Food and football unite in the Big Easy
Countdown Daily Recap: Panthers-Saints
"Why do I continue to waste my Sundays?!"
-- Dick Currence
It was pouring rain the Sunday I was mugged.
I was 6 years old, and as I ran home, soaked to the bone and relieved of my new Big Wheel and my raincoat, I could hear his voice thundering, "YOU COULDN'T KICK (STRING OF EXPLETIVES), YOU ROTTEN …!"
Inside, I found my mother and father in front of our 18-inch black-and-white television and some sort of MacGyver-ed waffle iron, making Reuben sandwiches and drinking beer.
I tried to explain what had happened, tears streaming down my cheeks. But my dad's gaze (and rage) never broke from the distressing scene unfolding on the TV set. My mother tried to assuage my suffering, but it was Dad's attention I needed at that moment.
"He's just a little distracted, honey," I remember my mom telling me.
I stood there, robbed of both physical possessions and emotional support, as he reached toward me with a crusty triangle of corned beef, sauerkraut and Russian dressing.
"You think YOU got it bad? Eat this," he said.
The sandwich had calmed his rage, and would quickly soothe my loss. Dad took a swallow of Dixie beer, and I settled into the couch with him for the rest of the game, safely wrapped in a cocoon of his Reuben and ire.
A visceral understanding of how food mitigated suffering was born in my most vivid childhood Saints memory, and the Reuben was immediately typecast.
When it came to football, my father could string together expletives with the skill of a neurosurgeon handling a knife. He was a savant of sorts. His muse? The New Orleans Saints.
During the cooler fall days of my childhood, Dad would open the windows in the house, and on Sundays that action effectively broadcast his talent to the world. Our 90-year-old next-door neighbor once called the cops on him, convinced he was beating me, my mother and/or my brother.
The officers arrived, to see a man cooking gumbo in front of the television, and immediately understood the situation: There had to be something to ease the pain of pulling for the Saints, and food was a coping mechanism.
Mom was always a brilliant sport. She held his hand through the games, mixed Bloody Marys, chopped and diced alongside him in the kitchen, made the reservations for the postgame meals. And perhaps her most vindicating moment came in the early 1970s, on a rough afternoon in Tulane Stadium when Dad was being particularly vocal with his feelings about the team.
An elderly woman sitting behind him dumped a full 16-ounce cup of beer on his head and chastised him for his behavior. "I didn't know whether to laugh or be horrified," my mom said. "I made him buy her another beer."
In a town recognized as much for its consumption as anything else, catharsis comes equally from the comfort of its food as it does from the escapism of its drink -- and it is no secret Saints fans have needed plenty of comfort since the fall of 1967. It has been a tough road, of high-ish highs and catastrophic lows.
Each of those pinnacles -- the arrival of Archie Manning, that first playoff victory against the Rams, the massive "Dome Patrol" defense of Rickey Jackson, Patrick Swilling, Vaughan Johnson and Sam Mills -- has had its nadir: 1980's 1-15 season, which birthed the iconic "bag heads" and the "Aints" moniker; the Bum Phillips years and the army of washed up, drug-addled, hobbled has-beens he assembled for several seasons of torture and myriad last-minute losses to Atlanta and San Francisco.
We are fans in the truest sense, struggling through decades of mediocrity and disappointment, and our food was always the refuge from that pain.
Pouring disappointedly out of the Superdome, sustenance was the only thing that made sense after an emotional betrayal, and there was no shortage of restaurants to help anesthetize the masses.
R&O, Commander's Palace, Liuzza's, Vincent's, Bozo's, Crescent City Steak House, Pascal's Manale, Petrossi's, Clancy's, Galatoire's are but a few of the stops we made after the games.
Each one a clichéd scene of culinary group therapy, offering its own specialty, as a crying shoulder.
Whether it be the crispy onion rings, substantive muffuletta, tangy barbecue shrimp or a perfect veal Parmesan, each played a role in the healing process.
Until Hurricane Katrina, when the Ruth's Chris corporate pinheads conspired to close the flagship location of Chris' Steak House -- located in one of the city's less-savory neighborhoods -- that was the Sunday p.m. cathedral for well-heeled Saints devotees.
For years the same ad ran on the big screen in the Dome: simply a sizzling steak on a hot plate, drenched in butter and parsley, overlaid with the Ruth's Chris "branding iron" logo. It beckoned. We answered. CEOs and socialites gathered religiously on North Broad for perfectly cooked steak and Bearnaise for postgame absolution.
More often that not, it was a somber scene. But a meal always seemed to calm the most savage of the beasts. After a particularly difficult loss, a young Archie and Olivia Manning joined the crowd at Manale's for dinner. In any other city they might have been set upon -- but over Manale's spaghetti and meatballs, they were welcomed with a warm standing ovation.
On Sunday nights, New Orleans restaurants buzz with postgame celebrations these days. After the recent emasculation of the Giants, the tony Luke was a swirl of chest bumps, high-fives and Super Bowl talk.
Bartenders and servers ordinarily clothed in starched white shirts and a steely professionalism donned Scott Fujita jerseys and Saints pins while dispensing oysters, steak frites and signature Flamenkuche as if it were a busy Saturday.
Tailgate parties have crept into vogue. Surprisingly, New Orleans never had a tailgate tradition. Considering its rich food tradition and universally appreciated love for a party, it seems like a natural -- but we always gathered at the restaurants. Assembling one more party on Sunday to be cleaned up in a haze of disappointment was just too much to stomach, it seems.
But that has changed with the recent fortunes of the team. Legions of Saints fans now crowd the surrounding parking lots and under the interstate, feasting before the games. Grills overflow with hot dogs and burgers, next to cast-iron pots brimming with spicy jambalaya and gumbo. And the food that was once a postgame consolation is now pregame fuel for the cacophony that fills the Dome on game day.
The tailgaters seem oddly out of place -- even, perhaps, awkward. But this is momentary. We are new to it, but figuring out a party is what we do best. The Saints' winning is motivation enough to drive that hunger, and inspire that commitment.
I watch most Sundays now from my home in Mississippi. But my immediate family remains firmly ensconced in Uptown New Orleans, and I know my father is still hollering -- just at a bigger and more colorful TV set than the one I remember. Mom tells me he was following the Giants game on a BlackBerry during a production by the Hungarian State Ballet while in Budapest, trying to maintain his composure.
We avoided an international incident with the outcome of that one.
Fortunes are good these days. But, as tempted as I am to gather all the gear and join the parking-lot party, it's a concept hard to approach when Mandina's and its soft-shell crab meunière is right around the corner.
Old habits die hard. But if things turn rough, and I hear the strains of my dad's profane aria wafting through the hills of Mississippi, I'm going straight for the Reuben.
John Currence was born and raised in New Orleans and is a 2009 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef South. He owns four restaurants in Oxford, Miss.
