EAT MY GLOBE:

INTERVIEW WITH THERESA McCULLA

INTRO MUSIC

Simon Majumdar (“SM”):

Hi everybody. I am Simon Majumdar. Welcome to Eat My Globe, a podcast about things you didn't know you didn't know about food. And on today's very special episode we're going to be looking at a city that is rightfully renowned for its famous food, but also for its long-reaching history. So today, we'll be looking at how this city, the food in this city, and that's in case you hadn't caught on, New Orleans, and it's a relation around race were formed. Relations that you will see in so much of the food there today.

In her new book being published in May 2024 by the University of Chicago Press, we talked to Theresa McCulla about her work, “Insatiable City: Food and Race in New Orleans.” It's an important work and it really is. I've read it all last week and it was just fantastic. And the change in racial situation in New Orleans are so linked together.

So, Theresa, um, it's great to speak to again. Now the last time I spoke to you, you were the curator of the American Brewing History Initiative at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. And there, of course, I spoke to you about the passion and the importance of beer through American history. This time I get to talk to you about one of my favorite cities in the USA.

So, first of all, how did you change from writing about beer. . .

Theresa McCulla (“TM”):

[Laughter]

SM:

. . . to doing. . . writing about New Orleans, both of which are. . . you know, two of my favorite subjects.

TM:

Sure, mine too. Well, and I'll thank you, Simon, for having me back. It's a pleasure to be back on your show. And I'll say that this project on New Orleans actually predated my attention to beer. I started this work a decade ago in graduate school. This is a revision of what was my doctoral dissertation. And then beer came along while I was working on this and persisted after it. I have since become the curator at Mars Incorporated, so I tend to be thinking more about chocolate during any given day than beer.

But no, my, my long interest in food and its relationship to identity, it's been both professional and personal. As you noted, I worked at the Smithsonian as a curator of food and drink history, and I collected and exhibited all kinds of artifacts there, recorded dozens of oral histories with brewers and teachers and food writers.

I've earned a culinary degree and worked in sweet and savory restaurant kitchens. And in all of these different kinds of places, I would say for a long time, I've been really fascinated by how food and drink define the character of a place and the people of a place and just the real deep meaning that people attach to and draw from food and cuisine. And I see this really expressed nowhere better than in New Orleans. And so, you know, it drew me, the city drew me as a site for this study, really in part because of its long history as a destination and a pass through for people. You know, for hundreds of years, literally it's been, you know, a place where people came to, whether by choice or force, to seek their fortune, to work and to eat. And. . . and so an additional ingredient was its colonial history. My undergraduate study was in French and Spanish and Italian. And I understood that all of those languages are present in the history of the city. . .

SM:

Yes.

TM:

. . . and in the records of the city. And so it's a place where I could really kind of unite my interests in professional and personal studies of food and of language.

SM:

Oh, fantastic. And I. . . I know that from talking to you that you're very excited about this city. Why do you call the book though, “Insatiable City: Food and Race in New Orleans”? Yeah, because that's, I mean, it's a perfect title, but, it really is. But how did you come up with it?

TM:

Well, thank you. So I settled on this term, “insatiable,” because in every era of the study, and I'll say first that the book, it kind of stretches through a long length of time. It begins in the early 1800s, if not earlier. . .

SM:

Yes.

TM:

. . . and ends, the final chapter ends in the mid 20th century, but then the epilogue stretches even farther than that. But I really kept seeing this theme emerge in each era of appetites and thirsts that were really insatiable. They were kind of continuous and never-ending things, desires that couldn't be satisfied, whether those were hungers and thirsts for food and drink or wealth, or in the 19th century, mastery over land and waterways and people. Later in the 20th century, maybe it was a kind of insatiable desire to be entertained, to be served, to kind of let go in this city. And so, just in many ways, it's a kind of history of cycles of consuming and consumption that were literal and figurative.

SM:

So, when you talk about it, let's take you through the stages of the book because I think that's something that people will find really, really fascinating. So, let's talk about the stages. And to quote you, you've mentioned, “the arrival if the Aurore with its arrival of kidnapped humans and rice and which concludes in the mid-20th century when tourists and civil rights activists sat at the New Orleans table.”

So, you've taken it all the way through and that's what I love about this. So, let's talk about the stories that stuck from each chapter. Uh, the link that from both history and food. Because let's talk about chapter one. Because I wrote I read this book, I have to tell you, in an entire afternoon. It was just so fascinating for me. And I did. Um, so let's talk about chapter one because in 1803, France sold Louisiana to America. How did this impact on both enslavement and food availability? Because I seen the same issue in the Louisa Gazette gave almost the same importance between the wonderful food they were going to have arrived in New Orleans and the enslaved young men. They were saying from the Congo nation. So, tell us a bit about that.

TM:

Right, so the book begins really with the early pre-American history of New Orleans, before New Orleans was an American city. And so, as I mentioned earlier, New Orleans and Louisiana, the territory of Louisiana, had a long history as a colony of Spain and of France. And then in 1803, the French government sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States. And this was far more than just New Orleans and the state that we currently know as Louisiana. It was a vast swath of, of land that cut through the middle of North America.

SM:

What, what kind of, what kind of states did it include just so people can know?

TM:

Well, if you could envision really the central portion of the continent bordering the Mississippi River, the Mississippi River was this critical artery for trade, for the flow of people. And it was so important that actually President Thomas Jefferson, in 1802, he had this. . . he wrote, quote, “there is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans.”

So, he said. . .

SM:

Wow.

TM:

. . . anyone who holds New Orleans that is not the United States, that is not America, is our enemy. It was so critical to how he envisioned the future of the nation in terms of its economic prosperity and its future growth. And so, but New Orleans, yes, it was at this kind of node that, that connected the American interior to the Caribbean and to the world. It was, again, this destination in this very fertile part of the Mississippi Delta. And so, but the book though, it even begins before this happening, which it starts in 1719. . .

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

. . . when just this critical event occurred, which was the arrival of the first ship bearing enslaved Africans who were brought directly from the coast of Western Africa. And in the hold of this ship were these enslaved humans and rice. And so, it seemed apt to me to begin this history of entwined humans and food, these blended commodities who, who arrived on the soil of Louisiana literally in the same vessel. And so the history progresses from there.

SM:

That the two came together that I always find so fascinating. Let's talk about chapter 2 because you talk about all the people involved there. Perhaps you could tell us about Lucette Barberousse (Ed Note: SM pronounces as Bar-beh-roo-say). Is. . . Do I pronounce that correctly?

TM:

Well, yes, or Barberousse, perhaps Barberousse. (Ed Note: TM pronounces as Bar-beh-roos) 

SM:

Oh, Barberousse. (Ed Note: SM pronounces as Bar-beh-roos) 

TM:

Yeah.

SM:

So, tell us about her and others in chapter 2 because you're really talking about people who made New Orleans what it was in many ways.

TM:

Right. Right.

SM:

And so I'd love you to talk about that and the food that came with it.

TM:

Sure. Well, so in the first half of the book is really situated firmly in the Antebellum years.

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

So, the years before the American Civil War. These were years when slavery really took hold in Louisiana and in the United States. And in that first chapter that began with these people and rice arriving in 1719, it progresses into kind of understanding the building blocks of the city, how the colonial core, the American core of the city grew, the kinds. . . the early attraction of this, this place for people, powerful people who tended to be white Europeans and Americans to come and enjoy. . .

SM:

Yep.

TM:

. . . the cuisine of this, of the city. And so in the second chapter, I, I look from the other side of the table. I want to tell this history from the other side of the table, from that of the people who were doing the work of growing and harvesting food, transporting it to markets, vending it in city streets, whether they might be, walking the humid streets of New Orleans to sell blackberries or Calas, which were fried rice fritters. . .

SM:

Oooh.

TM:

. . . or ginger beer, spruce beer, things like that.

SM:

What's that?

TM:

And so. . . .

SM:

And so talk to me just about the fried rice fritters because they sound great.

TM:

No, sure. Well, right, so calas, C-A-L-A-S. . .

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

. . . is a dish that appears in multiple places throughout the book, and it's originated in Western Africa. They were sweetened rice fritters that would have been sold hot on, on the street by women vendors, most likely Black women vendors. Another similar kind of treat different preparation are the pralines of New Orleans, which we can certainly still find there.

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

And those are, are Louisiana pecans bound with sugar. And those were also very commonly sold by Black women vendors in the streets of the city in the 19th century. Interestingly, by the mid-20th century, many women who worked in the tourism industry or who worked to attract the attention of tourists to New Orleans in the 20th century, understood the appeal of, of not just the food, but of their presence as a woman wearing particular clothing in a particular place, selling that particular food, and really worked to use that to their advantage to appeal to visitors.

SM:

So, I'm interested. . . . I'm just going to carry on talking about Calas. . .

TM:

Sure.

SM:

. . . for a short while because. . . . Is that just as a short thing, is that still available in West Africa? Is that still something that's available or do. . . .

TM:

I wish I could say if it were available in West Africa, I would, I would imagine it is. And it is a preparation that I've certainly seen revived in various cookbooks and in restaurant menus. And so that's certainly something that I imagine your readers could search out if they're interested. But it's a wonderful expression of how ingredients and preparations literally cross oceans and are understood and enjoyed in different ways and different settings.

SM:

What about any others in chapter two? I know we don't want to cover everyone because otherwise then people won't have, you know, need to go and get your book, which would be. . .

TM:

Sure.

SM:

. . . bad for them because it is an amazing book. Just put some others that you've got there. . .

TM:

Sure.

SM:

. . . so to get people, you know, intrigued, should we say.

TM:

Well, in this, yes, and in this second chapter, I take an approach of presenting several focused kind of micro histories of particular people who lived in 19th century New Orleans. And this chapter in particular is as much an argument for the creative variety of sources who can help us understand the identities and the lives of people who lived 200 years ago who. . . could not, who were illiterate, and so they could not write their own histories. And so, of course, the question for the historian becomes, how can you trace their paths and tell their stories in a way that privileges them as the actors and as. . . at the centerpiece of these histories. And so just as one example is this woman you mentioned earlier, Lucette Barbarous. And so, I, I came across her name initially on a register of free people of color who were entitled to live in New Orleans in the mid-19th century. And just as one expression of the authority surveillance of people of color who were living outside the bounds of slavery. They, they were living free. They were required to register with the mayor's office in New Orleans to prove that they could exist there. And so, her name appeared on this register, and then it appeared again and appeared again. And so that, it caught my attention. Ans so, I began to really tried to put the pieces together and look for other kinds of sources that might tell me more about her. So, things like emancipation petitions, census records, other items like that. And I found that she was a woman who had not been born in New Orleans. She was born overseas, brought to New Orleans as an enslaved person, emancipated by her enslaver. She had a relationship with a young Italian immigrant.

SM:

What was, what was, sorry, what. . . . But I want to understand why she was freed by her, you know, enslaver, and how, was there much of that you could find in the...

TM:

Well, so, right, so one aspect of, of the history of slavery in Louisiana and the regulations were different in each American state and different in other nations too. During certain eras of the history of slavery in Louisiana, it was possible for enslavers to emancipate enslaved people. And so at some point, in some cases this happened when an enslaver passed away and they. . .

SM:

Okay.

TM:

. . . stipulated that that their enslaved people should be emancipated, or in other cases, a reason that might be noted in the official record, and it's somewhat official language, but something to the effect of the, that this particular person has, has worked well and been obedient and is deserving of freedom. So that's paraphrasing. But, but in her case, the. . . she was enslaved to a grocer and the emancipation petition includes language along those lines. At the time, she was still a relatively young woman, but we find she was working as a street vendor and we find that over the course of ensuing decades, she, she emancipates her entire family, which include her mother, her daughters, her granddaughters to the point that she becomes a free woman of color who is head of household in early 19th century New Orleans. Still working as a street vendor once she reaches her 60s. Her daughter is working in the same capacity. And so just by patiently assembling a variety of, of official records, which to be honest were primarily, many of them were created in an effort to again, surveil people like her. . .

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

. . . to control them, to understand their movements. They, I, I suggest we could read them for a different end, which is to see her as someone who has lived, whose life history straddles the bounds of slavery and freedom, different continents, different languages and is truly a remarkable effort that is supported by her work as a street vendor in the streets of New Orleans.

SM:

Wow, and I think that's fantastic, but you were going to tell me much more about her, I think before, yeah.

TM:

So, right, and she walked the streets at the same time that others did who I study, and so, and I'll let readers discover them, I hope, in the pages of the book. But these include truly fascinating histories of a, a man who emigrated from Calcutta, India, to the United States in. . .

SM:

Which is where my father came from.

TM:

. . . again, before their. . . . Oh really, okay, yes.

SM:

Yes.

TM:

And that's incredible again. And you know, many of these histories begin with the single source, which is this register of free people of color entitled to live in New Orleans. But any kind of extra notation or item that I could see in this register really prompted me to research their histories.

In this case, this man's name was Prosper Blair. He voluntarily enrolled himself in this register because he said, and the note was in French, but he said he feared being harassed due to his skin color. And so, he wanted to proactively record his right to live in New Orleans. . .

SM:

Wow.

TM:

. . . as a free person of color. This, again, his. . . . He came from a context that was very different from that of African and Afro-Caribbean slavery in the United States. And yet the, the obsession, the concern with skin color, was already so remarkable in New Orleans in this early era that you see his, that he was a grocer, you see his concern registered in this place.

SM:

Wow. I mean, that's, that to me. . . . I'd never thought of that because we had a lot of racism in England, but towards Indian people. So, I still remember my father being a very kind of powerful surgeon and. . . but getting a lot of grief from, you know, people in the north of England who used to give him grief. And that was our thing towards Indians because we didn't have a massive amount at that time, or certainly in the north of England, Caribbeans, but later we did, of course.

Okay, chapter three, and this is one of the things that really struck me because it's still, you know, the truth now. You wrote in this and it was fantastic. You say, Americans had always loved sugar, and Black Americans has always made it. And it's I've written here, Louisiana, almost 700 sugarcane factories. So why was America so in love with it? And why did Black Americans always grow it?

TM:

Well, it see. . . I would. . . I suppose I would suggest that the world has always loved sugar, and we see that, that history in continental Europe even before the establishment of the United States. But when, when the United States purchased Louisiana, sugar cane was already in the ground in Louisiana.

SM:

Okay.

TM:

It had been planted there by French colonists about a decade earlier.

TM:

And, in much of the rest of the American South, we read about King Cotton and the overwhelming dominance of the cotton crop and its export all around the world. In Louisiana, it’s. . . if, if King Cotton ruled elsewhere, others have termed, others have called sugar, Queen Sugar. And so, in this book, I suggest that King Cotton and Queen Sugar really ruled from the same throne. They kind of. . .

SM:

Wow.

TM:

. . . siphon power from each other, from the enslaved people who made them. And so just the, in part because of the climate of Louisiana, the geography of the place, its proximity to the Mississippi River and to New Orleans as a place where items could be traded and exported and imported. Louisiana just became an incredible, incredible site for the cultivation of sugar. And in terms of why Black Americans made it, it. . . . Sadly, it is because the work of making and producing sugar is one of unparalleled brutality. And New Orleans was the largest market for enslaved people in the United States. It. . . . But the demands of producing sugar were so extreme that the demographics of enslaved people in Louisiana skewed differently than other states just because the physical conditions were so excruciating. And so, it's a, it’s a very, it’s a very difficult history of a very sweet thing that in so many settings were, was enjoyed as effortless, you know, a teaspoon of sugar in your tea in Boston or kind of sugar julep, you know, in your glass elsewhere. But in, I think, studying New Orleans and Louisiana, you are suddenly in a setting where there is no longer any distance between this, this thing, this item, commodity sugar, the people and, and the pain required to make it.

SM:

And I should say to people as well that I have an episode on sugar. So I followed sugar all through its history. And that included the enslavement of people in America. What I don't have is obviously the details that you have. So, I think if people are interested in that, they should definitely go and read your book. It, it was really extraordinary.

Now, I was interested in this. This was during the period of Jim Crow. And in case people don't know what Jim Crow means, I think most of them who listen to this episode will. But just in case, could you tell them what Jim Crow is? And then we can, we can look at, you know, why this came, that they began to take away the kind of Creole thing from the, you know, Black Americans really.

TM:

Sure, so the American Civil War ended in 1865. It was fought over slavery in the southern states and slavery was abolished. The war ended and the immediate aftermath of the Civil War is known as the Reconstruction Period. And initially, federal representatives from the federal governments were placed in states of the American South to kind of enact the, the changes that were instituted by the war and to attempt to, as these places were attempting to kind of put themselves back together again. But that, that period of federal reconstruction ended a little more than a decade after the war's end. And then immediately after that was an incredibly harsh backlash from, from white residents of Southern states who resented many of the advances that free Black Americans had been able to make in the immediate aftermath of the war, whether that be participating in the political process. . .

SM:

Mm-hmm.

TM:

. . . getting an education, basic, basic rights and facets of life. And so when historians speak of Jim Crow, they're, they’re talking about this era really in the late 19, late 1800s, early 1900s of, of racism, of the proliferation of stereotypes, of violence against Black people who were attempting. . .

SM:

Yep.

TM:

. . . to vote and work and receive education. And so, so yes, the. . . my third and fourth chapters kind of advanced to those, those periods. And tied up in this history is changes to the understanding of the word Creole as it is. . .

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

. . . is used in New Orleans and Louisiana. And this is, this is something that runs throughout the course of the book. It is a, it's a question of vocabulary that I think is always confusing, often confusing to people outside of the context of it. And, you know, again, I tried to take a kind of long view, historical take on it, and understand especially its relationship to food.

And so originally, the term Creole, as used in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was a geographic identifier. It, it distinguished someone born in Louisiana or the Caribbean or South America from someone born in Europe or Africa.

SM:

Mm-hmm.

TM:

And over time, the word took on cultural and linguistic connotations. So, to be Creole was to be of New Orleans. And we see that after the United States purchased New Orleans and Louisiana, the kind of old guard, the people who had been living in New Orleans before Americans arrival called themselves Creoles to distinguish themselves from the newly arrived Americans. But then after the Civil War, so in this time period of this and other chapters, the line between being Black and white really hardened in Louisiana. And this is not a...

SM:

Hmm.

TM:

. . . an organic or a natural process. And the book explains how these racial terms were kind of descended on society that had been, you know, much was quite diverse and had used different terms to identify themselves. But you see a really concerted effort among many white New Orleanians in the late 19th century to really excise anyone of African descent from being considered a Creole. And so you see guidebooks from this era expressing this message. It was something about, it was a message to delineate difference, an effort to protect a kind of racial privilege in a city that was segregating along color lines.

SM:

Hmm.

TM:

And this effort really continued into the 20th century.

SM:

Wow. I, I think that's got a lot more, as I said, your book has so much more on it. So again, I think if people are interested, you know, they need to read your book and they need to. . . because I, again, I hadn't noticed that and I and I noticed some of the, the examples that you had that they were white people who were cooking and then claiming the Creole thing for them and these were all kind of Black creations but there were no Black people in the end. And that's why in chapter five, you know, I have done something myself on Lena Richard and again it was only a short piece. So please could you tell some of the people about Lena Richard because they, they don't know her or certainly don't know her as well as we might know her and I mean she was an incredible person. She really was.

TM:

She was. Right. Yeah. And so this, this final chapter of the book, so we've moved to the mid-20th century and the book concludes by again looking at presenting several focused mini histories of culinary professionals working at this time. So still working in food, but a century plus more than those we focused on in the beginning of the book. And in this era, I look at how people like Lena Richard and others really used food for purposes of professional advancement, understood food and restaurants as places where civil rights activism could happen.

SM:

Yes.

TM:

And so Lena Richard was a Black woman who identified as Creole. She was a New Orleans Creole woman who lived in the, in the city in the early part of the 20th century and became quickly, while she was young, became a very skilled professional chef and ended up becoming a television personality. She owned restaurants.

SM:

I mean. . .

TM:

She was a caterer.

SM:

. . . she must be one of the first television personalities. . .

TM:

Yes, that's right.

SM:

. . . that I can believe would have been of, you know. . .

TM:

That's right, yes.

SM:

. . . what she was, you know, who she was.

TM:

Yes, that's a very important part of her legacy that she was present cooking on television in 1949. So, this is long before Julia Child appeared on television. There were others, though, in the city who were equally skilled in different ways and did so in settings that were even less public. So, I'll suggest another name, Annie Laura Squalls. She was a renowned pastry chef at the. . .

SM:

Okay.

TM:

the Pontchartrain Hotel. And she created many, many dishes, but one of them that earned renown was she called it the Mile High Pie.

SM:

[Laughter]

TM:

And, but, you know, again, she, she began her career in 1949. She, as a salad girl at Meal a Minute, and then eventually, eventually moved to the Pontchartrain Hotel and she, she created other things there, like what she called her flaky hot apple pie, Caribbean snowball, profitrolo chocolat. Her, her pastry work was very exacting. And, and much of, much of my, my interest in her work was really piqued by her mention in this very important book published in 1978 called, “Creole Feast: 15 Master Chefs of New Orleans Reveal Their Secrets.” It was really a landmark book when it was published and still, it was co-authored by a longtime chef in the city's White Table Goth restaurants. His name was Nathaniel Burton. And then Rudy Lombard, who was a lawyer and civil rights activist. And Lombard led sit-ins in New Orleans in the, around 1960. And he served as the plaintiff in a landmark US Supreme Court case, Lombard v. Louisiana, which in 1963 resulted in the Supreme Court ordering the desegregation of restaurants. And so. . .

SM:

Oh.

TM:

. . . you have a chef and a civil rights activist co-authoring this book really intending to completely turn the lens onto these very talented men and women who were cooking behind closed doors in the, in the city's kitchens. And their intention was to present their recipes and also their words, really essentially their transcribed interviews with these people who were at the top of their professional careers during years when there were fierce battles in New Orleans to keep public schools segregated during times when there again were sit-ins and, and battles about the, the changing racial landscape and society in the city. And so, it felt like, like the right place to conclude the book to, to talk about the meaning and the skill that were really imbued in the cooking work of these men and women who are profiled in this particular book.

SM:

Fantastic. I, I love that and you put it in the thing you talk about the Black hand in the pot and I think that's a fantastic way of describing it.

TM:

And I, I will. . . . Be careful that that is their term. I won't claim that as mine. So, but yes, they note that the one consistent element in the cuisine of New Orleans from the beginning of the, the city's founding was the Black hand in the pot. That, that is what has always been true.

SM:

I love that, I absolutely love that. Now you say that the union of people and race is, is remarkably consistent. So why is that, do you think?

TM:

Well, that is really one of the essential questions the book set out to answer. I mean, you know, I begin with these, these two moments separated by 200 years. The first is an encounter between a British woman traveling in, in New Orleans in the 1820s. She happens upon an enslaved woman working in a kitchen garden. The woman hands her a pepper. And the British tourist traveler describes herself as being very intrigued by the fact that this woman was enslaved, kind of interested in the work she was doing, her food work. And then fast forward 200 years, you have a New Orleans born journalist, Miles Poydras, who is an African American. And he wrote in the New York Times about watching tourists, white tourists in New Orleans sit at a bar and be very entertained and at ease with, with Black men working behind the bar, shucking oysters for them. And so, the question is, throughout this swath of 200 years, why is this dynamic of visitors and people and food and race, why is it so consistent? And so, the book is an attempt to, to answer that. And again, I think in every era, I have found this consistent theme of. . . well, experiences of consuming and consumption that often revolve around food and people together. . .

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

. . . whether regardless of the time or the place.

SM:

I love that answer because it's, it's, yes it really is.

Okay now you do mention and I, you know, this is an area that obviously I've lived through as well. You say that the Hurricane Katrina actually changed New Orleans. Now, I'm interested because when I went there, that was happening in music. So, there's people coming from Haiti, people come from Mexico to rebuild and then they stayed there. They weren't just coming to rebuild, they actually stayed there. So, and that's interesting music, which is another area of New Orleans that obviously everyone takes away with them. But tell me about food because that was, I don't quite understand how that happened, in the same way.

TM:

Right, well, so yes. So, Hurricane Katrina arrived in the city in August 2005. It caused catastrophic flooding in the days after the hurricane when the levees were breached. And it impacted, it had very uneven impacts in the city, of course. And scholars have shown that New Orleanians who were less wealthy, New Orleanians who were people of color were certainly more likely to, to die, but also if they were, when they were dispersed by the storm, their rates of return were far lower than. . .

SM:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

TM:

. . . those of other demographics.

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

For those who were able to stay in the city or return to the city, factors such as changing insurance rates, home insurance rates for, you know, in consideration of, of the threat of future flooding certainly impacted people's ability to live maybe in the neighborhoods where they were accustomed to living, prompted them to, to move out into the suburbs.

SM:

Yeah.

TM:

And certainly the, the residents of the city changed in ensuing years. And in some cases it was due to people moving to New Orleans because they wanted to. In other cases, it was people coming to New Orleans to help rebuild the city. And certainly the, the food of the city changed, music changed. And I think in any place you can look at particular inflection points or moments of great change that really direct. . . kind of changed the direction, the trajectory of a particular city and its culture. But, you know, I think scholars have done great work cautioning anyone from thinking about Hurricane Katrina and other similar kinds of events as, as natural events as opposed to, you know, very kind of inflected by structural influences. And so, yeah.

SM:

I think that's. . . yes. It's extraordinary though how it happened in music, how it happened in everything across because it did show how Katrina wasn't just a, a natural event. It was also this effect on the whole area.

You also say in the, in the epilogue, you talk about this book begins with rice and ends with rice. Now tell me about that because, you know, again, I come from, you know, India and we always think of rice being either the beginning or an end of a meal.

TM:

Mm.

SM:

So that struck me as something really, something that's consistent around the world, I think, or certainly in, in rice eating countries.

TM:

That's a great point, and I'm glad you, you, you mentioned that. And I hadn't necessarily planned it, and I like that that resonates with, with people of, you know, different backgrounds or relationships to this particular food. But you're right, yes, the book begins and ends with rice in very different ways, you know, again, beginning with the Aurore, the, the ship with enslaved people and rice. And then in the epilogue, it conclude with a very different kind of, of rice in the mode of its presentation. Chef Tunde Wey was an African and African-American man. Really interesting chef and serving rice in New Orleans in . . . . At first he operated in the St. Rock Market and then later at a pop-up, but approached his, his cooking and his work as an entrepreneur in a very different kind of way and asked his patrons to consider the, the racial wealth gap, asked white diners if they would be willing, would like to pay more for their meal than the Black diner who might have been in line in front of them. And so it was, it was again, a great place to end the story with a chef who was using a similar ingredient but in very different dynamics, very thoughtfully and with great skill.

SM:

I just love the way that you've touched on these ingredients that I love as well. And I think anyone who reads this that comes from a rice eating background will look at that again and go that's a perfect answer.

Why don't you name me five of your favorite because that's the thing that comes out of this. You have a lot of love for Creole food and I think, as I can tell, and so name me and I've got five of mine but I won't share those because they might be. . . 

TM:

[Laughter]

SM:

But you tell me what are the dishes that you love and then after that. . .

TM:

Just five.

SM:

. . . well I know, I know, but after that we'll go on and answer some more fun questions. I always get into trouble for calling the questions that I asked before as not being fun, but they are.

But why don't you choose five dishes from. . .

TM:

Okay.

SM:

. . . the kind of Louisiana or nation as it were, the Louisiana area and. . .

TM:

Sure.

SM:

. . . let me know what you think.

TM:

Okay, sure. Well, I have to say gumbo.

SM:

Oh, of course, you must.

TM:

That's, I can't, I could not say it.

SM:

[Laughter]

TM:

I like gumbos made with a really dark roux, so, you know, really kind of toasty flavored, you know, dark gumbo. The gumbo at Dooky Chase is renowned.

SM:

Yes.

TM:

So let's see. Second, I have to say red beans and rice.

SM:

Oh, yes.

TM:

Also just a favorite. Mother's in New Orleans makes great red beans and rice.

TM:

Beignets at Café du Monde are, you know, they're a tourist favorite, but they're, you know, I can't skip those either with their. . .

SM:

They are, they are. . .

TM:

. . . mountain, mountain of. . . .

SM:

but they are delicious.

TM:

Of course, yes, yes.

SM:

See, I've been to New Orleans plenty of times.

TM:

Sure.

SM:

So these are all things that are really. . .

TM:

Of course.

SM:

. . . kind of hitting me.

TM:

Yeah.

SM:

He says, beating his heart.

TM:

Right. Oh, Sazerac. I love a Sazerac cocktail, preferably to start off a Friday lunch at Galatoire's.

SM:

Oh.

TM:

That's, you know, I love that.

SM:

My wife, my wife loves, and, and she, her name is in fact Sazyrock, and because the, the drink she always orders in New Orleans is a Sazerac. . .

TM:

Ah, yeah.

SM:

So her name is Sazyrock.

TM:

Oh, how funny.

SM:

And so the Sazerac is something. . .

TM:

Yeah.

SM:

. . . just wonderful.

TM:

It is, it is, definitely. Anything, I'd say anything at Bywater American Bistro, which, that's where Chef Nina Compton cooks. . .

SM:

Yep.

TM:

. . . and it's just stunning. Any, any dishes I have there.

SM:

Okay.

TM:

I think that's five. That's five, yeah.

SM:

Okay, I think that is five. So, first of all, thank you. Thank you because being able to touch on New Orleans rather than just by the food. The fact it was related to race. The fact that everything was, is perfect. And I hope that people have really enjoyed that. And I hope they go out and buy your book because as I said earlier, it is a really in-depth study of what we've got going on in New Orleans even to today. So, thank you very much for that.

But now I'm going to ask you some fun questions.

TM:

Okay.

SM:

I hope you're ready. Well, as I say, I hope they were all fun already, but these are just questions for you.

Okay. And I think you've probably done some of these before, but we've altered them a little bit.

So, if Theresa McCulla was a meal and maybe it could be from New Orleans but maybe not what would it be?

TM:

If I, if I were a meal, okay, I would, I would have a lot of things on the table. So I would be, I would have a Virginia ham biscuit, which is . . .

SM:

Ooh, yeah, I've had those.

TM:

. . . very powdery, kind of floury biscuit with very salty, very dry ham.

SM:

I had that. . .

TM:

I grew up in Virginia.

SM:

. . . when I was at Smithfields and I went to do. . .

TM:

Yes, yes.

SM:

. . . a visit and they brought out these extraordinary. . .

TM:

Yeah.

SM:

. . . ham biscuits and they were. . .

TM:

Sure.

SM:

 . . so fabulous.

TM:

Yeah, yeah.

SM:

I still remember that when I went to see the people, oh, you've got me thinking now.

[Laughter]

TM:

All right. Okay, fine. So, ham biscuit and then the ripest possible peach.

SM:

Oooh.

TM:

I managed farmer's market several years ago, and I think that if you had to ask me for my favorite seasonal piece of fruit or vegetable, it be that. Baguette, a great baguette. I studied French as an undergrad. Can't get better than that, especially with dark chocolate on the side. And then I would say either, an Anchor Steam beer or a very freshly hopped IPA from Seattle area. . .

SM:

Oh.

TM:

. . . or both of those things to accompany the meal.

SM:

Well, that's great.

TM:

So, yeah.

SM:

And didn't Anchor Steam. . .

TM:

Yes.

SM:

. . . stop recently?

TM:

It did.

SM:

Yes.

TM:

And yes, that was one of my final efforts at the Smithsonian was to conduct an emergency collecting trip to Anchor and to gather up its business records and just a wonderful selection. . .

SM:

Oh.

TM:

. . . of artifacts to make sure they could be safe and accessible to people at the museum.

SM:

That makes me very, very sad.

TM:

Yes.

SM:

But let’s carry on.

If you could go to any meal during history or a meal in a particular point in history, what would it be?

TM:

Well, this is a great question too, and I’ll have to draw my book for this answer and say that I would love to go to Dooky Chase Restaurant in New Orleans, as I have gone in the past. But on Holy Thursday, Chef Leah Chase serves Gumbo Z’Herbes, which is a gumbo with greens, with, with several kinds of greens. I have, I have actually never been able to enjoy it at that restaurant, so I’d love to try it. And, and during the 50s and 60s, she described her restaurant in New Orleans as being a destination for civil rights activism, and planning. There was a room upstairs where people would congregate, but I think if I were sitting in the dining room and enjoying the gumbo and watching people go upstairs, that would be a wonderful place to be.

SM:

Oh, that would have sounds phenomenal again. This area particularly, you know New Orleans itself, is one of my favorite places, probably my favorite place to eat in the United States. When you mention that, and again, I’m getting a little bit drooly.

Okay, this is the last of the fun questions and then we’ll get you to mention. . .

TM:

[Laughter]

SM:

. . . you know how people can find you on social media and things.

So if you could choose any great invention, what would it be?

TM:

Okay, I'm gonna be very unimaginative and say the invention of beer because it predated refrigeration. I am in great respect for the person who accidentally left a loaf of bread to ferment in whatever vessel thousands and thousands of years ago. And I've already, I have spent years talking about the incredible social and cultural and economic repercussions of this particular beverage and, or liquid bread as it's elsewhere known. So I'll stay true to that. So.

SM:

Okay, that's fantastic. And there's nothing wrong with mentioning beer.

[Laughter]

TM:

Right.

SM:

I love, I'm, oh, you've now got me thinking about a pint of mild in England, which is only about 3.5%.

TM:

Sure.

SM:

It's just, that's my favorite drink. Okay.

TM:

Good, good.

SM:

First of all, again, I just want to say thank you because you've taken this subject of great importance and you've brought it together in what I think is a very, very great book. So, I just want to say thank you for that.

TM:

Well, I appreciate it. Thank you.

SM:

So if people want to get hold of you or want to ask you to do another podcast. . .

TM:

Sure.

SM:

. . .  So, give us your, your X. I think it's X now. It's probably changed its thing again. Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Blue Sky, whatever you're on.

TM:

So many options.

SM:

Yes, I know.

[Laughter]

TM:

Well, so at the moment I'm currently only on X and Instagram.

SM:

Okay.

TM:

And my handle's the same on both though. And so it's at Theresa T -H -E -R -E -S -A -M -C -C -U, Theresa McCu. I also have a website, theresamculla.com, my name, so pretty simple, but you're welcome to reach out to me in any of those ways. And I do appreciate so much this thoughtful conversation.

SM:

Thank you very much.

TM:

Thank you.

OUTRO MUSIC

Simon:

Make sure to check out the website associated with this podcast at www.EatMyGlobe.com where we will be posting the transcripts from each episode, along with all the references and resources we used putting the episodes together, in case you want to delve deeper into each subject. There is also a contact button, so please do let us know if there are any subjects that you would like us to cover.

And, if you like what you hear, please don’t forget to join us on Patreon, subscribe, recommend us to your family and friends and give us a good rating on your favorite podcast provider.

Thank you and goodbye from me, Simon Majumdar, and we’ll speak to you soon on the next episode of EAT MY GLOBE: Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know About Food.

CREDITS

The EAT MY GLOBE Podcast is a production of “It’s Not Much But It’s Ours” and “Producer Girl Productions.”

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We would also like to thank Sybil Villanueva for all of her help both with the editing of the transcripts and essential help with the research.