Just what is a floating island? (I can tell you it’s quite delicious as a decadent dessert.) How about three dramatically different and completely authentic recipes for “Jumballaya”? Gumbo recipes from a century ago when they still hunted, fished and trapped as opposed to prepped and packaged proteins from a supermarket. And finally a sauce béarnaise recipe so much richer and tastier than the versions we make now.
Cooking in Old Creole Days, originally published in 1904, contains recipes that are rich in history and even richer in taste from a time before refrigeration when dinner was cooked in a wood-fired stove. And beyond the recipes, there are musical notations and essays on what life was like in the jewel of New Orleans near the end of the 18th century.
The recipes and notations illustrate a post-slavery time when the plantation economy was declining and many women were entering domestic service in southern cities and towns where they cooked for generations of families and profoundly shaped the food and culture of the south and, later, all of America.
