TAPrice

I've seen no signs of life there.

Love to hear more about Gimchi. Maybe they're doing Korean sushi? I'm not that familiar with it, but I understand that Koreans have their own spin on sushi.

Thanks for the tip. A little internet sleuthing reveals this about Mr. Adams: In 2000 he was reviewing for the SF Weekly: click. This means that, no matter his initial qualifications, he has at least seven years of experience (maybe more).

Actually, I don't think we're confused but we certainly might be wrong. It's become accepted wisdom in the U.S. that mixing soy and wasabi is a gauche custom of Americans who don't know better. But here we have evidence from Japan that it's common practice there. Interesting.

I was just in at the original Taco San Miguel last weekend. A few things to report. First, they now have a cool logo and a motto: "Hecho en NOLA." Second, the place is a little more swank. Not swank by any means, but the card tables and folding chairs have been replaced with real tables, a nicely painted menu is in place and the employees all wear "Hecho en NOLA" shirts (and yes, I want one--in orange--if you've got me on your Christmas list). Third, they will soon have two additional locations. The first one will be on Williams out in Kenner. The second, according to a guy working at Taco San Miguel, will be around Carrollton and probably open in later January. The deal fell through on the first location Uptown, but they found another spot.

Last month, I stopped by the New Orleans Edible Schoolyard to see the progress. As luck would have it, I was there during a farmers visit. Farmers and other producers come by the school about once a month to teach the kids about their works. First, some quick background. Although many schools have used Waters' Edible Schoolyard as a model, the Berkeley program has never tried to replicate itself elsewhere. After Katrina, though, Randy Fertel, son of Ruth's Chris founder Ruth Fertel, cornered Waters at a party in New York sponsored by the Nation. Waters agreed to work directly with the New Orleans school to create a second Edible Schoolyard. The Edible Schoolyard is hosted by the Samuel J. Green K-8 Charter school. It's founder, Tony Recasner, created the first charter school in New Orleans. The public education system in New Orleans collapsed long before Katrina. The state took over most of the local schools after the storm and the city currently has the highest percentage of charters in the nation. From the beginning, the school has tried to fill the location with plants, both ornamental and edible. The ugly fences will soon be covered with flowers. Ben Burkett was one of the guest growers. His family has been growing food in Mississippi and selling it in New Orleans since at least 1886. The kids were full of smart questions. One asked if you can grow watermelons from the seeds in each slice (nope, you can't). A bee keeper visited another class, but he was shy so I didn't take photos. The watermelon tasting was held off of this area. Last time I visited, this was just a pavement slab. Now it has pavers and areas where trees will soon be planted. The space where the kids were sitting will also have more shade once it's covered in vines. (Notice the small radio? They were playing jazz for the kids, because this is New Orleans.) Mischa Byruck is pictured here. He was recently hired by Market Umbrella, the group that runs our main farmers markets, as a forager. The trellis above him will eventually be covered in vines. Off to the far right is where the outdoor class will be. Weather conditions in New Orleans are harsher than in Berkeley (more heat, more rain), so the classroom won't be as open as the one in California. The group Engineers Without Borders is creating the classroom and Emeril Lagasse's foundation is funding most of the construction. Even the playground has plants. (The astroturf football field in the background was donated by the Saints and the NFL.) This green mural will eventually be windows of the teaching kitchen. The garden is young compared to the one in Berkeley, but things grow quickly in New Orleans. They hope to have the outdoor classroom complete for the spring semester. I promise to check in and report on the progress.

I agree. While the Martin Brothers may have been the first to officially use the phrase in adevertising, I can't believe that the phrase wasn't in common usage before that. I had heard, where I know not, that expresion evolved from the inexpensive sandwiches that were sold to londshoreman and stevedore's working on the docks by various vendors. ch ← SaturnBar, I'm with you. It sure seems more likely that it was a widely used term (not that the most likely scenario is always true, but...). Here's a question: Did the Martin Brothers advertise "poor boys" or "poor boy sandwiches"? If they truly coined the phrase, I would suspect that initially they would sell "poor boy sandwiches."

I'd love to get those sources. Is that a challenge? I'd take you up on that one. My bullshit detector goes off every time I read that the Martin Brothers invented the sandwich and the name. I think part of the problem is that much food history is written by food writers, many of whom are trained neither as journalists nor scholars. Without the background in journalism or scholarship, they're not skeptical enough of their sources. Also, writers tend to like a good story, when they should really distrust every good story.

I think the meaning imputed to the missing 'r' is silly, but people I take seriously believe that it means something (and no, I'm not talking about Fitzmorris here). I don't believe the current generation places any value on the distinction (or is any aware that it's a meaningful distinction), but that may not have been true for an older generation. Here is what I don't get. The streetcar strike was actually in 1929, right? Here is the po-boy history from the recent festival written by a local historian. I agree that dropping the final consonant is a common feature of local dialect. But does it seem odd that in 1929 the Martin Brothers would coin the term "poor boy" and by 1931 it had become so common and widely spoken that the written form had evolved to "po-boy" (or po boi)? I'm no linguist, but that strikes me as unlikely. It makes me question the 1929 origin of the term. (On a slightly related topic, I think the transition from "snowball" to "sno ball" happened for very different reasons.)

Is there evidence that the sandwiches go that far back? The 1950 NYT article I cite above makes these overstuffed sandwiches sound like something new (it's only one source, of course).

I love the modern world. In just a few minutes, I was able to find a "submarine sandwich" reference 6 years older than what the OED lists. It's beginning to look like both the sandwich and the name are a mid-century creation (although the po-boy predates the submarines by several decades and may be the original). From the Los Angeles Times on Aug. 7, 1949: The article has a photo of guy taking a big mouthful. The caption reads: "MEAL: One 'sub' is enough for anyone at a sitting." A year later in from a "News of Food" column in the New York Times by Jane Nikcerson (9/2/50). Ok, so when did Italian bread become French bread? Is this sandwich really Italian in origin?

Good question. I'm actually interested in both the origin of the sandwich and the origin of the name. (Actually, I'm mainly interested in the origin of the New Orleans po-boy sandwich, but I think getting a handle on the submarine sandwich is necessary first.) 1955 seems really late.

Does anyone have reliable information on the origin of the submarine sandwich? The word submarine, according to Webster's, dates back to 1703 (that surprised me). I've read that submarines weren't widely used until WW I, and others have suggested that the sandwich doesn't predate the widespread use of the vessel. Wikipedia claims that it was created in Boston at the start of WW II. Doubtful. The only source here is a single webpage that looks like spam.

Yeah, my grandparents didn't use ATMs either, but that's because they're really old. Seriously, though, from what I know ATMs were not widely available in the U.S. until the 80s. Yeah, I agree it's a lot easier to pay with cash. I enjoy using cash, I just think at a certain level credit cards should be an option. I'm not sure what my cut off between moderately priced and expensive is, but I agree that moderately priced places not taking plastic doesn't bother me. Certainly any place where you might be expected to buy a bottle of wine should accept credit cards. A 10-15% profit is actually quite healthy, I'd say. For example, here as some statistics on the profit margins of various economic sectors from Yahoo Finance. I think today accepting credit cards is just basic customer service. Sure, places could save money by not taking credit cards. But there a 100 different ways a restaurant could cut corners and increase their margins. Buy from Sysco instead of making from scratch. Don't supply decent stemware. Not putting tablecloths on the tables. At certain levels of restaurants, it's just expected that some these things won't be done. I do not at all expect Casamento's to set my table with a white tablecloth. I also don't expect them to take credit cards, because I know that this is common practice of New Orleans neighborhood restaurants.

Celeste, Thanks for the fascinating references. (I also quickly found Cohen's "The Terminology of Mardi Gras." That looks like good reading as well.) I agree about Claiborne. My first reaction was that he'd mixed up the muffaletta and the po-boy. He's strikes me as a man who's rarely wrong, though, so I didn't dismiss his description lightly. Certainly Claiborne spent time in New Orleans, although perhaps a young, gay man from Mississippi in this city was distracted by matters beyond food. I don't know if the earlier reference to "po-boy" actually ends the whole "poor boy" vs. "po-boy" controversy. As many people know, Tom Fitzmorris is very dismissive of anyone who says "po-boy." He's not alone. I can think of at least one other distinguished authority who thinks writing "po-boy" is a sign that someone is an outsider. My reaction is, well, let me walked down the street and tell Dot Domilise that she's got it wrong. It seems, though, that at some point the use of "poor boy" vs. "po-boy" must have been either a social marker or a marker of outsider/insider status. Clearly it's not today. I wonder, though, how much of a social marker it could have been and at what point did eating po-boys becomes a activity shared by all (or at least most) classes? To me this is similar to the way people dismiss anyone who writes BBQ instead of barbecue. That seems to be an affliction of the connoisseur class of barbecuers, although it seems the real pit masters have no problems spelling the word in any number of shorter versions.

Help me out with this one. Here is what Craig Claiborne says about po-boys in the recently reissued Southern Cooking (an amazing book, by the way): This raises so many questions. First, did people used to eat po-boys like this? (Cold cuts are still around, but not as common. The oil and vinegar dressing seems out of step with current practice). Maybe he's just wrong. Second, he talks about Oyster loafs as something different from po-boys. Was there a strong distinction at some point? Did people order shrimp loafs or catfish loafs instead of shrimp po-boys and catfish po-boys? Finally, did these sandwiches on French loafs really originate in New Orleans? Claiborne was a very learned man. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to get things wrong. This book was written in the late 1980s, near the end of Claiborne's life.

Last night I stopped in at a local restaurant called Patois for a drink. The bartender convinced me to try their variation on an Obituary Cocktail (at least I believe it was an original variation). They poured a little black sambuca into a cocktail glass (perhaps 1/2 ounce? the bartender eyeballed it). Then she shook some gin with ice and layered it on top. Visually, it was striking. The taste was even more interesting. The sambuca, even as it sat on the bottom of the glass, gave the gin a subtle anise flavor, which only intensified as I drank more. Once I got to the bottom, I basically had a shot of dark sambuca. Most drinks seem to get worse near the end. Either they get warm, or if they're on the rocks they get watery. This was one of the few drink I've had that actually change flavor and became more intense near the end. It was a great effect. Are there any other drinks that change flavor or become more intense as you drink them?

Most ranges of prices in guidebooks are useless. They don't give you enough info to know how much your meal will be. The worst part of cash only places is worrying that you'll have enough bank to cover the bill. You may be able to get out quick if you have the cash, but if you're a little short then the extra trip to the ATM certainly slows down the exit.

I think that's a good point. There is no arguing that credit cards are the norm. Restaurants need to prominently let people know if it's cash only. Regarding the snowball questions, check this piece that I wrote for Daily Gullet (click). I don't find that restaurants pass on the savings to customers, but I guess that's hard to judge.

Huh? I'm not sure what the point is here (and no matter what Frommers says, Mandina's does not take plastic). ← The point is that, in the age of the Internet (not to mention the telephone) it's possible to get a feel for the cost of virtually any restaurant of note in America. I googled the restaurant and got a description and got a rough feel for the price range in about nine seconds. The (more general) point of the second comment was that in a crowded restaurant, it's easier to deal with cash than a credit card because once the check is dropped (assuming you're not one of those people who figures tips to the penny) you can just drop your cash and go, rather than waiting for a harried server to notice you're ready, grab the check, process it and return it. ← Sorry. I got the second point. I didn't mean to quote it.

Huh? I'm not sure what the point is here (and no matter what Frommers says, Mandina's does not take plastic).

Add Alberta to the list of restaurants that closed.

Over on the Gourmet's blog, Francis Lam watches shucker Chris Armstrong work at Grande Isle:

In honor of the Po-Boy Festival this Saturday (see this eGullet Calendar entry for more info), let's talk about great (and not so great) po-boys that are no longer with us. Let's here those memories...

access forbidden ← I swear it was there just a few days ago, but it didn't have any real content. Just a single post announcing the opening. Too bad. It would be interesting to see chefs blog about a new restaurant.