New Orleans, Queen City of the Mississippi. Sip a Ramos gin fizz, dull circs forgotten, bury disappointments in a heady Sazerac. Sing as you dip into the velvet tastiness of a gumbo filé. One bite of the boiled beef brisket with its Louisiana hot sauce, and the taste buds snap to ready attention. And the shrimp! Nowhere else in the world is there shrimp sauce to compare—it's shrimp sauce divine!
Buy a cookbook to duplicate Creole masterpieces; it's a search then for the necessary ingredients.
If you would inhale the aroma of New Orleans cookery rising from a rich gumbo, would eat jambalaya flavored with saffron, or enjoy shrimp in a rémoulade sauce made with the true Creole touch, visit Solari's, go visiting by mail.
This Solari's is one of America's finest grocery stores, eighty-five years old, looted in the old French Quarter of the Crescent City. It is a store known throughout the South for its vast collection of delicacies, including items typically Creole and sold on mail order to all parts of the world.
One afternoon a few weeks ago, when we were sightseeing in the heart of the French Quarter, we came face to front with Solari's old store and stopped for a look. We missed the bosses, the Cheers, father and son, but learned that one of the fastest selling mail-order items is the Creole pecan pralines, packaged in the Mardi Gras box, ten soft tongue-melting patties, price ＄1.70, post-age prepaid anywhere in the country. This store has its own candy kitchen on the third floor, the emphasis on Old Southern confections. One assortment called Old Creole Days contains twelve varieties. Four we sampled: sugar pecans, pecan clusters, honey Curls, and cream nutty tops, the box cover depicting the historical St. Louis Cathedral. 2 pounds ＄2.75. Address Solari's, Vieux Carré, New Orleans, Louisiana.
This year Solaris has started making sea-food sauces which they are selling to delicacy stores in many cities. New Orleans women tell us that the new rémoulade sauce is extra nice and not too hot for the outlander's taste. It is made with a vegetable oil, ground fresh vegetables, tomato sauce, vinegar, and a handful of spices.
Quite different is the Creole sea-food sauce, with a base of ground fresh vegetables with mustard, with tomato, but a different spicing entirely. There is a Creole cocktail sauce and the unique Creole mustard, hot with red pepper. The firm offers its own mayonnaise, tartare sauce, and Thousand Island dressing. Their Creole salad dressing is quite unlike anything we have in the North. Mayonnaise is the base with green pepper, tomato sauce, considerable garlic, and Italian cheese.
These sauce items are being handled by the following stores: in Chicago, Marshall Field and Company and the Fair Store, State and Adams. In California, Fancy Pantry, La Jolla; Jurgensen's and F. C Nash and Company, Pasadena; Lloyd's, Santa Barbara; Piedmont Grocery Company, Oakland; Vendome Fine Foods, Beverly Hills; Gourmet Shop. Carmel; LIords and Elwood, 8847 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles; Sun Ripe Date Company. Long Beach. In the South. Waite's, Birmingham, Alabama; the Snack Shop. Victoria, Texas.
If these items are not carried in your city, you can order by mail direct from Solari's plus postage. Prices are as follows: Creole cocktail sauce, sea-food sauce, and rémoulade sauce, quart ＄1.45. pint 75 cents; Solari's own mayonnaise. quart 75 cents, pint 45 cents; Creole mustard, quart 45 cents, pint 25 cents, Thousand Island dressing and tartare sauce, ½ pint 35 cents; Creole salad dressing with Italian cheese flavor, pint 95 cents.
Something else we discovered in New Orleans and well worth writing about is the soup line made by Maison Creole. Inc., strictly a local business and selling by mail. Five soups for your pleasure: crayfish bisque, shrimp bisque, turtle soup, Creole gumbo, and Creole sea-food gumbo. We ordered a shipment sent to our kitchen for sampling, and our tasters rated every last item as excellent. The thick turtle soup had a most delicious flavor, subtly combining the finely chopped turtle meat with onions and scallions, parsley, tomatoes, celery, bell peppers, and spices.
The crayfish bisque is thick and well flavored and contains the traditional stuffed crayfish heads to be used as a garnish for the bowls. A soup not so good as the one enjoyed recently at Antoine's, the world-famed New Orleans restaurant. Still a very fine substitute, made of crayfish, shrimp and shrimp stock, onions, shallots, garlic, bell peppers, tomatoes, parsley, celery, thyme, bay leaf, and a big sneeze of pepper, richened with butter and oil.
How to eat those devilish little heads? Serve an oyster fork along with the soup spoon. Hold the head firmly anchored with the fork while the spoon dips out the savory bread stuffing.
The sea-food gumbo is an especially rare delicacy as packed by Maison Creole. The recipe is one passed down by many generations in an old Louisiana French family. In this, crab and shrimp join forces; okra is used with shallots, onions, tomatoes, parsley, celery, bell peppers, and a long list of spices. Serve it piping hot as a main dish. In New Orleans, garlic bread accompanies the soup. Split toast and spread a French loaf with garlic butter, more garlic than butter. A second gumbo is called merely Creole, crabs and shrimp in this, with ham and beef. Again the usual line-up of seasonings. okra the thickener.
Prices F.O.B. New Orleans per case of 12 are as follows; crayfish bisque and shrimp bisque ＄6.60, turtle soup and Creole gumbo ＄6.00, sea-food gumbo ＄5.40. Address Maison Creole. Inc., 8613 Oak Street, New Orleans 18, Louisiana,
Tur-King is a new kind of turkey, a 9-pound roll of boned, uncooked turkey meat, light and dark, all the meat that's usable on a 19- to 20-pound bird, wrapped in heavy aluminum foil, pressed into log form, and frozen. Tur-King is being packaged now in 2 ¼-pound logs for home use to sell through the frozen-food markets. It is processed and packed by Farmers' Produce Company of Willmar, Minnesota, for the Norbest Turkey Growers' Association of Salt Lake City.
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