March 14, 2019 • 37 mins
To finish out our miniseries on New Orleans, we share a few more stories from our guests about what it’s really like to live there – of course the food scene, but also the music, the tourists, the unexpected inspirations – and the ghosts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
We want you to come over. We want you to experience,
want you to tell stories, have more. If you come over,
come on down like what you see you have to do.
Stay hello, and welcome to Savor. I'm Annies and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're saying farewell to New Orleans
kind of. I mean, you'll still be hearing some bonus
(00:27):
content of the next few weeks because we interviewed so
many lovely people and we would like to share those
interviews in their entirety. Yes, yes, they're lightly edited entirety, yes,
but yeah, our mini series Alas is coming to an end,
so we're going to do a proper send off around
up if you will. Yes, just in case listening to
(00:49):
whole interviews is not your thing. We're going to share
some of this great material that we got that, in
true New Orleans fashion, didn't necessarily fit neatly into any
one category that we've talked about so far. Yeah, we
really ran the gambit. We got some science, entertainment, go,
we had that ghost a lot of ghost yes, yeah,
(01:10):
so we thought we'd share some of that with you.
Starting with something we ran into a lot, which is
this connection between food and entertainment, particularly music, along with
hospitality and performative culture. Because, as we mentioned in our
Overview of New Orleans episode, New Orleans is kind of
a big tourist town. Yeah, you might have heard that
about it, maybe recently with Marty Gros something, but it
(01:32):
is something that locals lean into. Um, they're excited to
share their culture. The quote that you heard from the
top was Isaac troops over at Troops Metery and Troops
Meterary South. It is a performance, but it's a performance
that people there deeply believe in and and do want
to share with people. Elizabeth Pierce, the New Orleans drink
(01:53):
historian and founder of Drink and Learn, spoke to this
how you do a thing that is an intro world
part of your culture, and you know what it means
in here, and you do it for people who say
that's pretty and it means nothing. It's like no, and
you get like this little But we have second lines here,
(02:17):
so many wedding second lines, and all these people are
going around and they know how to dance because they're
self conscious because they're like I'm in a parade and
everyone is staring and maybe I should dance. I don't
know that is not how second lines happen in other neighborhoods.
But do I feel like, no second lines unless you
are a real New Orleanans No pay the musicians, pay
(02:40):
the cops. Everybody's broke, you know. You know musicians are
often broke, and so are as those are a police force.
You know, Like, it'd be great if if the wedding
planner who's like putting this together, could say, Hey, this
is what this means, this is the origin of this
thing you're doing. But I've also come to a place
(03:03):
a piece with this because do you know why we
feed each other cake at a wedding? Why why the
brideing room feed each other? No, and we all do it,
and so you'll have sweet words in your mouth. You
start your marriage with with sweetness in your mouth. Have
sweet works, right, We just do these things and and
it's like, oh that sounds that sounds good. I want
(03:24):
to parade. Yes, the people of New Orleans aren't you
to share their culture, but they are also extremely protective
of it. Oh yeah, yeah, it's what was behind the
Disney Gumboker fuffle. We mentioned pepper bow in New Orleans
Food and Water attorney put it this way. If you
don't use it, he lose it. And to be very
(03:47):
crass about the whole situation, if you allow your culture
to dissipate because you think something else is more interesting,
then it really leaves the door open for someone else
to come in and to tell you what it is.
One part of that culture that we were curious about
was music and how food and music and particularly jazz
of course, um interact in the city. Here's Dickie Brennan,
(04:10):
whose family collectively owns and operates thirteen restaurants in New Orleans.
I mean, we always say cooking with jazz. I mean,
you know, our our seasonings here. I mean we use
a blend of seasons, you know, and it's to really
enhance the flavors. Takes something makes it blossom. So I mean,
it's like making the music. It's definitely a great correlation
(04:31):
between making music and making food. I mean, that's you know,
in a city like New Orleans is probably great. I mean,
my god, we created to jazz. Prior to jazz, you
had old world music. If I've played a certain way,
I mean, would happen New Orleans. Look how it's change
the world. Liz Williams of the Southern Food and Beverage
(04:52):
Museum in New Orleans, and brysoned Downham, beverage director at
Toops Restaurants, echoed the sentiment, I think that musicians and
this town cook. At the end of the end of November,
there's actually a conference in town that's all about improvisation
and they cover music, food, writing, theater, all sorts of things.
(05:15):
And uh so they talk about how the city is
full of the improvisation and that people seem quite willing
to do that. So to say that there's a connection
between food and music, not only that there's a connection
between all of the arts I think um in this
town and all kinds of cultural things. But you know,
(05:38):
our musicians are often out there grilling something that they're
going to serve while they're playing later, you know, and
that kind of thing. And magazines that are about music
always have recipes of some musicians in that particular issue
or whatever. So there's definitely an understanding that these things
(06:01):
are connected. But and I think that there's a transmission
of the music and of food also, which is similar,
so that as people mix to make music together, they're
also transmitting their ideas about food and all that kind
of thing in the same way. So I think all
(06:22):
of that is um related. The bar of the bar
food culture is still alive. You know. There are plenty
of places you could go early to get a drink,
a little spread of food complimentary cooked by either the
musicians that are performing at night, or the bartenders or
(06:42):
our owners or sometimes just regulars, and you go and
you listen to music, and you eat and you come together.
So the musicians, definitely, the food and drinking music all
comes together. It's it's hard to overstate how much of
a part of the culture it is there as opposed
(07:05):
to I mean, nowhere else that I've ever been has
just the number of restaurants with the house bands that
are playing, and it's it adds an air of festivity
everywhere that you go. We spoke with historian Eric seyferth
Over at the Historic New Orleans Collection about this music
scene in New Orleans. Man. I mean, if you go,
if you go on look up what shows are playing
(07:28):
on a Wednesday night in this city, which is of
less than four thousand people, you won't. I mean, the
number of shows is astounding. Multiple shows at at one
venue in a night on Wednesday night there's probably uh
forty different listings. It's not even including all the music.
I just don't know that there's another place that has
so much. And then if you look at how New
(07:49):
Orleans has impacted American music. You talk about, I've said,
developing jazz, you talk about our role in the development
of rock and roll, since we love some good word play.
If you haven't been able to discern that one thing
Eric told us before we move on, you've heard of
Louis Armstrong, right, yeah, yeah, And if you haven't get
(08:13):
on that listeners. But in the meantime, Louis Armstrong is
famous for signing off all his letters red beans and
ricely yours, we are arms Strong, which is, you know,
it's cheesy, but it's you know, you read his his letters,
they're all kind of in that mode. Um, they're very
(08:36):
jovial or I don't even know if that's the right word,
but yeah, red beans and rice ly yours. Something else
we wanted to touch on that. I think it's lost
a lot when people think about food is the science
involves every time you make a souffle, you are conducting
a science experiment. Lord knows, I am oh very experimental
(08:57):
there exactly know the The science of food is one
of our favorite things to talk about on this show because,
oh it's weird and wonderful. Several of our interviewees came
from a science background, and we're drawn to food specifically
because of the science and technology involved. Take Ashley McMillan,
the executive pastry chef at New Orleans Dessert Boutique. Sure,
(09:21):
I was a biology major but also a chemistry major,
So I think that's what attracted me more to sweets
than anything else. I have been in the savory field
I actually had experienced in both my career split it's
just with pastries. It's it's more tedious, and I enjoy that.
The payoffs figger for me. And we are the only
ones who think the science gets lost to rocket scientists
(09:42):
and barbecue pittmaster. Dr Howard Conners agrees, like we were
talking about brianding grits, nobody would think there's a friction
factor of friction in making grits or heat dissipation or viscosity.
We're thinking about barbecue sauces, or thinking about thermo dynamic
with using the pit versus occasion microwave, the cocachina or
(10:04):
something like. So there's a lot of science and technology
involved in the cooking process. And I have learned that
when I was growing some of these restaurants and they
started using the induction burners, Like that's really fascinating to
me as a person of a science, I wouldn't be
a rocket scientists without growing on the farm because I've
seen the real applications of science and technology and engineering
(10:29):
and mathematics on the farm. For instance, let me give
you example, we were trying to put up this barn
and as an engineer you have you can have like cables,
and you're trying to use cables to help pull something
up and support things temporarily until you get amounted securely,
and we use a lot of engineering principles to help
(10:50):
get that. I guess you're said that being in place
seeing things like that early on, or understanding about Furti Lizars.
You're seeing like Furti Lisar. They say, oh, what is
the t in tin ten? Like what is that deck
in the science cash when they're talk about nitrogen or
posphorus and potassium. But people on the farm might said
(11:10):
it was called soda or liquid soda and harmonia. But
that's all it was also how Ared engineered a barbecue
pit large enough for an entire cow, like whole cow barbecue,
like whole hog barbecue, but with a cow. He engineered it. Yeah,
um yeah. The entire interview forthcoming soon, hopefully fascinating, but
(11:34):
in the meantime to the nonscience part of our episode Ghosts.
But first a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
(11:54):
we're back with ghosts. As your listeners probably know, we
love stories here on Saber. There isn't a place much
better for a good ghost story than New Orleans, certainly
not in the United States. They they they've got that
old thing kind of kind of unlock. Yes, they do.
We spoke about our love of ghost stories in studio
(12:15):
when we got back. We like to tell ghost stories, um,
and we told a bunch on the way back from Asheville.
In every ghost story we started with, well I don't
believe in ghosts, but and I find that a lot
of people we asked would say something similar like, well,
(12:35):
I don't believe in ghosts, but here are five ghost stories. Also,
since we're on Mike, we're recording t M t M
t M. I don't believe in ghosts, but because that's
a great property that we will probably develop that. Yes, yes,
we definitely should. Don't steal that. Listeners, we are trusting you.
(12:57):
We are. If you're thinking, what does this have to
do with food? Uh, isn't this a food show? Why? Yes?
And yes, but ghosts come in restaurants and sometimes even
in habit food items themselves. I know I was there,
but still you heard one of these stories from Katie Casparian,
(13:19):
one of the proprietors of Our Nose restaurant, in Our
Kincake and Marti Gras episode. Um, but that was just
one of the three stories that she shared. Ah, here
she is, here she is. Here's the thing about the ghosts.
So I'm not you know, I'm not like a huge
believer in all of it, but I you know, or
(13:39):
as my brother says, I don't want to be proven wrong,
and I agree with that. I have felt some weird
things myself personally. Um, some like a brush of cold
air in an otherwise not cold space. Um, you know
where that you have that hair raising kind of you.
That's definitely happened. Certainly people have said that they cited
(14:03):
something you know, we have a couple of stories that
we always go to that people have that's happened that
people have shared. Story number one. You know, we still,
um we do an inventory. We do it every month
like most restaurants do. And this was the inventory on
(14:25):
near Zeve. And it happened at the time that our
accountant was coming to just do some like spot checking.
And he's an accountant, so he is no sense of humor,
and he's very straight laced and he's just very accountant like.
And he swears, and he's still an accountant, and he's
also a family friend. So this so and he swears
(14:46):
that he was actually in the other bar, the Richelou bar,
and there was something that like a glass on the
table that on the bar top brother that resembled, you
know something. It was like a brown spirits. It kind
of looks like a sas rack or you know whatever.
It was something, and it was sort of half full,
and he was, you know, spot checking some counts. And
(15:11):
thirty minutes later he looks back and he says he
was the only one in there and the whole thing,
like all of the spirit is gone. So the glasses
totally empty, and he had that same like hair raising
I'm getting out of here situation as story number one.
That's always go to. She shared story number two in
(15:33):
that Mardi Grass episode post credits. Yeah, so if you
didn't hear it, then you're gonna you're you've got some homework.
We call it Marvel post credit scene. K, that's exactly
what we are. Um, but yes, here, here's the third. Story.
Number three is that there's a party. And this was
just a couple of years ago. They were having cocktails
(15:55):
in one space and then moving on to another space
to have a seated dinner. And I was downstairs and
one of the captain of the of the party came
down and this would be an odd thing for him
to come and like seek me out. So he was, um,
he looked kind of like a little frazzled. He's like,
we have a guess who's very upset. Of course, I'm like, okay, well,
(16:18):
what's the problem. That they've taken a picture? And it
was still digital camera so this was long ago, but
not that long ago, right, so it wasn't on an iPhone,
but you know where digital cameras were still a thing,
and so they've taken a picture, you know, like as
you all would, the three of you, I would take
a picture of you all, just like a candid kind
of photo. So she goes back and she looks at
(16:39):
the photo and there's a bust of so so just
a bust next to them, and it looks like almost
like an old waiter. So it's a tuxedo, like you
can tell this kind of a tuxedo. You you can't
see any waist down um, and he looks like, you know,
I don't know, nineteen twenties is looking but like a
(17:02):
bust and faint, but you can see it, you can
make it out. And so this woman is like freaking
out once, silly kind of situation, and I just you know,
we just had a calmer down and just say it's friendly.
Don't worry. But I saw it too. It was amazing.
It was amazing. So stuff like that. They're here, I'm sure,
(17:26):
but they're nice. Nobody's died from them or anything. Our
next tale comes from Christopher Horner, general manager at the
Bomb Bay Club, a cocktail lounge in the heart of
the French Quarter. And this ghost has a pamphlet about
her in the restaurant. If you go there, you can yeah,
(17:47):
pick one up for yourself. You'll have a ghost here, Yes,
we do. You can you tell us about the ghost? Wow? Yeah,
I can. Um. The booth right behind you, it's actually
behind you, is where she hangs out. It's a woman,
and she is um supposed to be a former madam,
(18:12):
and because this area of town at one time, uh
entertained those folks, and uh, she is supposed to be
very protective of women. And I think she's a um
I think they call a passive ghost. She's not mean
(18:33):
or anything like that, unless you have a gentleman who
is being rude to a lady. And there's been stories
where drinks have fallen on the guys, and and and
and that type of thing. I think we've all had
points where we thought we saw her. I saw her
walking through here one day, um in the blue dress.
(18:54):
I'll never forget it. And I was doing one here.
We got little stories here that we've we've had and
we've seen the candle on the table was blown out
and all the table candles were blown out and came
out here and that candles led again, you know for
some reason, you know, just those little things like that.
(19:14):
This whole city has got so many great haunted stories
and everything. That's why cemetery tours are here. I was
standing right over there by the bar, and um, when
we're talking to the bartenders, and employees were talking to
the bartenders. Uh. The other employees walking behind you always
(19:36):
put their hand on you, just to let you know
they're behind you because they got a tray or something.
And one day I had that hand put on me
and kind of pushed a little bit. So I pushed
forward so they can get by. Turnround. There's no one
there at all. And uh. And and it's so funny
because it came from right from that move. I felt it.
It came right from that book. I know. Um, we've
(20:00):
we've had propose little wits that's like that. Oh that's
so great. Um, I'm just genuinely delighted by that. Her name,
by the way, didn't to mention that good. Yeah, yeah,
we can make sure she gets proper to. Don't want
to make Sophie and great a Nope, nope, because we
(20:22):
don't believe in ghosts. But I take the risk. Yeah.
We went on one of those cemetery tours of St.
Louis Number one, the final resting place of Marie Lavaux
and Nicholas Cage if he ever dies, If he ever dies,
it's part of the part and parcel. Yes. Uh. One
(20:42):
thing that we do want to make clear here in
the middle of this our ghost story SEGMENTUM, is that like, like,
we do love this kind of thing, but we are
food podcast professionals, um semi professionals anyway, Like like, we
didn't go into every interview going like, hey, y'all tell
us your ghost story is your New Orleans. Um. But
(21:03):
the ghost stories came to us, they did, and we
only started asking the question after one of our interviewees
surprised us with one. In the middle of the interview.
Amy Sin's, the chef and owner of Langoa, which is
a food entertainment company, presented us with a ghost during
the interview. Um, okay, we we spoke a little bit
(21:25):
about it in the studio with Dylan. When we got back,
she produced the spaghetti ghost. That's one of my favorite
parts of any interview we've ever done. She just comes out,
puts on the table in front of us spaghetti inside
(21:46):
like a tupperware. Um. And and and this is I
mean she stops the interview. She goes, oh, hold on,
let me get something. I'll be right back, and she
produces this packaged and by spaghetti, I mean, you know,
just like a pack of noodles, dry dry noodles in
the package and yeah, inside this tupperware, and it has
(22:07):
this painter's tape on the tupperware um that says, oh goodness,
let me find me, let me find my picture, so
I don't miss quote. We don't want to make a
quote the spaghetti ghost. Never miss quote the tupperware. M hm,
he travels. I don't want to get on his pad side. No,
that's right. It says we love, we heart Mr Ferrara,
(22:29):
and then the second piece of tape says cheers to
our good luck ghost and has a smiley face. So
we had questions, as you probably do. She answered all
of them. She did. She had quite the story. I mean,
I never imagined we would I have a spaghetti ghost
come up in an interview. I I never predicted it.
(22:50):
And yet and yet, and I mean from there on out,
it was just like, well, we have to ask everyone
ghosts exactly see professionals. But okay, okay, okay, let's get
to the story of Mr. From Amy sense. I'm distracted
(23:13):
by the spaghetti ghost, could you so, I will be
more than happy to introduce you to please please. So
the building that we're in UM is from eighteen fifty
and whenever I was renovating it, I felt like there
was a ghost here, like to the point that I
would come in and say good morning. Because if you
(23:35):
have a ghost, you want it to like you exactly. Yeah,
be polite. Yeah, I mean the last thing you want
to do is upset the ghost. That you have to
spend every day that's a work. I mean, you're in
its house. So I did um ancestor dot com search
on the building and pulled all the census records and
I had a list of all the names of the
(23:55):
people who lived here. And I had a lady who
came over for brunch and she said, guess what a
president of the New Orleans per Normal Society. If you
give me the keys to your building and you agree
to not be there, I'll do a hunt. And my
husband is always like, Amy, you're crazy, Like have you
lost your minds? You just gave your keys to stranger.
(24:17):
Oh it is not a stranger. We had, you know,
we had brab fine, you know, and they're probably my
cousin somewhere in deep down the line, it's Louisiana. So um,
so I said, if it's not here, don't invite it.
If it's not nice, I don't want to know about it.
And then here's the list of names. And she called
me at like two thirty in the morning and said
(24:38):
we talked to Mr Ferrara, Like, oh my god. So
they had an audio recording clear as day. You hear say,
is that you missed her Ferraura and he's like what
he's like, you know, talking, but you can't really hear
like what he's saying because she's asking questions. So um,
turns out here ran an illegal gamp lingering out of
(25:01):
the building and there was a law in New Orleans
that you could not sell alcohol to women, and he
was arrested for that. So every time I opened a
bottle of wine in the building, I say cheers to
Mr Ferrara. And for about six months, my mom was
ill and I took six months off, so I kind
of I wasn't here. And because New Orleans is full
(25:24):
of crazy people, I got a text message from a
lady who is I affectionately called crazy because everyone else
would just say that we're crazy. But she sent me
a text and she said, you need to go to
your building. Your spirit is sad. He doesn't know where
you've been and why you left. And I'm like, oh
(25:46):
my God, tell the building to get in line. I
have emails, I have phone calls. So of course the
next morning I came to talk to the building and
I said, Mr Ferrara, have three choices. You can go
to the light, you can stay here. Or jokingly, I
had a pack of New Orleans made luxury and macaroni.
(26:08):
It's just a Sicilian brand at a spaghetti and I said,
or you can jump in this pack of spaghetti and
you could just come with me everywhere I go and
hang out. And so I go home with a pack
of spaghetti and I tell my husband and he's like,
you've lost your mind. You're nuts. He's like, you talked
to a ghost, you told it to jump in spaghetti,
(26:29):
and you brought the spaghetti to our house. And it's
like yes. So I started bringing the spaghetti with me everywhere,
uh to events, cooking classes, things all over town. I
had never told the lady what I did. I didn't
want her to know that. I embraced that level and
(26:49):
so I About a month later, she sent me a
message that said Mr ferrar is having so much fun
traveling and meeting new people. And I'm like, oh my god,
he lives in the spaghetti. So this is Mr Ferrara.
He lives in the spaghetti. My husband bought him a
protective plastic case. That's probably nothing would happen. And um,
(27:13):
so I bring him and my clients get to meet him.
And just recently I went to a conference and in
Portland and my chefs were like, you should bring him
on a road trip. So I threw him in my suitcase.
And when I got to the hotel he had been
inspected by T s A. So I'm sure he has
lots of stories about his travels, but unfortunately I have
(27:35):
not been able to hear them. Oh well, it's so
good to meet you, Mr Ferra as far as ghost
stories go, and I have heard my fair share you
are a connoisseur. Yeah I am. That is a pretty
good one. I love it. It's it's one of my
(27:57):
favorite things that has ever happened during an interview to
highlight of my professional career. I'm not even joking. I
love it. Um, Okay, but we we do have some
more non ghost related things for you. Um but first
we have one more quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
(28:26):
We are rather our interviewees have a few parting thoughts
before we close out here. One aspect of savers whole thesis.
What we're all about is how food and drink brings
people together. And for me personally, I couldn't have asked
for a better city to exemplify that than New Orleans.
And that's not saying such a city doesn't exist, oh sure,
(28:46):
or at least one that couldn't compete with New Orleans doesn't.
But New Orleans would be hard to beat. The generational restaurants,
the community events and festivals, festivals upon festivals, the neighborhoods.
Food is communal and shared in a way I personally
rarely have ever experienced in my small town or now
in my big city. Here's Bryson and Isaac again everyone
(29:09):
in New Orleans. I think it's a socialite and we
all care about each other and care about the community.
And you know it's men. We're not so insular as
like familiar group of familiar words. Um, like little blocks
will get together and support each other as families and friends.
(29:30):
And I just haven't seen that really in many of
the other places that I've lived. People neighborhoods meet something here,
they really do. That's the bill place a big wolf.
And if we don't have family us, we make reservations.
That's right, whether it's restaurants or just entire neighborhood blocks.
(29:52):
Food is a huge part of the sense of community.
More than one person we talked to brought up crawfish
boils um, you know, the big social act to be
with food and drink at the center. I love a
good profits boiled. Even though I am awful at eating profits.
I always injure myself I do too. There will be blood,
I always, I say. One of our interviewees described it
(30:14):
as kind of a race. Or take this description from
Isaac Can imagine this. You're in your shorts, you have
beer hand in your hand, you have a hat, You're
boiling sixty pounds of crawl fish in a big giant pot.
As children running around, there's uncle's telling jokes, there's women gossiping,
there's naughty games being played. I'm sorry, they're inappropriately dangerous
games being played, um, lies told, probably some music playing.
(30:38):
It's a gathering of people and I think that's what
New Orleans and South Louisiana embraces a lot, the community gathering,
having a good time, having the journey, cutting up a
little bit, and not taking the self too seriously. On
one of the first lift rides we took into the
French Quarter, the lift driver pulled up next to someone
and I thought there was about to be like an altercation, Yeah,
(30:59):
because the way that he rolled down the window and
he was like hey hey. But then what he said was,
why aren't you at the restaurant? How is the new
opening going? Like everyone we spoke to had food recommendations,
um and they were almost all different, which was a
wonderful problem we had to tackle five days, all these recommendations.
(31:23):
Where do we eat? Amy spoke to this, Yeah, food
is our life. It is pretty much all we talk
about and the one thing that you have in common
with everybody you meet because everybody has to eat, so
you can always find common ground whether you agree on
anything or not, you can agree that you have to eat.
And uh So, growing up in South Louisiana, everything revolved
(31:46):
around food. Every special occasion every Sunday dinner, and it
was all about bringing people to the table, friends, family,
and eating. I can relate so much. I spend an
embarrassing amount of my time thinking about food, and not
just because I worked on this podcast. A lot of
(32:06):
people do. I mean, especially in cities that are blessed
with amazing food scenes like like New Orleans. Um. And
a part of it has to do with a thread
that's been throughout these these episodes, these dishes that are
now celebrated that rows out of necessity and community. Here's
pepper again. And we've always been a city that, for
(32:31):
better or for worse, that we are all about talking
about food, just like you long ago, okay, anybody, you
can stop anybody and you have a long conversation about food.
We talk about what you're eating for dinner over lunch,
where you talk about where you where you got the best,
the best that you've ever had of the same thing
while you're eating it. Because that's just it's very much
(32:53):
a part of who we are. So I think that, honestly, Um,
that sense of community came from not having and when
you don't you don't have, and I don't have. We
pulled together and we can make we can make stone soup,
and that community and the role of food plays in
bringing us together and starting conversations is important to all
(33:14):
of us. According to Howard, you can see that really
play out in the South, even though no matter how
divide the South was in terms of food, like people
will cross over. You will find instances where if food
would bring people together. I think that's something I think
is unique about the South. Well, food brings people together everywhere,
(33:37):
but the South, with his dark history of slavery, food
has a It has the ability to bring people together
to have a conversation, and hopefully those conversations will help
to make the South better, make it more one unit.
They can help people understand people differences. Is also there
the similarities. We'll leave the closing quote to me. And
(34:02):
there's something about the city that just embraces you, and
when you embrace it back, you can't leave. And I
tell people from out of town, if this is your
third visit, I have a guy because you're probably looking
for real estate because New Orleans has called you. And
there's something about the total dysfunction of this city that
(34:25):
is charming and you just can't get away from it.
So we come to the conclusion of our New Orleans
mini series. We're kind of because again, lots of bonus
content forthcoming. Hopefully we'll make it back one day because
there are so many topics loft to uncover, and so
many things that we didn't get to eat. So many
(34:47):
people we didn't get to talk to you. Oh goodness, yeah,
that oyster guy, the oyster the one that got away.
But in the meantime, you can contact us via email
at Hello at saberpod dot com. Tell us where we
should go experience as we speak, the powers at your fingertips.
You can also find us on social media. We are
(35:07):
on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at savor Pod. We do
hope to hear from you. Thank you so much to
our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard, our executive
producer Christopher Hasiotis, and all of our wonderful interviewees. Also,
thank you to the people who put us in touch
with those folks, Wesley Jansen, Sandy Gomez, Laura Noel, Lauren
Bush Singer, and Annabelle Mendez. Thank you to you for listening,
(35:30):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way. I believe, but it's also where Nicholas cages
future resting places if he ever dies, if he ever dies,
he ever dies. My favorite part of this so it's
a big pyramid, right. My favorite part is according to
(35:53):
this tour, he was inspired during National Treasure and I
R S took two of his houses, but they couldn't
take the tune. It's still legally his and it's covered
in kisses. They have the private from his cold dead hand,
(36:13):
some coulted hands. We had a lot of ideas for
Nick Cage movies, like replacing Obi One with Nicholas Cage.
Somebody do that please, I mean, the opportunities are endless,
and yeah, let's walking around all going on. We had
(36:34):
a lot of great ideas. We did Nicholas Cage. If
you're listening, I mean, you can have these for free.
Yeah yeah, this is our gift to you for giving
us so many gifts. You have you have indeed yeah
um he He used to own the Madame LaLaurie House,
which is one of the most haunted buildings in New
Orleans and night it is American Horse Store number three.
(36:55):
Season three, one of the seasons we went with Kathy Baits.
But yes, there us came and took that from him.
I can't remember. There was a really funny joke set
up to that, but I don't remember what it is.
It was like my higher power came in, took Nicolas
Cage's houses, the iris, the IRUs,
We want you to come over. We want you to experience,
want you to tell stories, have more. If you come over,
come on down like what you see you have to do.
Stay hello, and welcome to Savor. I'm Annies and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're saying farewell to New Orleans
kind of. I mean, you'll still be hearing some bonus
(00:27):
content of the next few weeks because we interviewed so
many lovely people and we would like to share those
interviews in their entirety. Yes, yes, they're lightly edited entirety, yes,
but yeah, our mini series Alas is coming to an end,
so we're going to do a proper send off around
up if you will. Yes, just in case listening to
(00:49):
whole interviews is not your thing. We're going to share
some of this great material that we got that, in
true New Orleans fashion, didn't necessarily fit neatly into any
one category that we've talked about so far. Yeah, we
really ran the gambit. We got some science, entertainment, go,
we had that ghost a lot of ghost yes, yeah,
(01:10):
so we thought we'd share some of that with you.
Starting with something we ran into a lot, which is
this connection between food and entertainment, particularly music, along with
hospitality and performative culture. Because, as we mentioned in our
Overview of New Orleans episode, New Orleans is kind of
a big tourist town. Yeah, you might have heard that
about it, maybe recently with Marty Gros something, but it
(01:32):
is something that locals lean into. Um, they're excited to
share their culture. The quote that you heard from the
top was Isaac troops over at Troops Metery and Troops
Meterary South. It is a performance, but it's a performance
that people there deeply believe in and and do want
to share with people. Elizabeth Pierce, the New Orleans drink
(01:53):
historian and founder of Drink and Learn, spoke to this
how you do a thing that is an intro world
part of your culture, and you know what it means
in here, and you do it for people who say
that's pretty and it means nothing. It's like no, and
you get like this little But we have second lines here,
(02:17):
so many wedding second lines, and all these people are
going around and they know how to dance because they're
self conscious because they're like I'm in a parade and
everyone is staring and maybe I should dance. I don't
know that is not how second lines happen in other neighborhoods.
But do I feel like, no second lines unless you
are a real New Orleanans No pay the musicians, pay
(02:40):
the cops. Everybody's broke, you know. You know musicians are
often broke, and so are as those are a police force.
You know, Like, it'd be great if if the wedding
planner who's like putting this together, could say, Hey, this
is what this means, this is the origin of this
thing you're doing. But I've also come to a place
(03:03):
a piece with this because do you know why we
feed each other cake at a wedding? Why why the
brideing room feed each other? No, and we all do it,
and so you'll have sweet words in your mouth. You
start your marriage with with sweetness in your mouth. Have
sweet works, right, We just do these things and and
it's like, oh that sounds that sounds good. I want
(03:24):
to parade. Yes, the people of New Orleans aren't you
to share their culture, but they are also extremely protective
of it. Oh yeah, yeah, it's what was behind the
Disney Gumboker fuffle. We mentioned pepper bow in New Orleans
Food and Water attorney put it this way. If you
don't use it, he lose it. And to be very
(03:47):
crass about the whole situation, if you allow your culture
to dissipate because you think something else is more interesting,
then it really leaves the door open for someone else
to come in and to tell you what it is.
One part of that culture that we were curious about
was music and how food and music and particularly jazz
of course, um interact in the city. Here's Dickie Brennan,
(04:10):
whose family collectively owns and operates thirteen restaurants in New Orleans.
I mean, we always say cooking with jazz. I mean,
you know, our our seasonings here. I mean we use
a blend of seasons, you know, and it's to really
enhance the flavors. Takes something makes it blossom. So I mean,
it's like making the music. It's definitely a great correlation
(04:31):
between making music and making food. I mean, that's you know,
in a city like New Orleans is probably great. I mean,
my god, we created to jazz. Prior to jazz, you
had old world music. If I've played a certain way,
I mean, would happen New Orleans. Look how it's change
the world. Liz Williams of the Southern Food and Beverage
(04:52):
Museum in New Orleans, and brysoned Downham, beverage director at
Toops Restaurants, echoed the sentiment, I think that musicians and
this town cook. At the end of the end of November,
there's actually a conference in town that's all about improvisation
and they cover music, food, writing, theater, all sorts of things.
(05:15):
And uh so they talk about how the city is
full of the improvisation and that people seem quite willing
to do that. So to say that there's a connection
between food and music, not only that there's a connection
between all of the arts I think um in this
town and all kinds of cultural things. But you know,
(05:38):
our musicians are often out there grilling something that they're
going to serve while they're playing later, you know, and
that kind of thing. And magazines that are about music
always have recipes of some musicians in that particular issue
or whatever. So there's definitely an understanding that these things
(06:01):
are connected. But and I think that there's a transmission
of the music and of food also, which is similar,
so that as people mix to make music together, they're
also transmitting their ideas about food and all that kind
of thing in the same way. So I think all
(06:22):
of that is um related. The bar of the bar
food culture is still alive. You know. There are plenty
of places you could go early to get a drink,
a little spread of food complimentary cooked by either the
musicians that are performing at night, or the bartenders or
(06:42):
our owners or sometimes just regulars, and you go and
you listen to music, and you eat and you come together.
So the musicians, definitely, the food and drinking music all
comes together. It's it's hard to overstate how much of
a part of the culture it is there as opposed
(07:05):
to I mean, nowhere else that I've ever been has
just the number of restaurants with the house bands that
are playing, and it's it adds an air of festivity
everywhere that you go. We spoke with historian Eric seyferth
Over at the Historic New Orleans Collection about this music
scene in New Orleans. Man. I mean, if you go,
if you go on look up what shows are playing
(07:28):
on a Wednesday night in this city, which is of
less than four thousand people, you won't. I mean, the
number of shows is astounding. Multiple shows at at one
venue in a night on Wednesday night there's probably uh
forty different listings. It's not even including all the music.
I just don't know that there's another place that has
so much. And then if you look at how New
(07:49):
Orleans has impacted American music. You talk about, I've said,
developing jazz, you talk about our role in the development
of rock and roll, since we love some good word play.
If you haven't been able to discern that one thing
Eric told us before we move on, you've heard of
Louis Armstrong, right, yeah, yeah, And if you haven't get
(08:13):
on that listeners. But in the meantime, Louis Armstrong is
famous for signing off all his letters red beans and
ricely yours, we are arms Strong, which is, you know,
it's cheesy, but it's you know, you read his his letters,
they're all kind of in that mode. Um, they're very
(08:36):
jovial or I don't even know if that's the right word,
but yeah, red beans and rice ly yours. Something else
we wanted to touch on that. I think it's lost
a lot when people think about food is the science
involves every time you make a souffle, you are conducting
a science experiment. Lord knows, I am oh very experimental
(08:57):
there exactly know the The science of food is one
of our favorite things to talk about on this show because,
oh it's weird and wonderful. Several of our interviewees came
from a science background, and we're drawn to food specifically
because of the science and technology involved. Take Ashley McMillan,
the executive pastry chef at New Orleans Dessert Boutique. Sure,
(09:21):
I was a biology major but also a chemistry major,
So I think that's what attracted me more to sweets
than anything else. I have been in the savory field
I actually had experienced in both my career split it's
just with pastries. It's it's more tedious, and I enjoy that.
The payoffs figger for me. And we are the only
ones who think the science gets lost to rocket scientists
(09:42):
and barbecue pittmaster. Dr Howard Conners agrees, like we were
talking about brianding grits, nobody would think there's a friction
factor of friction in making grits or heat dissipation or viscosity.
We're thinking about barbecue sauces, or thinking about thermo dynamic
with using the pit versus occasion microwave, the cocachina or
(10:04):
something like. So there's a lot of science and technology
involved in the cooking process. And I have learned that
when I was growing some of these restaurants and they
started using the induction burners, Like that's really fascinating to
me as a person of a science, I wouldn't be
a rocket scientists without growing on the farm because I've
seen the real applications of science and technology and engineering
(10:29):
and mathematics on the farm. For instance, let me give
you example, we were trying to put up this barn
and as an engineer you have you can have like cables,
and you're trying to use cables to help pull something
up and support things temporarily until you get amounted securely,
and we use a lot of engineering principles to help
(10:50):
get that. I guess you're said that being in place
seeing things like that early on, or understanding about Furti Lizars.
You're seeing like Furti Lisar. They say, oh, what is
the t in tin ten? Like what is that deck
in the science cash when they're talk about nitrogen or
posphorus and potassium. But people on the farm might said
(11:10):
it was called soda or liquid soda and harmonia. But
that's all it was also how Ared engineered a barbecue
pit large enough for an entire cow, like whole cow barbecue,
like whole hog barbecue, but with a cow. He engineered it. Yeah,
um yeah. The entire interview forthcoming soon, hopefully fascinating, but
(11:34):
in the meantime to the nonscience part of our episode Ghosts.
But first a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
(11:54):
we're back with ghosts. As your listeners probably know, we
love stories here on Saber. There isn't a place much
better for a good ghost story than New Orleans, certainly
not in the United States. They they they've got that
old thing kind of kind of unlock. Yes, they do.
We spoke about our love of ghost stories in studio
(12:15):
when we got back. We like to tell ghost stories, um,
and we told a bunch on the way back from Asheville.
In every ghost story we started with, well I don't
believe in ghosts, but and I find that a lot
of people we asked would say something similar like, well,
(12:35):
I don't believe in ghosts, but here are five ghost stories. Also,
since we're on Mike, we're recording t M t M
t M. I don't believe in ghosts, but because that's
a great property that we will probably develop that. Yes, yes,
we definitely should. Don't steal that. Listeners, we are trusting you.
(12:57):
We are. If you're thinking, what does this have to
do with food? Uh, isn't this a food show? Why? Yes?
And yes, but ghosts come in restaurants and sometimes even
in habit food items themselves. I know I was there,
but still you heard one of these stories from Katie Casparian,
(13:19):
one of the proprietors of Our Nose restaurant, in Our
Kincake and Marti Gras episode. Um, but that was just
one of the three stories that she shared. Ah, here
she is, here she is. Here's the thing about the ghosts.
So I'm not you know, I'm not like a huge
believer in all of it, but I you know, or
(13:39):
as my brother says, I don't want to be proven wrong,
and I agree with that. I have felt some weird
things myself personally. Um, some like a brush of cold
air in an otherwise not cold space. Um, you know
where that you have that hair raising kind of you.
That's definitely happened. Certainly people have said that they cited
(14:03):
something you know, we have a couple of stories that
we always go to that people have that's happened that
people have shared. Story number one. You know, we still,
um we do an inventory. We do it every month
like most restaurants do. And this was the inventory on
(14:25):
near Zeve. And it happened at the time that our
accountant was coming to just do some like spot checking.
And he's an accountant, so he is no sense of humor,
and he's very straight laced and he's just very accountant like.
And he swears, and he's still an accountant, and he's
also a family friend. So this so and he swears
(14:46):
that he was actually in the other bar, the Richelou bar,
and there was something that like a glass on the
table that on the bar top brother that resembled, you
know something. It was like a brown spirits. It kind
of looks like a sas rack or you know whatever.
It was something, and it was sort of half full,
and he was, you know, spot checking some counts. And
(15:11):
thirty minutes later he looks back and he says he
was the only one in there and the whole thing,
like all of the spirit is gone. So the glasses
totally empty, and he had that same like hair raising
I'm getting out of here situation as story number one.
That's always go to. She shared story number two in
(15:33):
that Mardi Grass episode post credits. Yeah, so if you
didn't hear it, then you're gonna you're you've got some homework.
We call it Marvel post credit scene. K, that's exactly
what we are. Um, but yes, here, here's the third. Story.
Number three is that there's a party. And this was
just a couple of years ago. They were having cocktails
(15:55):
in one space and then moving on to another space
to have a seated dinner. And I was downstairs and
one of the captain of the of the party came
down and this would be an odd thing for him
to come and like seek me out. So he was, um,
he looked kind of like a little frazzled. He's like,
we have a guess who's very upset. Of course, I'm like, okay, well,
(16:18):
what's the problem. That they've taken a picture? And it
was still digital camera so this was long ago, but
not that long ago, right, so it wasn't on an iPhone,
but you know where digital cameras were still a thing,
and so they've taken a picture, you know, like as
you all would, the three of you, I would take
a picture of you all, just like a candid kind
of photo. So she goes back and she looks at
(16:39):
the photo and there's a bust of so so just
a bust next to them, and it looks like almost
like an old waiter. So it's a tuxedo, like you
can tell this kind of a tuxedo. You you can't
see any waist down um, and he looks like, you know,
I don't know, nineteen twenties is looking but like a
(17:02):
bust and faint, but you can see it, you can
make it out. And so this woman is like freaking
out once, silly kind of situation, and I just you know,
we just had a calmer down and just say it's friendly.
Don't worry. But I saw it too. It was amazing.
It was amazing. So stuff like that. They're here, I'm sure,
(17:26):
but they're nice. Nobody's died from them or anything. Our
next tale comes from Christopher Horner, general manager at the
Bomb Bay Club, a cocktail lounge in the heart of
the French Quarter. And this ghost has a pamphlet about
her in the restaurant. If you go there, you can yeah,
(17:47):
pick one up for yourself. You'll have a ghost here, Yes,
we do. You can you tell us about the ghost? Wow? Yeah,
I can. Um. The booth right behind you, it's actually
behind you, is where she hangs out. It's a woman,
and she is um supposed to be a former madam,
(18:12):
and because this area of town at one time, uh
entertained those folks, and uh, she is supposed to be
very protective of women. And I think she's a um
I think they call a passive ghost. She's not mean
(18:33):
or anything like that, unless you have a gentleman who
is being rude to a lady. And there's been stories
where drinks have fallen on the guys, and and and
and that type of thing. I think we've all had
points where we thought we saw her. I saw her
walking through here one day, um in the blue dress.
(18:54):
I'll never forget it. And I was doing one here.
We got little stories here that we've we've had and
we've seen the candle on the table was blown out
and all the table candles were blown out and came
out here and that candles led again, you know for
some reason, you know, just those little things like that.
(19:14):
This whole city has got so many great haunted stories
and everything. That's why cemetery tours are here. I was
standing right over there by the bar, and um, when
we're talking to the bartenders, and employees were talking to
the bartenders. Uh. The other employees walking behind you always
(19:36):
put their hand on you, just to let you know
they're behind you because they got a tray or something.
And one day I had that hand put on me
and kind of pushed a little bit. So I pushed
forward so they can get by. Turnround. There's no one
there at all. And uh. And and it's so funny
because it came from right from that move. I felt it.
It came right from that book. I know. Um, we've
(20:00):
we've had propose little wits that's like that. Oh that's
so great. Um, I'm just genuinely delighted by that. Her name,
by the way, didn't to mention that good. Yeah, yeah,
we can make sure she gets proper to. Don't want
to make Sophie and great a Nope, nope, because we
(20:22):
don't believe in ghosts. But I take the risk. Yeah.
We went on one of those cemetery tours of St.
Louis Number one, the final resting place of Marie Lavaux
and Nicholas Cage if he ever dies, If he ever dies,
it's part of the part and parcel. Yes. Uh. One
(20:42):
thing that we do want to make clear here in
the middle of this our ghost story SEGMENTUM, is that like, like,
we do love this kind of thing, but we are
food podcast professionals, um semi professionals anyway, Like like, we
didn't go into every interview going like, hey, y'all tell
us your ghost story is your New Orleans. Um. But
(21:03):
the ghost stories came to us, they did, and we
only started asking the question after one of our interviewees
surprised us with one. In the middle of the interview.
Amy Sin's, the chef and owner of Langoa, which is
a food entertainment company, presented us with a ghost during
the interview. Um, okay, we we spoke a little bit
(21:25):
about it in the studio with Dylan. When we got back,
she produced the spaghetti ghost. That's one of my favorite
parts of any interview we've ever done. She just comes out,
puts on the table in front of us spaghetti inside
(21:46):
like a tupperware. Um. And and and this is I
mean she stops the interview. She goes, oh, hold on,
let me get something. I'll be right back, and she
produces this packaged and by spaghetti, I mean, you know,
just like a pack of noodles, dry dry noodles in
the package and yeah, inside this tupperware, and it has
(22:07):
this painter's tape on the tupperware um that says, oh goodness,
let me find me, let me find my picture, so
I don't miss quote. We don't want to make a
quote the spaghetti ghost. Never miss quote the tupperware. M hm,
he travels. I don't want to get on his pad side. No,
that's right. It says we love, we heart Mr Ferrara,
(22:29):
and then the second piece of tape says cheers to
our good luck ghost and has a smiley face. So
we had questions, as you probably do. She answered all
of them. She did. She had quite the story. I mean,
I never imagined we would I have a spaghetti ghost
come up in an interview. I I never predicted it.
(22:50):
And yet and yet, and I mean from there on out,
it was just like, well, we have to ask everyone
ghosts exactly see professionals. But okay, okay, okay, let's get
to the story of Mr. From Amy sense. I'm distracted
(23:13):
by the spaghetti ghost, could you so, I will be
more than happy to introduce you to please please. So
the building that we're in UM is from eighteen fifty
and whenever I was renovating it, I felt like there
was a ghost here, like to the point that I
would come in and say good morning. Because if you
(23:35):
have a ghost, you want it to like you exactly. Yeah,
be polite. Yeah, I mean the last thing you want
to do is upset the ghost. That you have to
spend every day that's a work. I mean, you're in
its house. So I did um ancestor dot com search
on the building and pulled all the census records and
I had a list of all the names of the
(23:55):
people who lived here. And I had a lady who
came over for brunch and she said, guess what a
president of the New Orleans per Normal Society. If you
give me the keys to your building and you agree
to not be there, I'll do a hunt. And my
husband is always like, Amy, you're crazy, Like have you
lost your minds? You just gave your keys to stranger.
(24:17):
Oh it is not a stranger. We had, you know,
we had brab fine, you know, and they're probably my
cousin somewhere in deep down the line, it's Louisiana. So um,
so I said, if it's not here, don't invite it.
If it's not nice, I don't want to know about it.
And then here's the list of names. And she called
me at like two thirty in the morning and said
(24:38):
we talked to Mr Ferrara, Like, oh my god. So
they had an audio recording clear as day. You hear say,
is that you missed her Ferraura and he's like what
he's like, you know, talking, but you can't really hear
like what he's saying because she's asking questions. So um,
turns out here ran an illegal gamp lingering out of
(25:01):
the building and there was a law in New Orleans
that you could not sell alcohol to women, and he
was arrested for that. So every time I opened a
bottle of wine in the building, I say cheers to
Mr Ferrara. And for about six months, my mom was
ill and I took six months off, so I kind
of I wasn't here. And because New Orleans is full
(25:24):
of crazy people, I got a text message from a
lady who is I affectionately called crazy because everyone else
would just say that we're crazy. But she sent me
a text and she said, you need to go to
your building. Your spirit is sad. He doesn't know where
you've been and why you left. And I'm like, oh
(25:46):
my God, tell the building to get in line. I
have emails, I have phone calls. So of course the
next morning I came to talk to the building and
I said, Mr Ferrara, have three choices. You can go
to the light, you can stay here. Or jokingly, I
had a pack of New Orleans made luxury and macaroni.
(26:08):
It's just a Sicilian brand at a spaghetti and I said,
or you can jump in this pack of spaghetti and
you could just come with me everywhere I go and
hang out. And so I go home with a pack
of spaghetti and I tell my husband and he's like,
you've lost your mind. You're nuts. He's like, you talked
to a ghost, you told it to jump in spaghetti,
(26:29):
and you brought the spaghetti to our house. And it's
like yes. So I started bringing the spaghetti with me everywhere,
uh to events, cooking classes, things all over town. I
had never told the lady what I did. I didn't
want her to know that. I embraced that level and
(26:49):
so I About a month later, she sent me a
message that said Mr ferrar is having so much fun
traveling and meeting new people. And I'm like, oh my god,
he lives in the spaghetti. So this is Mr Ferrara.
He lives in the spaghetti. My husband bought him a
protective plastic case. That's probably nothing would happen. And um,
(27:13):
so I bring him and my clients get to meet him.
And just recently I went to a conference and in
Portland and my chefs were like, you should bring him
on a road trip. So I threw him in my suitcase.
And when I got to the hotel he had been
inspected by T s A. So I'm sure he has
lots of stories about his travels, but unfortunately I have
(27:35):
not been able to hear them. Oh well, it's so
good to meet you, Mr Ferra as far as ghost
stories go, and I have heard my fair share you
are a connoisseur. Yeah I am. That is a pretty
good one. I love it. It's it's one of my
(27:57):
favorite things that has ever happened during an interview to
highlight of my professional career. I'm not even joking. I
love it. Um, Okay, but we we do have some
more non ghost related things for you. Um but first
we have one more quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
(28:26):
We are rather our interviewees have a few parting thoughts
before we close out here. One aspect of savers whole thesis.
What we're all about is how food and drink brings
people together. And for me personally, I couldn't have asked
for a better city to exemplify that than New Orleans.
And that's not saying such a city doesn't exist, oh sure,
(28:46):
or at least one that couldn't compete with New Orleans doesn't.
But New Orleans would be hard to beat. The generational restaurants,
the community events and festivals, festivals upon festivals, the neighborhoods.
Food is communal and shared in a way I personally
rarely have ever experienced in my small town or now
in my big city. Here's Bryson and Isaac again everyone
(29:09):
in New Orleans. I think it's a socialite and we
all care about each other and care about the community.
And you know it's men. We're not so insular as
like familiar group of familiar words. Um, like little blocks
will get together and support each other as families and friends.
(29:30):
And I just haven't seen that really in many of
the other places that I've lived. People neighborhoods meet something here,
they really do. That's the bill place a big wolf.
And if we don't have family us, we make reservations.
That's right, whether it's restaurants or just entire neighborhood blocks.
(29:52):
Food is a huge part of the sense of community.
More than one person we talked to brought up crawfish
boils um, you know, the big social act to be
with food and drink at the center. I love a
good profits boiled. Even though I am awful at eating profits.
I always injure myself I do too. There will be blood,
I always, I say. One of our interviewees described it
(30:14):
as kind of a race. Or take this description from
Isaac Can imagine this. You're in your shorts, you have
beer hand in your hand, you have a hat, You're
boiling sixty pounds of crawl fish in a big giant pot.
As children running around, there's uncle's telling jokes, there's women gossiping,
there's naughty games being played. I'm sorry, they're inappropriately dangerous
games being played, um, lies told, probably some music playing.
(30:38):
It's a gathering of people and I think that's what
New Orleans and South Louisiana embraces a lot, the community gathering,
having a good time, having the journey, cutting up a
little bit, and not taking the self too seriously. On
one of the first lift rides we took into the
French Quarter, the lift driver pulled up next to someone
and I thought there was about to be like an altercation, Yeah,
(30:59):
because the way that he rolled down the window and
he was like hey hey. But then what he said was,
why aren't you at the restaurant? How is the new
opening going? Like everyone we spoke to had food recommendations,
um and they were almost all different, which was a
wonderful problem we had to tackle five days, all these recommendations.
(31:23):
Where do we eat? Amy spoke to this, Yeah, food
is our life. It is pretty much all we talk
about and the one thing that you have in common
with everybody you meet because everybody has to eat, so
you can always find common ground whether you agree on
anything or not, you can agree that you have to eat.
And uh So, growing up in South Louisiana, everything revolved
(31:46):
around food. Every special occasion every Sunday dinner, and it
was all about bringing people to the table, friends, family,
and eating. I can relate so much. I spend an
embarrassing amount of my time thinking about food, and not
just because I worked on this podcast. A lot of
(32:06):
people do. I mean, especially in cities that are blessed
with amazing food scenes like like New Orleans. Um. And
a part of it has to do with a thread
that's been throughout these these episodes, these dishes that are
now celebrated that rows out of necessity and community. Here's
pepper again. And we've always been a city that, for
(32:31):
better or for worse, that we are all about talking
about food, just like you long ago, okay, anybody, you
can stop anybody and you have a long conversation about food.
We talk about what you're eating for dinner over lunch,
where you talk about where you where you got the best,
the best that you've ever had of the same thing
while you're eating it. Because that's just it's very much
(32:53):
a part of who we are. So I think that, honestly, Um,
that sense of community came from not having and when
you don't you don't have, and I don't have. We
pulled together and we can make we can make stone soup,
and that community and the role of food plays in
bringing us together and starting conversations is important to all
(33:14):
of us. According to Howard, you can see that really
play out in the South, even though no matter how
divide the South was in terms of food, like people
will cross over. You will find instances where if food
would bring people together. I think that's something I think
is unique about the South. Well, food brings people together everywhere,
(33:37):
but the South, with his dark history of slavery, food
has a It has the ability to bring people together
to have a conversation, and hopefully those conversations will help
to make the South better, make it more one unit.
They can help people understand people differences. Is also there
the similarities. We'll leave the closing quote to me. And
(34:02):
there's something about the city that just embraces you, and
when you embrace it back, you can't leave. And I
tell people from out of town, if this is your
third visit, I have a guy because you're probably looking
for real estate because New Orleans has called you. And
there's something about the total dysfunction of this city that
(34:25):
is charming and you just can't get away from it.
So we come to the conclusion of our New Orleans
mini series. We're kind of because again, lots of bonus
content forthcoming. Hopefully we'll make it back one day because
there are so many topics loft to uncover, and so
many things that we didn't get to eat. So many
(34:47):
people we didn't get to talk to you. Oh goodness, yeah,
that oyster guy, the oyster the one that got away.
But in the meantime, you can contact us via email
at Hello at saberpod dot com. Tell us where we
should go experience as we speak, the powers at your fingertips.
You can also find us on social media. We are
(35:07):
on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at savor Pod. We do
hope to hear from you. Thank you so much to
our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard, our executive
producer Christopher Hasiotis, and all of our wonderful interviewees. Also,
thank you to the people who put us in touch
with those folks, Wesley Jansen, Sandy Gomez, Laura Noel, Lauren
Bush Singer, and Annabelle Mendez. Thank you to you for listening,
(35:30):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way. I believe, but it's also where Nicholas cages
future resting places if he ever dies, if he ever dies,
he ever dies. My favorite part of this so it's
a big pyramid, right. My favorite part is according to
(35:53):
this tour, he was inspired during National Treasure and I
R S took two of his houses, but they couldn't
take the tune. It's still legally his and it's covered
in kisses. They have the private from his cold dead hand,
(36:13):
some coulted hands. We had a lot of ideas for
Nick Cage movies, like replacing Obi One with Nicholas Cage.
Somebody do that please, I mean, the opportunities are endless,
and yeah, let's walking around all going on. We had
(36:34):
a lot of great ideas. We did Nicholas Cage. If
you're listening, I mean, you can have these for free.
Yeah yeah, this is our gift to you for giving
us so many gifts. You have you have indeed yeah
um he He used to own the Madame LaLaurie House,
which is one of the most haunted buildings in New
Orleans and night it is American Horse Store number three.
(36:55):
Season three, one of the seasons we went with Kathy Baits.
But yes, there us came and took that from him.
I can't remember. There was a really funny joke set
up to that, but I don't remember what it is.
It was like my higher power came in, took Nicolas
Cage's houses, the iris, the IRUs,
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