From Denny: The eyes of the world are on Vancouver for the Winter Olympics. The first thing people ask, "So, what do you eat there?" Here are a couple of traditional gourmet recipes from Chef Daniel Boulud of DB Bistro Moderne in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The Today Show did not provide photos or a video. I did find similar versions of these dishes over at flickr so you can get a good idea of them. I love scallops and these huge darlings look simply divine! I wonder if Whole Foods carries them?
Recipes Featured:
Cornmeal-crusted Qualicum Bay Scallops Traditional dish: Choucroute
Cornmeal-crusted Qualicum Bay scallops with apple truffle coleslaw, brisket, parsnip puree, scallop jus
From: Chef Daniel Boulud
Serves: 6
INGREDIENTS
For the cornmeal-crusted scallops:
• 9 Qualicum Bay scallops, muscles removed, scallops cut out with a 2-inch ring mold, then cut in half horizontally (reserve muscles and scrap) • 1/4 cup cornmeal • 1 teaspoon salt • 1 tablespoon olive oil
For the parsnip puree:
• 2 large parsnips • 1 tablespoon butter • 1/2 cup heavy cream • 1/2 cup water • Salt and pepper
For the truffle-barbecue-sauce-glazed brisket (makes extra sauce):
• 1 onion, sliced • 1 Granny Smith apple, core removed, sliced • 1 roma tomato, sliced • 2 tablespoons tomato paste • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar • 1/4 cup calvados • 2 cups apple juice • 4 tablespoons molasses • 5 tablespoons maple syrup • Truffle oil, to taste • Salt and ground pepper • 1/2 pound brisket, cut into 1-by-2-centimeter pieces
For the apple truffle coleslaw:
• 1 whole white cabbage, core removed, thinly sliced • 1 tablespoon salt • 2 tablespoons unsweetened apple cider vinegar • 1 Granny Smith apple, cored and cut into matchsticks • 1 small carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks • 2 tablespoons mayonnaise • 1 tablespoon chopped parsley • 1 tablespoon chopped black truffle • Truffle oil, to taste
For the apple beignet:
• 3 Granny Smith apples • Tempura flour, as needed • Soda water, as needed
For the scallop jus:
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil • Muscles and trim from scallops • 1 shallot, sliced • 2 sprigs thyme • Sachet (4 black peppercorns, 4 coriander seeds, 1 clove garlic and 1 bay leaf tied in cheesecloth) • 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar • 2 cups chicken stock that has been reduced from 4 cups
Heat butter in a medium saucepot over medium-low heat. Add parsnips, a sprinkle of salt and pepper and cook, stirring until tender, about 10 minutes. Add cream and water, and simmer for 10 minutes, or until very soft. Transfer to a blender and puree, adding more cream if necessary to make a smooth consistency. Check seasoning, then pass through a fine meshed sieve and keep warm.
To prepare the truffle-barbecue-sauce-glazed brisket:
In a large saucepot over high heat, heat olive oil, and then add onion and apple. Cook, stirring until golden brown. Add tomato, tomato paste and cook, stirring for another 5 minutes. Add vinegar and calvados, and reduce by half. Add molasses, maple syrup and apple juice and simmer lightly for 1 hour. Check seasoning and add truffle oil to taste. Use sauce to glaze brisket squares before heating in a 300-degree F oven.
To prepare the apple truffle coleslaw:
Toss sliced cabbage with 1 tablespoon vinegar and salt and crush with your hands. Marinate for 10 minutes, and then strain liquid. Add carrot and remaining vinegar and marinate for another 20 minutes. Strain; and then add apple, parsley, mayonnaise, chopped truffle and truffle oil to taste. Check seasoning and reserve, chilled, until ready to use.
To prepare the apple beignet:
Place tempura flour in a bowl, and whisk in soda water to reach a glue-like consistency. When ready to serve, using a mellon-baller, scoop out balls of apple and dip in tempura batter. Deep-fry until golden, strain on paper towel, sprinkle with salt and serve hot.
To prepare the scallop jus:
Heat oil in a medium saucepot over high heat. Add scallops and cook, stirring until golden brown. Add shallot and continue to cook, stirring until soft. Add sachet and white wine vinegar and reduce until almost dry. Add reduced chicken stock and simmer for about 25 minutes, skimming occasionally. Strain, and serve warm with the seared scallops.
To plate:
For each serving, place three dollops of parsnip puree in a row on a large oval dinner plate and place seared scallops on top. Top the scallops with one slice of black truffle and then one apple beignet. In-between the scallops place one piece of glazed brisket and top that with a spoonful of coleslaw. Garnish with parsley chips, and serve with scallop jus on the side.
• 3 tablespoons duck fat or butter • 1 pound good-quality sauerkraut • 1 Spanish onion, thinly sliced • 1/2 carrot, thinly sliced • 2 cloves garlic • 1/2 cup Reisling • 3 cups chicken stock • 1/2 pound smoked bacon, cut into large chunks • 1 bouquet garni (2 sprigs thyme, 1 bay leaf, stems from 4 sprigs parsley tied together with butcher's twine) • 1 sachet d'epices (4 juniper berries, 1 clove, 4 black peppercorns, 4 coriander seeds, tied in cheesecloth with butcher's twine) • Salt and ground pepper, if needed
DIRECTIONS
To prepare the confit pork belly:
The day before:
Coat the belly with the sage, bay leaves, thyme, savory, oregano, garlic, shallots, peppercorns and salt. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and rest overnight.
The next day:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
Heat the duck fat to 225 degrees F in a pan large enough to hold the pork belly. Scrape all the seasonings off the pork belly and rinse under cold water to remove any excess salt. Pat dry, add to the duck fat and transfer to the oven. Bake until very tender, about 2-3 hours.
Remove the pan from the oven and let cool. When chilled, carefully remove the belly from the fat and cut into 1/2-inch sections along each rib. When ready to serve, deep fry the confit ribs until golden brown and crispy. Arrange around the choucroute.
To prepare the choucroute:
In a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, heat the duck fat. Add the sliced onion, carrot and garlic cloves. Cook, stirring for about 5 minutes, or until soft. Add the Reisling, chicken stock, bacon, bouquet garni and sachet d'epices. Bring to a simmer, add sauerkraut and mix well. Simmer for 30 minutes; serve hot.
*** ALSO, two more rocking food blogs currently featuring Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day recipes:
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*** Join Bloggers Unite in support of the Iranian Opposition Protestors as they celebrate their Victory of the Revolution Day, fighting for their freedom from an oppressive government.
From Denny: So, what's going on with and in Iran today? Today the hard line regime government marks their revolution's anniversary called the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Worse, these hard line fundamentalist rulers are cracking down more on opposition leaders and followers who today attempt to protest against the government. A million people are expected to converge today either in support or protest for this anniversary. Iran's government has already cut off communication so no Western news agencies can get news footage or eye witness accounts to report.
Previous demonstrations were reported to the world through social sites like Twitter, videos through YouTube and photos gotten out through the internet via camera cell phones. Throughout Europe were fellow Iranians and other sympathetic European IT hackers helping route the news from the protesters. They cleverly acted like cockroaches, finding cracks in security to get lines of communication out to the West to tell the truth. It will be interesting to see how the hackers perform under more stringent circumstances this time when the Iranian government is not caught off guard and ready for them.
Iran's current conservative leaders continue to punish opposition followers by beating, raping, imprisoning and executing them. For months now, since the summer, regularly the government jackboots have been coming for individuals in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. Iran's leaders pointedly told their country, "Anyone who dares to challenge this government runs the risk of being permanently silenced!" Read that as dead, very dead. Sweet bunch, aren't they?!
Iran's leaders have also angered the world in their hell-bent stance of deciding to continue the course to enrich uranium to weapons grade, claiming it will be ready in a few short days. How long before the Israelis say, "Enough!" and either destroy the Iranian capability by bombing the factories or start a wave of assassinations against the leadership government? My money is on the assassination wave. They won't be hard-pressed to find male family members willing to help them because of wanting revenge for their wronged or killed relatives.
What has America done? The best idea. Hit them where it hurts the most: in their wallets - or bank accounts, that is. Our Treasury Department tightened up sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Engineering wing. After all, it's the Revolutionary Guard that keeps this despicable government in power. Hamper their ability to operate, hurt the government.
Today, February 11th, is a special day to the protestors in Iran. It is Victory of the Revolution Day which is their American Fourth of July equivalent to promote liberty, independence and freedom. The whole world has watched and witnessed the Iranian government has severely violated those basic human rights of their people. The people have been tortured and arbitrarily arrested for complaining they think the current President stole the election.
They have been censored, prevented from posting on the internet their political views. And the most egregious abuse has been the recent ruthless executions of two activists held in detention before the June 12th Presidential election. Yet, supposedly, though in prison without access or proper representation, they were accused of being the mastermind organizers of the post-election protests against a stolen election. Somehow, that weak and weasely scapegoat tactic just doesn't have any truth to it.
Please, join bloggers like me, Denny Lyon at Unusual 2 Tasty:Bloggers Unite Human Rights For Iran, and show your solidarity today with the protestors. If you are a blogger, please write a post today and send in your link so your voice can be heard. If you are not a blogger, then please show your solidarity and talk about today's Iran news on your favorite social networks and email your family and friends.
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From Denny: THANK YOU New Orleans Saints for this Super Bowl win! Enjoy these rocking great songs.
*** THANKS for visiting, come back often, feel free to leave comments, a big shout out to fellow Saints fans and current subscribers - and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe in a reader or by email! GEAUX SAINTS!!!
From Denny: The New York City Scottos chefs are quite popular on The Today Show, visiting regularly to offer up simple meals for special days. This is their idea of the perfect Valentine meal for your special someone.
The video that went with this was messed up. Will try back later to see if it's working. They didn't feature any photos either. That's OK, I'm good at using my food imagination. :)
Recipes Featured:
Risotto with lobster and asparagus Dover sole with poached oysters, leeks, champagne, chives and Osetra caviar Soft bittersweet chocolate biscotti with toasted almonds, sun-dried cherries and caramel gelato
From The Today Show: Want to do something special for your partner? Why not make them a delicious meal? The Scottos are here to help: Below, the family from the New York restaurant Fresco by Scotto shares their mouthwatering recipes for risotto with lobster and asparagus, Dover sole with poached oysters, leeks, champagne, chives and Osetra caviar and a soft bittersweet chocolate biscotti with toasted almonds, sun-dried cherries and caramel gelato.
Risotto with lobster and asparagus
From: The Scottos
6 servings
INGREDIENTS
For Lobsters
• 3 1-pound lobsters, cooked and meat shelled, and set aside for finished risotto
Lobster brodo
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil • Lobster bodies chopped into large pieces, tail meat and claw meat reserved for risotto • 2 shallots • 1 sprig thyme • 4 black peppercorns • 1 bay leaf • 1 carrot, medium-size rough chop • 3 cloves garlic, smashed • 3 tablespoons tomato paste • 1 cup dry white wine • 7 cups water
Risotto
• 3 1-pound cooked lobsters, shelled, tail and knuckle meat cut into 1-inch pieces and claws either left whole or split in half • 1 bunch pencil asparagus with 2-inches of base trimmed off and discarded, and remainder of asparagus cut into 1-inch bias lengths, blanched and shocked in cold water, drained and set aside • 1 small onion, finely chopped • Salt and pepper to taste • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil • 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) sweet unsalted butter • 2 cups Arborio rice • 5 to 6 cups lobster stock
DIRECTIONS
Lobster
1. Heat extra-virgin olive oil in 4- to 5-quart stockpot over medium-low heat.
3. Add shallots and cook for 5 minutes until translucent. Add thyme, pepper, bay leaf, carrot, and garlic cloves; mix and stir for additional 5 minutes.
5. Deglaze with white wine, raise heat to high, and bring to a boil. Cook wine for 5 minutes and reduce by half, then add 7 cups of water. Stir well, bring to a boil, then simmer stock for approximately 30 to 45 minutes.
6. Strain liquid through a fine-mesh sieve and discard all ingredients. Should be left with approximately 5 cups lobster stock.
Risotto
1. Bring the stock to a boil in a medium saucepan, then reduce the heat and keep at a bare simmer. Melt the butter with the olive oil in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until softened and translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the rice and cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes, until every grain is coated with butter and oil. Then add the wine and stir until absorbed. Add 1 cup of the stock and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Continue adding stock, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring frequently and making sure all the liquid is absorbed before adding more stock. Cook until the rice is just tender and creamy but still al dente, about 15 to 20 minutes. You may have leftover stock.
2. Remove risotto pan from heat and season with salt and pepper. Add the shelled lobster meat that has been cut into 1-inch pieces, and the claws, either left whole or split in half. Add the pencil asparagus, toss well and serve immediately so as not to overcook the lobster but just to heat it through.
Dover sole with poached oysters, leeks, champagne, chives and Osetra caviar
From: The Scottos
6 servings
INGREDIENTS
Sole
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus 2 tablespoons sweet unsalted butter • 6 filets Dover sole or Lemon sole filets • Salt and pepper to season filets • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Poached oysters in champagne
• 1/2 cup chiffonade of heart of leek (inside yellow part) • 1 shallot, finely minced • 1/2 cup dry champagne • 2 tablespoons butter (1/4-inch stick) • 3 tablespoons oyster liquor (the liquid inside the shell) • 3/4 cup heavy cream • 18 shucked oysters, either East coast or West coast • 3 tablespoons chives, sliced thin • Salt and pepper • 2 ounces Osetra caviar for garnish
DIRECTIONS
1. To prepare sole: Heat oil and butter in nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.
2. Sprinkle filets with salt and pepper, and dust both sides lightly with flour. Add to skillet and cook until golden brown and just opaque in center; about 2 minutes per side. Transfer fish to a serving platter, cover and keep warm.
To assemble: Spoon oysters and champagne sauce over sole filets and top each filet with small spoonful of Osetra caviar.
Soft bittersweet chocolate biscotti with toasted almonds, sun-dried cherries and caramel gelato
From: The Scottos
6 servings
INGREDIENTS
• 2 cups self-rising flour • 1/2 cup Valrhona cocoa powder • 1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 3 tablespoons for dipping • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt • 1 cup sun-dried cherries, chopped • 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips, chopped • 2 cups heavy cream • 6 tablespoons melted butter, in a small bowl • 1/2 cup sliced almonds • 1 quart caramel gelato or 1 quart Dulce de Leche ice cream
DIRECTIONS
1. Stir the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt together in a bowl, then stir in dried cherries and chocolate.
2. Add the cream and stir until mixture comes together to form a somewhat stiff dough.
3. Turn out on work surface and press the dough together with your hands into 6 x 2-inch square. Using a heart-shaped cutter or knife, cut out biscotti biscuits.
4. Dip biscotti into melted butter and top with sliced almonds and sugar.
5. Place biscotti two inches apart on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or until biscotti spring back when pressed lightly. Set aside at room temperature for up to 4 hours.
6. To serve, preheat oven to 350°, split biscotti in half and put in oven for 3 to 5 minutes or until warmed through. Top with caramel gelato and serve.
*** THANKS for visiting, come back often, feel welcome to leave comments, a huge shout out to awesome current subscribers - and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe in a reader or by email!
*** New Orleans knows how to celebrate! Join the fun, listen to the rocking great Saints songs from hip hop to country, laugh at the outrageous costumes eagerly anticipated during Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, and, oh yeah, read some funny and serious Mardi Gras quotes to learn how the custom developed over time. Marvel at the resiliency of the people through tough times.
From Denny: Oh, to explain the Louisiana culture to someone who has never visited... :) It can get a bit raucous during the Mardi Gras Carnival season. The most family friendly parades are in Lafayette, the capital city of Baton Rouge and the smaller venues throughout the state if that's your preference.
Though since Hurricane Katrina many neighborhoods in New Orleans have organized their own more family friendly parades to counterbalance the general debauchery that tends to go on more from the tourists than the locals during Carnival season. Yeah, that's what we tell ourselves every year... :)
Right now Mardi Gras started early with the Super Bowl win of the Cinderella team the New Orleans Saints. What a celebration it is! The whole state stayed awake the night of the win as none of us could sleep even if we weren't partying in the French Quarter.
The word is over 270 Baton Rouge teachers called in sick Monday morning after the win because they partied just a little too much in New Orleans after the Super Bowl win. That's the beauty of living in Baton Rouge. Within an hour's drive you can party to the east in New Orleans or go west and party in Lafayette where they host some wonderful international music festivals.
Rocking great song captures the spirit of New Orleans:
The parade thrown last night for the Saints was nothing short of spectacular as Mardi Gras folks threw it together literally on a moment's notice. Trust me; no one in America, not even the Macy's Parade organization could have put together a full blown parade this fast. New Orleans is accustomed to living on the edge and rose to the occasion.
Country version of New Orleans song:
This video is from right before the Saints won against the Arizona Cardinals in a play-off game for the NFC Championship Title - after that was won another win against the Minnesota Vikings, sending the Saints to the Super Bowl - another unexpected win! Watch it just to learn about why the fans are wearing paper bags over their heads during the games. :)
Enjoy the funny costumes from Mardi Gras this year!
Funny Quotes
* I have 2,000 gospel singers and 35 Mardi Gras Indian tribes. You can't just call an agent and order them up.” - Quint Davis
* Mardi Gras starts tomorrow in New Orleans. Talk about perfect timing. Those truckloads of ice from FEMA just showed up. - Bill Maher
* This Mardi Gras will be a little different. This year when drunks yell up at the balcony, 'Show us your boobs!' Michael Brown and Michael Chertoff walk out. - Bill Maher
* Mardi Gras is going on in New Orleans. Actually it's scaled down quite a bit. Now when you throw a bead, women only flash one boob. - Jay Leno
* Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, and of course, this being America, it will be followed by Even Fatter Wednesday, Obese Thursday and Fat-A$$ Friday. - Jay Leno
* It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Everybody has Mardi Gras fever. I was watching the 'Today' show earlier today and Tom Cruise was lecturing Matt Lauer about jambalaya. - David Letterman
* They have the big parade down in New Orleans and this year FEMA has a float, but it's not expected 'til labor day. - David Letterman
* In New Orleans, the Paris Casino reopened and officials are calling it a sign of progress. If you didn't lose your house before, you can now. - Jay Leno
* In his speech President Bush said we need to rebuild Iraq, provide the people with jobs, and give them hope. If it works there maybe we'll try it in New Orleans. - Jay Leno
* The first baby has been born in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, they named it FEMA because it finally showed up after nine months. - Jay Leno
* Pakistan had one of the worst natural disasters ever, up to 50,000 people dead after an earthquake this week. But of course it's not a resort, no supermodels like the tsunami, so it doesn't really get covered. But other nations are trying to help. They've offered food, medicine, corpse-sniffing dogs. New Orleans sent a volunteer team of cops to beat the crap out of survivors. - Bill Maher
* You know I love New Orleans, they're vowing to hold Mardi Gras this year come hell or -- no pun -- high water. This is interesting, they've always had a Mardi Gras drink called the Hurricane. They're not going to serve that this year, but they've got a new one called the FEMA. It's strong, it hits you about a week later. - Bill Maher
* They say the toxic water and sludge smells so bad in New Orleans that they're thinking of renaming the city Newark. - Jay Leno
* The president said much of the aid is going towards job training. And when they heard that, the people of New Orleans rose as one and said, 'Can we start with you?' - Bill Maher
* Bush called the rebuilding of New Orleans one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen, second only to Cher. - Jay Leno
* The rebuilding of New Orleans is already underway. The relief and reconstruction contracts for rebuilding the city have already been awarded, many of them no bid. Among the recipients, major Republican contributors Bechtel and Fluor, the Shaw Group, client of Joe Allbaugh, ex-FEMA head, and, of course, come on, don't be shy, say it with me -- Halliburton. - Jon Stewart
* President Bush toured New Orleans. He saw something that was below sea level: his approval ratings. - Jay Leno
* Taking a page from their tsunami playbook, the White House announced today that former presidents Bush and Bill Clinton will head up the fundraising efforts for the hurricane relief. And you know, Bill Clinton is no stranger to this kind of thing. He was once visiting the French Quarter during a hurricane and got blown behind a dumpster. - Bill Maher
* But hey, it is New Orleans. Watching today, I could tell that this city has not lost its hope. It has not lost its distinctive pluck, because every time rescue teams would toss supplies to people, women flashed their breasts. - Bill Maher
These are some serious quotes. What Mark Twain, Louis Armstrong, Calvin Trillin and others have had to say about New Orleans's most raucous cultural ritual. These quotes describe the history, the culture, the visceral atmostphere of the New Orleans festival.
Cultural Quotes
* The Roman Carnival and other European Carnivals, all of which begin to be reported with frequency only in the 14th century, have no documentable connection with ancient [Greek and Roman] festivities.
It was easy enough for 15th and 16th century reformers to associate with pagan materialism and sensuality the boisterous games and bodily self-indulgence that developed in Carnival. From the 16th century onwards city and state authorities in both Catholic and Protestant areas sometimes found it useful to support the mistaken notion of pagan origins in their efforts to suppress the festival's disorderliness.
The Bacchanalia, Saturnalia, Lupercalia, and so on, however frequently they may be invoked in the Gulf Coast parades or in Sunday-supplement explanations of the festivity, have nothing to do with the historical origin of Mardi Gras or the origins of its origin in Europe's Carnivals. - Carnival, American Style: Mardi Gras at New Orleans and Mobile (University of Chicago Press, 1990), by Samuel Kinser
* At 9 o'clock, or thereabouts, the flare of torchlights shattered the darkness of Magazine and Julia Streets, bands burst into symphony, and the Mistick Krewe stood revealed — a company of demons, rich and realistic, moving in a procession that seemed to blaze from some secret chamber of the earth.
They came! Led by the festive Comus, high on his royal seat, and Satan, high on a hill, far blazing as a mount, with pyramids and towers from diamond quarries hewn, and rocks of gold; the palace of great Lucifer. The demon actors in Milton's Paradise Lost. The first torchlit scenic procession in New Orleans, a revolution in street pageantry, a revelation in artistic effects. - The Mistick Krewe: Chronicles of Comus and his Kin (Carnival Press, 1931), by Perry Young
* [In 1857,] the Mistick Krewe [Comus] introduced spectacle to the streets of New Orleans, and Carnival was forever changed. Comus would not only reappear every Mardi Gras night, he would do so amid flames and smoking flares of moving theater, and each year he would present new visions to astonish a population long nourished on masquerades, parades, and stagecraft. With the advent of the Mistick Krewe of Comus, the festivities of Mardi Gras were ended with public ceremony of pomp and bombast, with mystery, artistry, and ritual splendor. - Mardi Gras: New Orleans (Flammarion, 1997), by Henri Schindler
* The night cometh in which we take no note of time, and forget that we are living in a practical age which relegates romance to printed pages and merriment to the stage. Yet what is more romantic than the Night of the Masked Ball — the too brief hours of light, music, and fantastic merriment which seem to belong to no age and yet to all?
Somehow or other, in spite of all the noisy frolic of such nights, the spectacle of a Mardi Gras Ball impresses one at moments as a ghastly and unreal scene. The apparitions of figures which belong to other ages; the Venetian mysteries of the domino; the witcheries of beauty half-veiled; the tantalizing salutes from enigmatic figures you cannot recognize; the pretty mockeries whispered into your ear by some ruddy lips whose syllabling seems so strangely familiar and yet defies recognition; the King himself seated above the shifting rout impenetrable as a Sphinx; and the kaleidoscopic changing and flashing of colors as the merry crowd whirls and sways under the musical breath of the orchestra — seem hardly real, hardly possible to belong in any manner to the prosaic life of the century.
Even the few impassioned spectators who remain maskless and motionless form so strange a contrast that they seem like watchers in a haunted palace silently gazing upon a shadowy festival which occurs only once a year in the great hall exactly between the hours of twelve and three. While the most beautiful class of costumes seem ghostly only in that they really belong to past ages, the more grotesque and outlandish sort seem strangely suggestive of a goblin festival.
And above all the charms of the domino! Does it not seem magical that a woman can, by a little bright velvet and shimmering silk, thus make herself into a fairy? And the glorious Night is approaching — this quaint, old-time night, star-jeweled, fantastically robed; and the blue river is bearing us fleets of white boats thronged with strangers who doubtless are dreaming of lights and music, the tepid, perfumed air of Rex's palace, and the motley route of merry ghosts, droll goblins, and sweet fairies, who will dance the dance of Carnival until blue day puts out at once the trembling tapers of the stars and the lights of the great ball. - The Dawn of the Carnival (The New Orleans Item, February 2, 1880), by Lafcadio Hearn
* Carnival is a butterfly of winter whose last real flight of Mardi Gras forever ends his glory. Another season is the season of another butterfly, and the tattered, scattered, fragments of rainbow wings are in turn the record of his day. - The Mistick Krewe: Chronicles of Comus and his Kin, by Perry Young
* The celebration of Mardi Gras is an episode that never becomes stale to the people of the city, however monotonous the description or even the enumeration of its entertainments appears to strangers. At any age it makes a Creole woman young to remember it as she saw it at eighteen; and the description of what it appeared to the eyes of eighteen, would be, perhaps, the only fair description of it, for if Mardi Gras means anything, it means illusion; and unfortunately, when one attains one's majority in the legal world, one ceases to be a citizen of Phantasmagoria.
"There is a tradition that young matrons have recognized their husbands in their masked cavaliers at balls; and that the Romeo incognito of many a debutante has resolved into a brother, or even father; but at least it is not the debutante who makes the discovery. Her cavalier is always beyond her illusion, living in the Elysium of her future, as the cavalier of the matron is always some no less cherished illusion from the Elysium of the past.
As it is the desire of the young girl to be the subject of these illusions, so it is the desire of the young boy to become the object of them. To put on a mask and costume, to change his personality; to figure some day in the complimentary colouring of a prince of India, or of a Grecian god, or even to ape the mincing graces of a dancing girl or woodlawn nymph; to appear to the inamorata, clouded in the unknown, as the ancient gods did to simple shepherdesses; and so to excite her imagination, and perhaps more. A god is only a man when he is in love; and a man, all a god. - New Orleans: The Place and the People (Macmillan, 1913), by Grace King (as quoted in Mardi Gras: New Orleans, by Henri Schindler)
* It [Mardi Gras] is a thing that could hardly exist in the practical North....For the soul of it is the romantic, not the funny and the grotesque. Take away the romantic mysteries, the kings and knights and big-sounding titles, and Mardi Gras would die, down there in the South. - Life on the Mississippi (Harper & Brothers, 1896), by Mark Twain
* Voodoo did not exert a direct musical influence on the Mardi Gras Indians, but it was a cornerstone of the cultural tradition out of which they eventually developed — a living link to the African spirit cults of the Caribbean.
"Large drum-and-dance convocations by slaves surfaced about 1800 on a grassy field behind the French Quarter, now Louis Armstrong Park....The gathering site was called Place Congo—in later years, with English supplanting French as the local language, Congo Square. Drums boomed. Big wooden horns sent out notes. And from the shacks and shanties of the slave quarters came hundreds of men and women to the Sunday gatherings to dance, to make rhythm, to express freedom.
"As a spirit figure, the Indian would never have entered the folk streams of New Orleans music had it not been for Carnival. Congo Square was suppressed about 1835, though some gatherings probably occurred afterward.
"Beginning in the 1880s, the Mardi Gras Indians started the slow rise out of submersion that the mother culture underwent with the disappearance of Congo Square and voodoo. The Indians' chants were not set to drums, but to hand-percussion instruments such as tambourines. They did not worship spirits per se, but through a slow-evolving body of coded lyrics established a tribal hierarchy that praised the Indian nations and celebrated the bravery of rebellion.
The Mardi Gras Indians gave light to the memory of an African past, but in a ritual fashion that embraced the Indian as an adopted spirit figure. It was the highest compliment the African could pay a race of the New World; it stemmed from a common struggle, sociocultural intercourse, a shared vision of freedom — but most of all, from a profoundly African ritual retention. The Indian followed the procession of rebellious slaves, voodoo cultists, and Congo Square dancers in the historical memory. - Up From the Cradle of Jazz: New Orleans Music Since World War II (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986), by Jason Berry, Jonathan Foose and Tad Jones
* Carnival became ever more necessary for black New Orleans. It filled basic needs increasingly denied the people by allowing new identities to take shape. Creoles and the black bourgeois emulated the white aristocracy with society balls, but a network of social aid and pleasure clubs arose around Carnival.
The costumes were another matter altogether. To whites, they were largely toy disguises, fancy fleetings reflecting one's humor or elan. To the black consciousness, masking often took on a heightened meaning. The mask became a cover, a new identity, a persona eluding the white policeman or soldier; the mask gave ephemeral freedom; the whole organic presence of the costume could scare people, delight them, it could satirize or do any number of things provided the person inside it fulfilled the role to the core of his imagination.
In this way, Carnival became one linear extension of Congo Square. Out of the flickering memory of African spiritualism and percussive ceremony came a procession of spirit figures, an inherited cultural consciousness marching into Carnival. - Up From the Cradle of Jazz: New Orleans Music Since World War II, by Jason Berry, Jonathan Foose and Tad Jones
* The New Orleans 1885 Mardi Gras was extraordinary. On the streets were large numbers of international visitors connected with the [World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial] Exposition, several Central American Indian groups, and some fifty to sixty Plains Indians from the [Buffalo Bill] Wild West Show, including four chiefs, all of whom were likely on the street in native dress. For [locals of African descent, particularly groups who took to masking as Indians,] Mardi Gras translated nicely into a freedom celebration, a day to commemorate their own history and spirit, to be arrogant, to circumvent the hostile authorities, to overturn the established order, and now and then to seek revenge. - Mardi Gras Indians (Pelican Publishing Company, 1994), by Michael P. Smith
* Now everybody in the world has heard about the New Orleans Mardi Gras, but maybe not about the Indians, one of the biggest feats that happened in Mardi Gras. Even at the parades with floats and costumes that cost millions, why, if the folks heard the sign of the Indians: ..................Ungai-ah! ..................Ungai-ha!
— that big parade wouldn't have anybody there: the crowd would flock to see the Indians. When I was a child, I thought they really was Indians. They were paint and blankets and, when they danced, one would get in the ring and throw his head back and downward, stooping over and bending his knees, making a rhythm with his heels and singing—T'ouwais, bas q'ouwais—and the tribe would answer — Ou tendais.
"They would dance and sing and go on just like regular Indians, because they had the idea they wanted to act just like the old Indians did in years gone by and so they lived true to the traditions of the Indian style. They went armed with fictitious spears and tommyhawks and so forth and their main object was to make their enemy bow.
They would send their spy-boys two blocks ahead—I happened to be a spy-boy myself once so I know how this went—and when a spy-boy would meet another spy from an enemy tribe he'd point his finger to the ground and say, 'Bow-wow.' And if they wouldn't bow, the spy-boy would use the Indian call, 'Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo,' that was calling the tribes—and, many a time, in these Indian things, there would be a killing and next day would be somebody in the morgue. - Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and "Inventor of Jazz" (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), by Alan Lomax
* Another thing about Mardi Gras when I was a kid was that it was a revenge day. That's why a lot of people didn't come out in the street. If a guy had a misunderstanding with someone in the summer, he'd wait until Carnival day when the street was crowded, and he'd just put on a woman's dress and he'd roll his pants up underneath that. And the only way you can trick him is if you're dressed like a woman too. All you'd hear is people scream and see a man fall with an ice pick in him, and [the assailant would] go into a barroom and leave that dress on the floor. Oh yeah, it used to be real lowdown. - Allison (Tootie) Montana, big chief (now retired) of The Yellow Pocahontas, Offbeat magazine, February 1994
* Whereas revelers used Mardi Gras to satirize prohibitionists and other reformers, early-twentieth-century reformers pointed to New Orleans Carnival as an example of just what needed reforming. In 1908, the Reverend Charles L. Collins of the Kentucky Anti-Saloon League visited New Orleans to see Carnival. Collins proclaimed that 'no city on the continent offers harder problems for the reformer.' Much about the city's easy ways displeased him, including certain aspects of Carnival. 'As to the Mardi Gras festivities proper,' he wrote, 'I am both delighted and shocked beyond measure.' - All on a Mardi Gras Day: Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival (Harvard University Press, 1995), by Reid Mitchell
* One of my first memories of the [Mardi Gras Indian] tribes was of a Wild Man from a tribe called the White Eagles coming down the street on horseback, firing double-barrel shotgun loads of colored glass pellets into the air to get everyone's attention and clear the way — which he definitely succeeded in doing. - Under a Hoodoo Moon: The Life of the Night Tripper (St. Martin's Press, 1994), by Dr. John (Mac Rebennack) with Jack Rummel
* One of the gangs was made up of all the whores and pimps from Perdido Street; their parade was called Gangster Molls and Baby Dolls. Everyone in this group dressed as outlandishly as possible: The women wore eye-popping dresses; the ones who looked highest-priced wore ultra-sharp women's suits, but with see-through bras underneath. Others wore slit miniskirts showing lace panties, stiletto heels, and flowery low-cut blouses. The pimps got decked out in acey-deucy Stetsons with cocked brims, jelly-roll-peg zoot suits, one-button roll coats with wide lapels, and zebra-skinned shoes; not infrequently, they'd strut down the street with canes made out of bull dicks.
"They were ridiculous and funny all at the same time. They'd come busting out of their dives during Mardi Gras, their dresses and suits lined in satin and glitter, real sharp-looking and hilarious. They'd march down the greens, that broad strip of grass that separates one side of the street from the other, cutting up, shakin' the bacon and carrying on, and everyone would back off to let them start high-steppin'.
And you had best back off, too, because they took their kicks seriously. They were real rowdy. Cats would brandish switchblades, and whip them out in your face if you got too close. The tribes always drew a big crowd of black and white folks, but this kind of thing seemed normal to me as a kid. Didn't every town have tribes? I thought so. - Under a Hoodoo Moon: The Life of the Night Tripper (St. Martin's Press, 1994), by Dr. John (Mac Rebennack) with Jack Rummel
* There's a thing I've dreamed of all my life, and I'll be damned if it don't look like it's about to come true — to be King of the Zulu's parade. After that, I'll be ready to die. - Louis Armstrong, Time magazine, February 21, 1949
* It's a funny thing how life can be such a drag one minute and a solid sender the next. The day I got out of jail Mardi Gras was being celebrated. It is a great day for all of New Orleans, and particularly for the Zulu Aid Pleasure and Social Club. Every member of the Club masquerades in a costume burlesquing some famous person. The King of the Zulus, also in masquerade costume, rides with six other Zulus on a float giving away coconuts as souvenirs. The members march to the good jumping music of the brass bands while the King on his throne scrapes and bows to the cheering crowds.
"When I ran into this celebration and the good music I forgot all about Sore Dick [the dreaded prison yard captain] and the Parish Prison. Most of the members of the Zulu Club then lived around Liberty and Perdido Streets, but now Mardi Gras has become so famous—people come from all over America to see its parade—that it includes doctors, lawyers and other important people from all over the city. Later on a Lady Zulu Club was organized. It has been my lifelong dream to be the King of the Zulus, as it was the dream of every kid in my neighborhood. - Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans (Prentice-Hall, 1954), by Louis Armstrong (King Zulu 1949)
* On Mardi Gras 1928, a crowd gathered around a woman on Canal Street dancing the Black Bottom. A friend of the dancer's played the ukulele while the crowd 'stamped their feet.' An admiring fat man 'flung her a handful of coins.' If he thought the dancer would appreciate his largess, he was wrong. She gathered the coins together and threw them back at him. 'Anybody can tell you're not used to Carnival!' she cried. 'On Mardi Gras we dance 'cause we want to.' - All on a Mardi Gras Day: Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival, by Reid Mitchell
* We was all sittin' around about three o'clock in the morning in my house [trying to decide how to mask for Mardi Gras], when a gal named Althea jumps up and says, 'Let's be ourselves. Let's be Baby Dolls. That's what the pimps always called us.' We decided to call ourselves the Million Dollar Baby Dolls and be red hot....Some of us made our dresses, and some had 'em made. We was all looking sharp. There was thirty of us—the best whores in town. We was all good lookin' and we had money all over us, even in our bloomers, and they didn't have no zippers.....When them Baby Dolls strutted, they strutted. We showed our linen that day, I'm tellin' you. - Baby Doll interview from the late 1930s (as quoted in Mardi Gras: New Orleans, by Henri Schindler)
* As they had for decades, [brass bands] provided the music for the endless cycle of dances and parades in New Orleans, popularizing the startling fusion of influences and celebration that came to be hailed as the only original art form created in America. It would be hyperbole, if not false, to name jazz a child of Carnival; however the joyous license of the music owes more than passing acquaintance to the liberties of Mardi Gras and a population long-accustomed to dancing in the streets. - Mardi Gras: New Orleans, by Henri Schindler
* On Mardi Gras the women of Storyville [New Orleans' red-light district, where prostitution was legal from 1897 to 1917] did not mingle with the maskers but remained in their neighborhood, which now was spreading into the French Quarter, as they took over the houses left by the vanishing Creoles, who once had also possessed Mardi Gras. Now, on that day, Carnival revelers would wander through Storyville in the hours between parades, to gasp at Arlington's 'five-dollar house' with its huge chandeliers and beveled mirrors.
They would drop in at the Countess Willie Piazza's, where the girls were always in lovely Egyptian costumes on Mardi Gras, and at Lulu White's, where there were bedrooms with walls and ceilings composed entirely of mirrors. They could peep through shutters into the cheap cribs, where naked girls sat around awaiting patrons....And they heard the new kind of music being played in Storyville called 'jass,' which was being introduced in other parts of the city but was considered rather indecent. - Mardi Gras (Doubleday, 1948), by Robert Tallent
* I am the oldest, I am the best, and I am the prettiest. - Allison (Tootie) Montana, The New York Times, February 19, 1995
* It is hereby decreed that melancholy be put to route, and joy unconfined seize our subjects, young and old of all genders and degrees...that the spirit of make-believe descend upon the realm and banish from the land the dull and the humdrum and the commonplace of daily existence. - public proclamation, Morgan L. Whitney, King of Carnival (Rex),1967
* The idea of a celebrity leading the Bacchus parade was indeed unique. It went against the grain of 113 years of Carnival tradition. There had never been a celebrity king of a Carnival krewe. Naturally, the idea wasn't met with open arms from the Carnival establishment. The idea was a total departure from the time-honored tradition of selecting a king from the ranks of the krewes.
'These guys are crazy!' [float builder Blaine] Kern told his wife when he arrived home from the first meeting. 'They want to bring some hot-shot to town and make him king of their parade. Imagine. It will never work.' - Silver Jubilee (Krewe of Bacchus' 25th-anniversary book,1993), by Bonnie Warren
* I have trouble explaining to out-of-towners why people here spend $1,000 to wear a mask so no one knows who they are, and then give away things to people they've never met. But I guess it's an opportunity for everybody to play Santa Claus. That's at the heart of it. - Arthur Hardy, publisher of Arthur Hardy's Mardi Gras Guide, explaining why members of Carnival krewes dig into their pockets year after year to ride in parades and throw trinkets, New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 28, 1992
* If you write Mr. Mardi Gras, I get the mail. Do you believe that? Like Santa Claus. - Blaine Kern, float builder and captain of Krewe of Alla, Forbes magazine, October 9, 1995
* Mardi Gras may be best known to the outside world as a public festival, but upper-class New Orleans knew that its real significance lay in the annual reaffirmation of social eminence over merit. The most potent symbol of that creed came on the night of Mardi Gras, when Rex and Comus held their balls in different sections of the municipal auditorium. The evening ended when the mock royalty of the two krewes staged the traditional 'meeting of the courts' shortly before midnight. It was not for nothing that the bare-faced Rex, chosen in part for his civic contributions, had to traipse over and pay his respects to the mysterious Comus. - Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans (University Press of Mississippi, 1997), by James Gill
* The current structure of Mardi Gras, which blacks refer to as the 'white parade season,' dates from the latter half of the nineteenth century. After the consolidation of the Anglo-American establishment, the 'official' Mardi Gras became an event that primarily perpetuated the interests of white high society. The common people's carnival—with its subversion of the dominant order, wild dancing, and festive transgressions (iconoclastic celebration of freedom through cross dressing, 'obscenity,' and other behavior offensive to genteel Americans—was relegated to the back streets and ignored by the press. - Mardi Gras Indians, by Michael P. Smith
* A few months before the 1992 Carnival, a black city-council member named Dorothy Mae Taylor introduced an ordinance that would prohibit a parade permit to any group that discriminated on the basis of race or religion or gender.... In New Orleans, it had always been assumed that people would celebrate Carnival in their own way, whether it was by riding in the parade of an all-woman krewe or holding a ball-gown contest for men in drag. There was a widespread feeling that applying human-relations-commission rules to Carnival might not only rob it of its oldest parades but sink it altogether. - "New Orleans Unmasked" (The New Yorker magazine, February 2, 1998), by Calvin Trillin
* Momus, Son of Night, God of Mockery and Ridicule, regretfully and respectfully informs his friends, supporters and his public that he will not parade the streets of New Orleans on the Thursday evening before Shrove Tuesday, 1992, as he has customarily since 1872. - Momus's parade cancellation announcement, issued in response to the City Council's anti-discrimination ordinance
* The rise and gradual decline of the old-line krewes pretty well mirrored the fortunes of New Orleans itself. Comus was born as an unparalleled spectacle in a vibrant city that was the commercial queen of the South. When he disappeared from the streets [as a result of the anti-discrimination ordinance], New Orleans had become a faded dowager trying desperately to regain her lost prestige while the taste of Carnival paradegoers had switched to the razzle-dazzle offered by a welter of upstart krewes. - Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans, by James Gill
* Mardi Gras is a controlled riot. It's a million people walking out on the street, drinkin'. Ten days of everybody coming out here gettin' drunk and havin' fun. Ten days of us working 16, 18 hours a day.... Basically everybody's just having a good time, tryin' to enjoy themselves, and they don't mean any harm to anybody else. It's just the world's largest free party, and people like everything free.
"People come out here on Mardi Gras day in $800 suits. Just for a doubloon worth maybe 3 cents, they'll sort of dive on the ground and rip up an $800 suit. Grandmas with walking canes you'll see diving, pushing people out the way to get a pair of beads. People just go totally berserk when they come here—loose all their their inhibitions, they forget everything they ever been taught in their life. - Sgt. Billy Roth, New Orleans Police Department, Cops (March 20, 1996)
* As the celebration in the [French] Quarter has come more and more to resemble spring vacation in a Florida beach town that has no police force, exhibitionism has become part of the Carnival-bead transaction, and the most widely heard cry is no longer 'Throw me something, Mister' but 'Show us your tits.' - "New Orleans Unmasked," by Calvin Trillin
* As cameras for MTV, true-life crime shows and tabloid news programs roll in the French Quarter, the drunken partying has grown so extreme—flashes of nudity have given way to the actual performance of oral sex acts on Bourbon Street—that it is the drunkenness and obscenity itself that threatens to become Carnival's theme....That increasingly dangerous reputation of anything goes is scaring away more middle-class adult visitors, the kind of people who actually spend money, and attracting young people who only want to frolic in a drunken haze, traditionalists say. - "Merrymaking is Clashing with Tradition in Mardi Gras Tableaux" (The New York Times, February 23, 1998), by Rick Bragg
...When out of town, you stop and ask someone where there is a drive-thru daiquiri place, and they look at you like you have three heads.
...The crawdad mounds in your front yard have overtaken the grass.
...You greet people with "Howyamomma'an'em?" and hear back "Dey fine!"
...Every so often, you have waterfront property. (flooding)
...You learned to drive a boat before you could drive a car.
...You know the meaning of a "Delcambre Reeboks." (That would be a pair of all white fishing boots)
...You offer somebody a "coke" and then ask them what kind: Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, 7Up?
...You can name all of your 3rd cousins.
...You can plan your wedding around hunting season & LSU football.
...Your burial plot is six feet over rather than six feet under. (some areas of Louisiana are at sea level so they bury the dead in stone vaults like you see in New Orleans cemeteries)
...When you refer to a geographical location "way up North", you are referring to places like Shreveport, Little Rock or Memphis, "where it gets real cold"! (those cold places: Shreveport, Louisiana - Little Rock, Arkansas - Memphis, Tennessee)
...You're not afraid when someone wants to "ax you something." (ax = ask)
...You don't worry when you see ships riding higher in the river than the top of your house.
....The waitress at your local sandwich shop tells you a fried oyster po-boy "dressed" is healthier than a Caesar salad.
...You know the definition of "dressed." (mayo, pickles, mustard)
...The smell of a crawfish boil turns you on more than HBO.
...You don't realize until high school what a "county" is. (in Louisiana a county is called a parish)
...You can eat Popeye's, Haydel's and Zapp's for lunch and wash it down with Barq's and several Abitas, without losing it all on your stoop. (Popeye's: fried chicken, Haydel's: bakery in New Orleans famous for making Mardi Gras King Cakes, Zapp's: potato chips, Barq's: root beer, Abita: beer.)
...You have a ditch on at least one side of your property. (drainage or sewer ditch for rain water run off to avoid flooding)
...You prefer skiing on the bayou. (water skiing)
...You assume everyone has mosquito swarms in their backyard.
...You like your rice and politics dirty. (dirty rice has ground meat in it)
...You pronounce the largest city in the state as "Newawlins." (New Orleans)
...You know an old person that can "treat" you for warts. (traiteuse: French Native American shaman)
...You know those big roaches can fly, but you're able to sleep at night anyway.
...You can't think of anybody that can cook better than your momma.
...You know when it's appropriate to use "Tony Chachere's." (Cajun seasoning)
...When you're in Baton Rouge you know the difference between the old bridge & the new bridge. (over the Mississippi River)
...Your last name isn't pronounced the way it's spelled.
...You have spent a summer afternoon on the Lake Pontchartrain seawall catching blue crabs.
*** THANKS for visiting, come back often, feel free to leave comments because I enjoy hearing from you, visit New Orleans Mardi Gras at least once in your life - put it on your Bucket List, a big shout out to current subscribers - and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe in a reader or by email!
From Denny: The eyes of the world are on Vancouver for the Winter Olympics. The first thing people ask, "So, what do you eat there?" Here are a couple of traditional gourmet recipes from Chef Daniel Boulud of DB Bistro Moderne in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 
