Jazz Fest Food 2007

[TAPrice]

Jazz Fest has posted the food vendors for this year:

2007 Jazz Fest Food List

There are some new items (Wayne Baquet's Trout Baquet) and others that have not been seen since 2005 (oysters on the half shell).

The good news: the number of vendors is almost back to pre-Katrina level. The bad news: Vietnamese food and cracklings still haven't returned.

I know you're coming to Jazz Fest, so what are you dying to eat?

Edited April 6, 2007 by TAPrice (log)

[HungryC]

Odd as it may seem, my first purchase is always merguez. Partly tradition, partly 'cause it's a damn good sausage.

[TAPrice]

Yeah, Jamila's merguez is great. I had dinner there just last week. What wonderful people.

I crave the dark roux gumbo from Prejean's.

[Luckylies]

oooh; crawfish monica, fried eggplant with oysters and garlic sauce, boiled crawfish, orange tea, boiled crawfish, boudain, crawfish bread, cheese bread, boiled crawfish, couchon du lait, all po boys and everyhting else!

see you there for Allen Toussaint ( second weekend)!

[joiei]

Pheasant, Quail & Andouille Gumbo

This delightful stuff is worth getting out of bed for any old time. yum

[FistFullaRoux]

Have one of the crawfish sacks for me, wouldya?

And I haven't been able to find out if Cowboy Mouth is playing this year, with Paul leaving the band and all. Fred and the gang are always the highlight of the festivities.

[TAPrice]

Jazz Fest vendor Vance Vaucresson, whose family has been selling hot sausage po-boy since the very first festival, has faced as much post-Katrina troubles as anyone. His sausage plant flooded, his office manager committed suicide after the storm, and on the final day of last year's festival none of his workers showed up to cook. Amazingly, he keeps going. His family has been making sausage since 1899, so he's got a good reason not to give up.

And now, Chris Rose reports that some lousy thieves stole his custom-built grill. That's really the lowest. Sounds like he'll be able to pull off both French Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest, but not without some difficulties.

You can read the whole sad story here:

Chris Rose (Times Picayune): The Grill Is Gone

[UptownKevin]

I know you're coming to Jazz Fest, so what are you dying to eat?

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Todd,

I hope you are going to scout it out for me on the first weekend. I'm coming in for the second weekend and will be bringing my girlfriend to her first JazzFest on May 4th. Let me know what's good and if you are there on that Friday, we can meet up for a couple of beers at the fest.

Looking most forward to the couchon de lait poor boy and fried soft shell crab poor boy. Also can't wait for the crawfish beignets, The Benjy Davis Project and Better Than Ezra.

Alright - gotta jump in the shower. In about an hour, I'm going to my second crawfish boil in two weeks. In Tampa!

-Kevin

[Brad K.]

Must have Meat Pie. Need now. Maybe 2 or 3.

(Followed by a hot sausage PB, cochon de lait PB, and some crawfish beignet's, washed down by a cool glass of orange iced tea and a frosty brew).

I still mourn the loss of BBQ oyster PB from Red Fish Grill - tongue is at half mast.

[TAPrice]

Ian McNulty of the Gambit writes about new and returning vendors at Jazz Fest. He also has this excellent tip:

Another festival food making a come back this year is perhaps the festival's least known offering. Tucked away in the Grandstand and almost hidden beside the Lagniappe Stage, shuckers from Smitty's Seafood Restaurant in Kenner pry open Louisiana oysters. This is pure goodness, served raw and cold with no preparation besides an optional squeeze of lemon or shot of cocktail sauce. There is also beer on tap here and the combination of shade, local bands playing a few yards away at the small stage and the proximity of restrooms with running water all make this an underappreciated Jazz Fest oasis, whether you care for oysters or not.

Gambit Weekly: Back to Basics

[TAPrice]

At the risk of being shameless, here is my piece in OffBeat on what it takes to feed folks at Jazz Fest:

OffBeat Eats: "Behind the Green Flap"

As the festival approaches, some smaller vendors start cooking weeks ahead of time. Sbaa of Jamila’s starts making his merguez sausages six weeks before the festival. He borrows large walk-in freezers around town to store the food. For other larger vendors, the volume at Jazz Fest is not a problem. “For us, it’s actually a pretty small run,” says Pierre Hilzim, who sells crawfish Monica. “We make food for restaurants all over the United States. A vessel in this plant does a 3,000-pound batch of sauce.” It takes him four hours to make enough sauce for the entire festival.

On festival days, the vendors start cooking early. Seven 48-foot refrigerator trailers hold their supplies. A field kitchen in each food area supplies hot water. Each booth gets at least 6,000 watts of electricity. Some vendors, like Linda Green, borrow a kitchen under the grandstands. “It’s about six or seven of us in that kitchen,” she says. “But believe it or not, everybody gets along good because everybody respects each other.” Others cook everything inside their booths. Panorama Foods, the crawfish bread vendor, arrives with a dozen convection ovens.

[Mayhaw Man]

Ian should not be allowed to use the secret restrooms. No one has ever revealed that in print. He should be drummed out of the food writing corps in N.O. and sent off to the hinterlands to cover hot dog eating contests or something.

Sheesh, just when you think that you know a guy...

Ian McNulty of the Gambit writes about new and returning vendors at Jazz Fest. He also has this excellent tip:

Another festival food making a come back this year is perhaps the festival's least known offering. Tucked away in the Grandstand and almost hidden beside the Lagniappe Stage, shuckers from Smitty's Seafood Restaurant in Kenner pry open Louisiana oysters. This is pure goodness, served raw and cold with no preparation besides an optional squeeze of lemon or shot of cocktail sauce. There is also beer on tap here and the combination of shade, local bands playing a few yards away at the small stage and the proximity of restrooms with running water all make this an underappreciated Jazz Fest oasis, whether you care for oysters or not.

Gambit Weekly: Back to Basics

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[TAPrice]

Ian should not be allowed to use the secret restrooms. No one has ever revealed that in print. He should be drummed out of the food writing corps in N.O. and sent off to the hinterlands to cover hot dog eating contests or something.

Sheesh, just when you think that you know a guy...

Ian McNulty of the Gambit writes about new and returning vendors at Jazz Fest. He also has this excellent tip:

Another festival food making a come back this year is perhaps the festival's least known offering. Tucked away in the Grandstand and almost hidden beside the Lagniappe Stage, shuckers from Smitty's Seafood Restaurant in Kenner pry open Louisiana oysters. This is pure goodness, served raw and cold with no preparation besides an optional squeeze of lemon or shot of cocktail sauce. [strong]There is also beer on tap here and the combination of shade, local bands playing a few yards away at the small stage and the proximity of restrooms with running water all make this an underappreciated Jazz Fest oasis, whether you care for oysters or not.[/strong]

Gambit Weekly: Back to Basics

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And really, if you don't "care for oysters" then you shouldn't be allowed to use the restroom.

[Robert Peyton]

And really, if you don't "care for oysters" then you shouldn't be allowed to use the restroom.

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Indeed. Someone should stand outside the grandstand and demand that anyone seeking entry first demonstrate their ability to slurp. Someone should also stand outside the fest generally and remind my stupid *ss to put suntan lotion on. But I digress...

I can testify that the meat pies are up to snuff, and Jamilla's crawfish, zucchini and spinach bisque is also outstanding. Next week I hope to get to the fest early enough to hit some of my other longstanding favorites.