The sound of the drum line marching closer isn’t the only rumbling you hear during Carnival in New Orleans. Getting to Fat Tuesday is hungry work. You need to eat.
Appropriately enough, Carnival time food is unconventional.
This most homegrown holiday combines family custom, opportune street eats and the pragmatic logistics of hosting a crowd or packing along food for the parade route.
It doesn’t always look like those food magazine photo shoots of New Orleans classics that circulate this time of year. But food that’s synced to the realities of how a city parties together is as real as it gets.
My all-star roster of the dishes that get us through Mardi Gras starts with the humble, heroic sandwich platter.
These are the deli platters of mini muffulettas, mini po-boys and, most of all, the little triangle sandwich of cold cuts. They’re utilitarian, ubiquitous and an indispensable part of keeping people fed when no one wants to sit down for a proper meal. At Mardi Gras, tiny sandwiches are giants.
Next there’s fried chicken, particularly the type I call party chicken. This is different from sit-down restaurant chicken. It needs to be quick, easy to serve from the box, durable enough to travel and survive a parade route and affordable for sharing with whoever turns up. Ideally, it should also be appealing when cold, hours after it was first ordered.
Then there’s cast iron cooking -- red beans, jambalaya, gumbo – these are the one-pot dishes ideal for feeding many people off the stove or outdoors. A lot of Carnival cooking is tailgate cooking after all.
And save some room for food of fortune. The least predictable food of Mardi Gras is very often the most gratifying and memorable. This is freelance food, the true cooking of the streets.You find examples in front yards, schoolyards and church rectories. Sometimes it’s sanctioned and inspected. During Carnival, I follow my nose.
And finally, it is of course the king cake final countdown. If there’s a new king cake you’ve been eyeing, or an old favorite you haven’t yet reconnected with, now is the time to eat...or wait until Jan. 6 for the next Carnival to begin.
