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ROUSES.COM
9
The Italian Cajun Kitchen
by
Donald Rouse
M
eals have always been
momentous in my family.
That’s one of the things
that drew us into the food
business. My grandfather, J.P. Rouse,
immigrated to Louisiana from Sardinia,
one of Italy’s largest islands, second only
to Sicily. (The name Rouse comes from his
German host family). My grandfather went
on to found the City Produce Company in
1923. My father joined him in the late ‘40s
then moved on to groceries.
My grandfather settled in Marrero,
Louisiana, and when we were kids, we used
to drive from Thibodaux to the West Bank
for supper with family, usually at my Uncle
Joe’s house. There would be 25 people at each table, and what
seemed like 25 different versions of pasta, along with cheese, bread,
olives, salumi and vegetables, like fresh mushrooms with onions
and ham. I especially remember my Aunt Marie’s artichokes, which
were stuffed with sausage, cheese and bread crumbs. We never got
the recipe for those artichokes, but my brother, Tony, comes pretty
close, and my sister, Cindy, has perfected a New Orleans-style
stuffed artichoke.
Growing up in Thibodaux, we ate a lot of gumbo, jambalaya,
etouffée, deer, duck, and seafood. I still do. But like so many locals
with an Italian heritage, we were just as likely to have Italian sausage
as fresh green onion sausage in our refrigerator. And olive salad was
just salad.
Dad always wanted
anti pasta
before dinner – clearly that was the
Italian in him – but in our case, that usually meant fried oysters
and dips. My brother, Tommy, has followed
in my dad’s footsteps: he actually served
guacamole at Thanksgiving — just like the
pilgrims.
My favorite
anti pasta
was and still is
anchovy bread, which is fresh bread, usually
a roll dough, stuffed with anchovies and
Pecorino Romano cheese, a sheep’s milk
cheese traditionally made in Sardinia (we
sell it at Rouses), and topped with grated
Parmesan. I make it the way my father did,
by poking holes in the bread and filling
them with the anchovies and cheese rather
than layering them on top.
As Italians, and Louisianaians, we
worshiped tomatoes, Italian, Creole and
otherwise. I shared my version of my dad’s
recipe for spaghetti with meatballs and beef
daube in our November-December issue
(available online at
www.rouses.com).
Dad
believed the trick to red sauce is to cook
the tomatoes a very long time, at least four
to five hours. These days, it’s hard to find
time to make red sauce an all day event. My
sister-in-law Karen has managed to speed
up the sauce without sacrificing flavor.
In Sardinia, pasta is usually served as the
primi
or first course, and a light sauce topped
by shavings of Pecorino Romano tends to
replace the more familiar red sauce or gravy.
The
secondo
or second course is usually meat
or seafood. At our house, that was more
likely to be a deer someone shot than a goat
or sheep, which are popular in Sardinia;
fish caught in Grand Isle; and Louisiana
crawfish instead of Mediterranean or even
Maine lobsters.
When my father was alive, he did the cooking. If my mom tried to
make something, or one of us started a dish and he was anywhere
around, he would completely take over. Nowadays, we all cook, and
we share our recipes and memories, and compete to see who makes
the best ribs, jambalaya, etc. My son, Donny, swears he makes the
best lasagna; Tommy swears his wife Karen does. All of this cooking
brings us together, the way only food can. As my sister, Cindy, says,
“Dad would have loved it.”
We’re not Sicilian, but we celebrate St. Joseph’s Day. Every year, my father’s
sister, Aunt Anna Mae, brings us the same fig cookies, anise cookies and
sesame cookies that we ate growing up — she even spent some time last
Christmas teaching my nieces Ali and Rachel how to make them. Even
though we make our own Rouses versions, I still take an extra few of Anna
Mae’s. Last year we erected altars in our stores for the first time. To learn
more about last year’s altars and this year’s, turn to page 22.