Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table

In Gumbo Tales Sara Roahen celebrates New Orleans’ food culture, one speciality at a time. A cocktail is more than a segue to dinner when it’s a Sazerac, an anise-laced drink of rye whiskey and bitters indigenous to New Orleans. For Wisconsin-born Roahen, a Sazerac is also a fine accompaniment to raw oysters, a looking glass into the cocktail culture of her own family-and one more way to gain a foothold in her beloved adopted city. Roahen’s stories introduce readers to New Orleans’ well-known signatures - gmbo, po-boys, red beans and rice - and its lesser-known gems: the pho of its Vietnamese immigrants, the braciolone of its Sicilians and the ya-ka-mein of its street culture. By eating and cooking her way through a place as unique and unexpected as its infamous turducken, Roahen finds a home. And then Katrina. With humour, poignancy and hope, she conjures up a city that revelled in its food traditions before the storm - and in many ways has been saved by them since.