The History Behind Two Sisters Restaurant in New Orleans' Treme District

Two Sisters neck bone plate on their Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday menu. Historically butchers would discard such articles and poor folks would get them for free and turn them into a hearty meal.

Originally two sisters, one of them named Odell Lewis operated the restaurant in the historic African American Treme district of New Orleans. The sisters sold the restaurant in 1972 to Dorothy Finister a New Orleans Native with Mississippi roots. The story goes that Finister husband a native of Monroe, Louisiana regularly ate at Two Sisters and when Ms. Odell and her sister got too old to keep the place he decided to buy it with his wife to give her and her daughters something to do. A cash only business, the menu featured like mama makes it down home quality soul food that came on large portions for a low price. Sisters is the second soul food joint I had been in the Crescent city that had a specific Monday through Saturday menu for it is 8:00 am to 5:00 pm breakfast and lunch crowd. For example today’s Tuesday menu includes massive entrée options of meatball & spaghetti, pig tails, smothered or breaded pork chops, smothered fried or baked chicken, or Turkey or Pork neck bones. He entrée comes with rice, vegetables, a salad, white beans or greens, and corn bread to sop up the neck bone roux (rich gravy). There is also a dessert of the day which might be banana or bread pudding eaten with a cold class of iced tea or lemonade. More on the history and food of this New Orleans culinary landmark tomorrow. Remember if you going to check it out, it’s still a cash only business, there most likely be a line (a sign of some serious food), and they close at 5:00 pm. Here’s the address and phone number:

Two Sisters Restaurant
223 North Derbigny (Iberville-Bienville Sts.), New Orleans
504-524-0056

My New Orleans Culinary Reconnaissance: Two Sisters and the Treme District

Photo of the front of Two Sisters April 2010.

After scoping out Hobnobbers I went over to the main drag on Canal Street. Ran into a brother in his late fifties sitting on the corner babbling to just about every tourist type that passed by spare change to get something to eat. I asked the self professed bicycle taxi (who looked half in the bag) named Thomas I believe if he knew of any good soul food joints nearby. “Yea, there’s Two Sisters a couple of blocks from here, tell them Thomas sent you, I use to work in the Kitchen there, they know me well,” he said. Then he added, “I can run you there on my bike, you know I am a bicycle taxi.” Observing that both he and his bike had seen better days, I passed and followed the directions he game me to Two Sisters. Say what you like, but in my experience as a traveler, locals know the best and cheapest places to eat. You must be wise as a serpent and gentile as dove when doing culinary reconnaissance (it also helps to be over six feet and 195 plus)because the majority of the time the best kept local secrets are off the beaten path tucked away in obscure neighborhoods which can be very edgy places. That’s the best way to describe the black owned and operated funky green clap-board corner home at 223 North Derbigny Street in New Orleans historic Treme district that served as the home of Two Sisters Restaurant. Here is short video about this very important neighborhood that is a must see www.tremedoc.com/. More on the history and food of Two Sisters tomorrow.

The Culinary Politics of New Orleans

Food court in a typical airport, most of these spaces have a couple of restaurants open until 11 pm in most airports  

Early this month I traveled to New Orleans to present a paper on a culinary look at Zora Neal Hurston’s novel Their Eyes’ Were Watching God at The Society for the Study of Southern Literature Conference. When I landed at the Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans at 9:53 pm, all of the eateries in the airport were closed. A local working at the transportation desk told, me “after Katrina restaurants here in the airport starting closing at 7.00 pm.” I was both hungry and shocked. I got to my hotel on Charles Street about 11:30 pm hunting for a place to eat. Accustomed to the restaurant scene in New York City, I was again surprised to find out there were not a lot of restaurant open on a Wednesday night. I had difficulty wrapping my NYC culinary mind around New Orleans’ culinary scene which I had heard so much about. Over the next couple of days I am going to post on what I learned during my four days in the Crescent city. I have lots of interesting stories and photos of just about everything I ate.

A Sunday Breakfast Without Biscuits, No Way!

Butter milk biscuits, recipe below

South Carolinian Alexander Smalls learned the art of seasoning and cooking from his grandfather, who was a great cook. His grandfather, who came from Spartanburg, South Carolina, argued that a Sunday breakfast should be a banquet. He would cook all kinds of food including catfish, sage sausage, rice, grits “and maybe gravy from the previous night’s veal or beef stew. But no matter the menu, Grandpa’s breakfast was not complete without biscuits and sorghum or molasses,” writes Smalls. Below is my biscuit recipe; hook them up with some fried fish, rice or grits, plenty of Texas Pete hot sauce on hand for that fish and butter and molasses for them biscuits and you have yourself a serious Carolina breakfast on your table. 

Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe

Ingredients

Nonstick cooking spray
2 cups spelt flour 1/8 teaspoon baking soda to up the flour rise/ or use 2 cups self-rising flour
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup sugar
4 tablespoon vegetable shortening
2/3 cup heavy or whipping cream/half and half works too
1 cup buttermilk, or until dough is like cottage cheese
1 cup whole-wheat flour for shaping the wet dough into biscuits
2 tablespoons melted butter to brush over the baked biscuits

Method

Preheat the oven to 425; spray cook sheet or cast iron skillet with non-stick spray; combine dry ingredients except for the 1 cup flour for shaping the dough; stir in buttermilk and cream and let stand for 2-3 minutes. Flour your hands and softly shape your biscuits. If you’re rushing, use an ice-cream scooper. Place the biscuits tightly against each other on wax paper so they will rise up instead of out. Sprinkle with flour then place then on the sprayed surface for baking. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with the melted butter and serve. Makes about a dozen biscuits.

Sopping Molasses Gravy

All the essentials for a great breakfast minus the corn bread for sopping. Corn bread recipe below

During the antebellum period, in the sugar cane producing regions of Cuba and Brazil, all classes of people gorged on hard treacle candies. Sugar masters made treacle from the drippings accumulated from the vats used in sugar refining. It looked and tasted like molasses and sold very well when you added chopped coconuts, nuts, and fruit. In the United States, poor white and black southerners ate molasses in one form or the other with almost every meal. But most often it was eaten at the breakfast table with cornbread and fatback bacon. When poor white and black southerners ate a solid food and a liquid additive together, the solid was often used to soak up the liquid. The solid food, in this case cornbread, is known as the “sop.” The liquid was a greasy gravy consistency that usually contained molasses; the process is referred to as “sopping.” If you want to give sopping a try, here’s a good corn bread recipe. Try sopping molasses and the liquid made from some good turkey or vegan bacon, it’s a lot better for your arteries than pork bacon in the long run.

Sweet corn bread recipe

Ingredients
3/4 self-rising cornmeal
1 cup Spelt flour (it’s better tasting and healthier than white or wheat flour)
1/2 cup cane sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup vanilla soymilk, (a fortified soy milk is a very good tasting healthy choice, I suggest the Vitasoy brand for new comers)
1 egg or egg substitute (beaten)
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp butter (Try I Can’t Believe It’s not Butter available at most supermarkets and Costco)

Method
Preheat oven to 400; Combine dry ingredients. Add milk, egg and oil. Mix well. Spray a large cast iron skillet like the one in the photo or a 9 inch pie pan with Pam. Bake until tooth pick inserted in center comes out clean (about 25 minutes). Melt butter and brush over the top of the bread when it comes fresh out the oven; serves 8.

Molasses Has Come a Long Way

Molasses whipped sweet potato, two recipes below

During a mid-nineteenth century trip, traveler Frederick Law Olmsted observed that the provisions allotted to slaves on a plantation somewhere in Georgia or the Carolinas included, among other items, molasses. “They commence work at sunrise, and at about eight o’clock have breakfast brought to them in the field,” Olmsted writes. “The provisions furnished them consist mainly of meal, rice, and vegetables, with salt and molasses, and occasionally bacon, fish, and coffee.” South Carolina’s Henry Brown remembered receiving molasses as a part of his insufficient amount of weekly rations. “A peck o' co'n, t'ree pound o' bacon, quart o' molasses, a quart o' salt, an' a pack o' tobacco was given the men. The wife got the same thing but chillun accordin' to age.” Guest at the 2009 inaugural luncheon had among other dishes Molasses Whipped Sweet Potato. Thus sweet potatoes, which slaves planted in their subsistence farms and also received as rations along with molasses, have come a long way since it’s day as a slave ration. Here are two good recipes you can try.

Roasted Orange Molasses Sweet Potatoes:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Roasted-Orange-Molasses-Sweet-Potatoes-238080

Molasses Whipped Sweet Potatoes Recipe

http://www.chow.com/recipes/14303-molasses-whipped-sweet-potatoes

Molasses the “Roughest of Food”

Molasses marinated vegetable, marinade recipe below

The invention of the cotton gin and steam powered cotton textile mills revolutionized the southern economy. By 1811, the cotton gin caused enslaved African labor to dominate the South and southwest regions of the country. Scholars called the cotton-growing region of the South the Black Belt because it developed a majority of black residents. Slave owners in the South distributed niggardly allotments of molasses with other rations such as corn meal, rice, sweet potatoes, salt pork, and fish. Molasses, like corn bread, was considered by most as among the “roughest of food” regulated to the people living on the margins of society (such as slaves). Below is a recipe for a molasses marinade that works equally well for grilling with chicken, tofu, or vegetables

Molasses Soy Marinade

Ingredients

½ cup low-sodium soy sauce

¼ cup molasses

1 tablespoon olive oil

1teaspoon ground ginger

Method

Mix all ingredients together and marinade your desired food over night before grilling.