All around New Orleans, the sounds of the season signal cooler weather ahead. Some of these speak directly to our appetites too.
If you heard a sharp snap one recent morning, it might've been the sound of New Orleanians collectively switching off their air-conditioners at the start of a dramatically cooler day.
Now the odds of the A/C staying off for any extended period may be low, but that’s not the point. The sound was a harbinger of the fall, and others will follow, including some that speak directly to New Orleans appetites.
Some of these are subtle, but we’re well primed to receive them. There’s nothing like a long dose of a Louisiana summer to get you thinking about the seasons, and to sharpen your senses to the cues telling us the hot one might finally be ending.
That thermostat snap isn’t the only seasonal signal that registers by sound. Cast your ear to the streets of downtown New Orleans and you’ll start hearing the click and clomp of heels as ladies take their boots out of summer storage. In other neighborhoods, the sounds of high school marching bands start to carry across the blocks, announcing the end of the school day, the beginning of band practice and the progress of the season.
And, as boots and marching bands return to the New Orleans streets, we can hear the approach of the next season in the kitchen too. It’s in the heavy gravely grind of black pots and cast iron skillets being pulled from the recesses of the cabinet as the gumbo, stews and gravies made within them return to the forefront of Louisiana cravings.
At our farmers markets and better grocery stores, the season registers in a greater bounty of crops and a higher ambient volume of chatter over them. As more local food comes off the farms, there’s a lot more to talk about with the farmers and purveyors and more inclination to linger and catch up there in the marketplace.
Now is also time to listen for a quickened pace at the oyster bar. I’ve been eating oysters all summer, and raw ones too. But as fall announces that the prime, cool-weather season for oysters is growing closer, the anticipation gets keener and the pleasure of oysters gets sharper.
I like the way that oyster bars themselves can form their own little realms in some restaurants — spots where you can put an elbow on the counter and really watch the shuckers do their thing. As the season draws more of us back to these little oyster altars, pay attention to the sounds. In the knock of hard shells against the shuckers’ lead blocks, in the scoop and flick of their knives and in the crunch of opened oysters hitting a bed of ice or just the bare marble bar top, you can hear an orchestra of autumn.
Of course you don't need to be in a restaurant or oyster bar for this. A sack of oysters, a few tools and a tailgate will do just fine. While you’re at it, add the pop of a cork or the crack of a beer top to the sounds of the season too. It’s time to indulge a bit. After all, if we've made it through another Louisiana summer we all have a little something to celebrate.
