare and involves a number of steps but is worth the effort.

Perhaps next year the Spanish Festival will feature Dry’s "Crawfish Tacos" a recipe that calls for fresh tomatillos, corn tortillas, avocado, and the ubiquitous crustacean. The dish is included in the "Lagniappe" section of The Essential Louisiana Seafood Cookbook and is a more contemporary, international conclusion to the celebration of food in this cookbook.

Although I quickly purchased the book, I can only enjoy the recipes vicariously, for, alas, I am allergic to all shellfish, beginning with adverse reactions to our delicious fare from the waterways when I was in my fifties. However, I can appreciate this consummate chef’s offerings that are enhanced by the wonderful photographs of Eugenia Uhl, a native New Orleanian whose work has been featured in New Orleans Magazine, Southern Accents, Food & Wine, Travel and Leisure, and other magazines. She has also done work for Brennan’s, Galatoire’s, and Tulane University, along with photography for Commander’s Kitchen and New Orleans Home Cooking.

Congratulations Stan and Eugenia, and bon appetit south Louisiana!  

THE ESSENTIAL LOUISIANA COOKBOOK

Although New Orleans, Louisiana touts its chefs and cuisine as unparalleled in the United States, in the more provincial parishes of Louisiana known as Acadiana where every meal is a celebration, good cooks and cuisine equally abound. "The Berry" (New Iberia) and St. Martinville have their own culinary notables, and Saturday morning, two of these notables, Stanley Dry of New Iberia and Marcelle Bienvenue were in Books Along the Teche bookstore greeting customers. Bienvenue, author of the famed Who's Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make A Roux? who now teaches Culinary Arts at Nicholls State University, made a brief visit inside the store while Dry sat at a table on the sidewalk in front of the shop, hawking his new book, The Essential Louisiana Cookbook.

Dry writes the column "Kitchen Gourmet" in Louisiana Life magazine and was former senior editor of Food & Wine magazine before he became a Louisiana transplant who tasted bayou water and ended up becoming a citizen of Teche country. His new cookbook is a handsome volume with photographs by New Orleanian Eugenia Uhl whose work has appeared in Commander's Cookbook for Commander Palace and New Orleans Cooking.

The Essential Louisiana Cookbook features traditional favorites like Chicken and Sausage File Gumbo, Shrimp and Okra Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee, Shrimp Sauce Piquante, Red Beans and Rice and other recipes a la Dry, as well as those for non-traditional dishes such as Mushrooms Stuffed with Boudin, Blueberry Clafouti and Satsuma Sorbet—rich culinary dishes that showcase Dry's talents as a food editor and consummate cook.

As Dry writes in the "Author's Note," no single dish in this collection exemplifies the complexities of Louisiana cooking since it is a mixture of influences and ingredients from French, Spanish, African, Native American, Caribbean and German cultures. However, foremost among the favorite recipes for any Louisiana table are those that feature gumbos. Dry comments on the history of this famous dish with the caveat that "trying to sort out the origins and evolution of the dish is highly speculative..." He includes a note about one of the earliest recorded references to gumbo in the memoirs of Pierre Clement de Laussat, French colonial prefect and commissioner for Louisiana, who hosted a Louisiana ball that lasted all night and featured 24 gumbos, eight of which were sea turtle dishes!

Dry knows his food as he has worked in the restaurant and food business for years, including a stint as a cook. While we visited with Dry, he and his friend Alice Burke discussed the merits of the gumbo she had made for her children's Thanksgiving dinner (an essential south Louisiana dish for Thanksgiving tables) which included both duck and oysters, two ingredients Dry mentions in the "Author's Note" that are often combined "from both land and sea." He adds that some cooks include hard-boiled eggs in sausage gumbos and others add quail eggs to versions of this tasty dish.

For the breakfast bunch, a section on Louisiana breakfasts and brunches includes a recipe for sweet potato biscuits that should please the palate of gluten-free enthusiasts, along with a dish that Dry says is associated with the Carolina low country, one that uses genuine stone ground grits as an ingredient —Shrimp and Grits. This delicious recipe is followed by another one for seafood and grits, with the note that grits are "no longer reserved for just the breakfast table."

Dry doesn't neglect the famous jambalaya and crawfish pie recipes that have found their way into story and song, or his version of bread pudding, Coconut Bread Pudding With Meringue & Custard Sauce. And if you've worked up an appetite for south Louisiana cuisine after reading this review, drop in at Books Along the Teche, in New Iberia, Louisiana, where signed copies of The Essential Louisiana Cookbook are available. Bon appetit, and Bravo Stanley Dry for this volume that reflects your most creative culinary abilities!