Saying a po-boy is just another sandwich is like calling a Mardi Gras float just another way to get down the road.
Yes, a po-boy gets the job done for a satisfying meal, but it’s also a vehicle for good feelings about New Orleans. It carries on a treasured local tradition but is still wide open for new ideas and interpretations.
All this will be on two-fisted display at the Oak Street Po-Boy Festival this Sunday, and it’s one reason the event has become one of the city’s great eating days, because yes, this is New Orleans and that is a thing.
The po-boy is comfort food. New Orleans people have been ordering the same po-boys, the same precise way, and often at the same spot, from the same people for all of their lives.
But viewed another way, the po-boy can be a canvas for creativity and at Po-Boy Fest dozens of high-concept, left field examples of where a po-boy can go are served alongside straight up classics that show where they came from.
This year, the festival menus includes a sushi roll crossed with a po-boy (from Seither’s Seafood), Mexican birria and carnitas po-boys (from Aguasanta), Greek leg of lamb and Greek meatballs in po-boy form, (from Smoke & Honey), Ethiopian spiced chicken (from Mister Mao), a dirty rice po-boy without the rice (from Brigtsen’s) and escargot (yes, the garlicky snails, from NOLA Boils), all on French, most of them dressed, and that’s just a few of the scores on offer.
Many of these Po-boy Fest creations exist only for the festival, one-day offerings. Sampling them alongside faithful renditions of the classics is the fun of the festival day. How to fit it all in? Go with a group and have the sandwiches sliced to share. Keep sampling, there’s a lot out there, and the festival will give top awards to judges picks and fan favorites for serious bragging rights.
It all happens on Oak Street, a historic, low-rise corridor of shops to browse between bites and music stages to help dance up an appetite.
Just stayed prepared. Whether classic roast beef and gravy or something new and unexpected, pursuing New Orleans po-boy culture always calls for a stash of napkins.
