OP: Cooking in Old Creole Days (1903)

America’s southern cooking has long been highly admired, and under that heading perhaps the most prized and the most celebrated culinary tradition is Louisiana’s. And, truth be told, “traditions” would be a better word because the roots and the development of Louisiana food are so diverse and so complex that there is not even agreement as to what it is properly called.  With origins drawing on France, Spain, Africa, the Caribbean, a diversity of Native sources and conditioned by the rich variety of the plants and animals of this semi-tropical region, it is truly a mélange, itself marked by a rich variety of “dialects.” We offer here one of the “grandmother” books that contributed to this tapestry. It was assembled and published in 1903 by Celestine Eustis (ca 1836–1921), born and raised in Paris and later settled in New Orleans where her mother was descended from a prominent Louisiana Creole family. The book, fittingly, bears a second title: La Cuisine Creole a L’usage des Petits Ménag