Sarah Vaughn Loved Dooky Chase's Stuffed Crabs

Sarah Vaughn’s Favorite New Orleans stuff crab, recipe below

In 1946 Dooky Jr. married Leah Chase, a native of Madison Louisiana steeped in the culinary culture of the “Creole de Colour.” It was Leah who infused the family owned and operated restaurant with a Creole flavor to it. Leah added family recipes and recipes from time spent working in French Quarter restaurants to the original Dooky Chase menu that attracted patrons of all colors despite Jim Crow Laws in the Crescent city. "I'd worked in some of the finest restaurants in the French Quarter and wanted the same thing for my people, in my neighborhood. I had one dream: to make this a truly fine restaurant for black people and to raise the standards of the whole community," says Leah Chase known to many as “Queen of Creole Cuisine.” In the 1940s and 50s Dooky Chase restaurant served noted African American entertainers such as Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway who came to play in New Orleans segregated venues for white patrons but Jim Crow laws prohibited them from eat in such places. “There was no other place to go, really,” recalls Leah Chase, so word of mouth led them to Dooky Chase in the city’s African American Treme district. “Sarah used to order our stuffed crabs, and Lena, she likes our fried chicken,” remembers Leah Chase. Here’s a New Orleans stuff crab recipe below with some of my healthier eating interpretations.

Sarah Vaughn’s Favorite New Orleans stuff crab recipe

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces I can’t believe it’s not butter
4 1/2 ounces chopped onion
1 1/2 ounces chopped bell pepper
1 ounce celery
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
6 1/2 ounces claw crab meat (or vegan substitute)
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1 1/2 to 2 ounces bread crumbs
1 ounce chopped green onions

Method
Sauté onions, bell peppers, and celery until half done. Add garlic salt and cayenne and sauté until vegetables are translucent. Add claw meat, bread crumbs, parsley and green onions. Mix thoroughly and stuff accordingly. Recommended baked but some served it fried

Dooky Chase Restaurant: Feeding the Revolution in New Orleans

Full plate at Dooky Chase loaded with veal cutlet, salad, mac and cheese, and other items from the restaurants buffet

In January of this year I did a couple of post I entitled Feeding the Revolution. The stories focused on the role that food, cooks, and eateries played in social movements and or armed liberation movements like the war for Cuban Independence. While in New Orleans I found another eatery that like Paschal’s in Atlanta played an important role in the civil rights movement, I am referring to Dooky Chase. With $600 dollars borrowed from a local beer company Jazz musician Edgar “Dooky” Chase and his wife started the restaurant in the historic Treme neighborhood in 1936 during the Depression. The original location could be described as nothing more than a street corner stand that sold lottery tickets and po-boy sandwiches. A common story I came across in looking through WPA America Eats records, demand among white and black customers led to an expanded menu and business. By 1941, Dooky Chase became a local bar and grill selling typical down-home New Orleans soul food across the street from its original corner sandwich stand location. Edgar Chase spent more time working on his professional musical career while his wife and later his son, Dooky Jr., helped grow the business. More tomorrow.

My New Orleans Culinary Reconnaissance: Learning to Cook from Aunts and Mama

One of the signature dishes at Two Sisters Restaurant, shrimp and okra, it's a New Orleans thing via Mississippi foodways, recipe below

Dorothy Finister, the current owner and operator of Two Sisters restaurant in New Orleans, has an amazing culinary story. She grew up in New Orleans surrounded by great cooks. Finister mentioned her Mississippi born mother from whom she learned how to make red beans and rice. According to Finister red beans in rice is Monday eating tradition in New Orleans rooted in Mississippi foodways. From her aunt who lived in Mississippi she learned how to make shrimp and okra. Actually her aunt made it with crab and it came out more like a gumbo. But Finister decided to go with shrimp in okra and she argues that she is the one who popularized okra on New Orleans’ restaurant menus. “Actually, 30-some years ago I don’t think you could find shrimp and okra on nobody’s menu. That’s the reason why I take credit for that. But now you can go to plenty of restaurants and find shrimp and okra,” says Finister the current matriarch of Two Sisters restaurant in the Treme neighborhood in New Orleans. Here is a similar shrimp and okra recipe for you below. Better make it quick before that oil spill comes on sure down on the gulf coast and the price of shrimp goes sky eye for the foreseeable future:

New Orleans Shrimp, Okra, and Tomato Sauté Recipe
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/New-Orleans-Shrimp-Okra-and-Tomato-Saute-242114

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.

New Orleans Restaurant Review: Hobnobbers

Hobnobbers has a change of menu Monday through Friday posted on a hand written menu at the entrance to the restaurant.

Yesterday I started story on a popular New Orleans working class eatery called Hobnobbers. Established in 1987, Hobnobbers hook is down home southern food, breakfast food all day and soul food dishes like fried cat fish, chicken, and pork chops, meatloaf, smothered meats and traditional sides such as mac and cheese, greens, potato salad, dirty rice, and New Orleans style soul food such as red beans and rice, gumbos, po-boys, crawfish dishes, and crab cakes. The desserts were all familiar items like Key lime pie, bread pudding, banana pudding, peach cobbler, and layer cakes. The people were friendly the food was good. But it could have been good and healthier with some modifications. For example, add brown rice to the menu, and season dishes like red beans and greens with turkey or vegan meats instead of pork. The menu could also offer baked meats and fish options instead of so much fried foods, and when frying use unsaturated oils. Also, sense it was recently earth day, the owners could help starting going green by switching from styrofoam to go containers to recyclable cardboard ones made from recycled products. Great hole in the wall that I would recommend particular for folks looking for unpretentious dining and great tasting cheap eats for there or to go. I will talk about the other places I found on my New Orleans culinary reconnaissance.

My New Orleans Culinary Reconnaissance

Red bean's and rice, this was one of Satchmo's favorite dishes

Before traveling to New Orleans in beginning of April, I emailed my colleague Lolis Eric Elie http://www.loliselie.com/Info/infoframeset.html, one of the producers of the new hit HBO series Treme, a fellow food writer, and New Orleans Native, and asked him for his take on the must visit restaurants near my Charles Street hotel for a guy who cooks and writes about soul food. Lois emailed back a list of places including Willie Mae's, Dooky Chase, Loretta's, and Fay's Take-Out and Honey Whip which unlike the others, is across the Mississippi in Gretna, a suburb of New Orleans. Before I made it to any of his recommendations, on my first full day in New Orleans I did what I almost always do when traveling; I go jogging for the dual purpose of staying in shape and doing a culinary reconnaissance of the area where I am staying. Hobnobbers at 139 Carondelet Street was one of the first places I found just around the corner from my Charles Street Hotel. It was a hole in the wall restaurant tucked in an alley and attached to sport bar. It was also like a lot of places I found in the center of New Orleans' downtown hotel tourist district--white owned and black worked especially the cooks and wait staff. The restaurants bargain prices keeps the place hopping during its hours of operation 7am to 2 pm. The place had particularly good key lime pie which I thoroughly enjoyed as part of my breakfast of red beans and rice and a large glass of water. For me breakfast is whatever I am in the mood for and health experts do say it should be your biggest meal of the day anyway. However, for you hard core breakfast types, Hobnobbers also has and extensive southern breakfast menu including a stack of enormous golden brown buttermilk pancakes and swine if that's your style; more on the menu at Hobnobbers tomorrow. Here are two red bean and rice recipes:

Traditional New Orleans Red Beans and Rice recipe: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=257296

Vegan New Orleans Red Beans and Rice recipe: http://myveggiekitchen.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-orleans-red-beans-and-rice.html

Louie Armstrong’s “great big fish sandwich”

Catfish po-boy from the Sugar Shack in downtown New Orleans,

“I will never forget the day I left New Orleans by train for Saint Louis to join the steamer Saint Paul. It was the first time in my life I had ever made a long trip by railroad. I had no idea as to what I should take, and my wife and mother did not either. For my lunch Mayann went to Prat’s Creole Restaurant and bought me a great big fish sandwich and a bottle of green olives,” Louie Armstrong. This quote reminds me of my first meal on my first trip to New Orleans early this month. I got to my hotel on Charles Street about 11:30 pm hunting for a place to eat. Accustomed to restaurant scene in New York City, it surprised me to find out there were not a lot of restaurants open on a Wednesday night. A local sister working the hotel front desk turned me on to the Sugar Shack at 808 Ibverville at Bourbon. The black cook in the joint hooked up a fabulous catfish po-boy similar to what Satchmo describes above. The history of the term po-boy is controversial with many interpretations in New Orleans folklore. We do know that Armstrong grew up in New Orleans and lived there until 1918, yet this iconic figure who loved food and slang never once uses the term in his autobiography when he refers to a sandwich in New Orleans.

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.

Breakfast is Not Complete Without Molasses

Butter milk biscuits, recipe below. Nothing better than a a hot biscuit with molasses and butter!

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.