Nothing Like A Home Cooked Meal

Those that lost everything in the wake of Hurricane Katrina continue to find comfort in their New Orleans cuisine

By Qimmah Saafir

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“Sassafras!” exclaims Shajuan Julian-Harris. The 35-yr-old New Orleans native/Georgia transplant is in her Atlanta home explaining what makes Crescent City gumbo special. “We, from New Orleans, call it filé. People from other places try to make gumbo without it and it just isn’t the same.” The ground sassafras leaves originate from the Choctaw Indians of the Gulf Coast and are among the many ingredients distinct to the city. Now the more than one million New Orleans migrants who’ve relocated to surrounding states after 2005’s tragic Hurricane Katrina are seeking them for comfort.

Julian-Harris and the 23 members of her family who evacuated New Orleans the Sunday prior to the levees breaking never hesitate to seek out a new restaurant specializing in their “back-home cookin’.” Though the eateries are currently few and far between, that number is growing every day. To the family, a thirty-minute ride is a small price to pay for a piece of home away from home in the form of a Po’Boy sandwich. “Our food feels like home,” says Julian-Harris, who has owned First Class Catering, a New Orleans catering company, with her ex-husband for the past 11 years. “You can’t find food like ours anywhere else.” Creole families thrive off of staples such as red beans and rice, écrevisse (crawfish) smothered in an étouffee (stew), jambalaya—a simmering sauce of Creole tomatoes and rice, French shallots, and red wine mixed with rice and andouille (sausage)—and seafood gumbo, a jumble of okra, crabs, oysters, and shrimp.

These distinguishable southeastern dishes are known for their therapeutic effect. “My grandma’s gumbo can heal a broken heart,” says Stacey Richards, a former 9th Ward resident now living in New Jersey. Much of her family is still struggling to find their footing. “New Orleans food is what soothes me when the tragedy weighs on my mind.” She speaks of home-cooked pompano en papillote, a grillade steeped in a bouillabaisse, or shrimp remoulade with a loaf pain perdu or a traditional beignet. The full courses may sound like meals reserved for holidays to others but the folks of La Nouvelle Orléans are accustomed to enjoying them regularly so other cities’ offerings don’t quite measure up. “Grocery stores across America are popping up now, trying to accommodate,” Julian-Harris explains, “but they aren’t like the ones back home. I travel there just to get the food I need and bring it back to Atlanta.”