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MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
JULY | AUGUST 2015
T
here are many elements that go into creating a shared identity among
people — language, rituals and religion to name a few big ones. Then
there’s music, clothing, oral history – many of the ties that bind.
Here on the Gulf Coast, there may be no stronger connection we make to each
other than that which we make through food.
That makes us a tribe in many ways.The foods we value, the meals we treasure,
the importance we assign to our cultivation and preparation — and preservation
— of meals through the years transcends mere biological imperative.
Around here, we don’t eat to live; we live to eat.
But we are more than the sum of our intake of calories, proteins, carbohydrates
and such – much more. We are shared history, loyalties and community.
Rouses, at 55, is a mere baby to some companies, an elder to others. But all
those products we recognize from Rouses shelves and freezers — Blue Runner,
Blue Plate, Manda, Chisesi, Savoie, Steen’s, Barq’s, Connecuh, Zapp’s and,
appropriately, Community – aren’t just names on a label,
but part of our lives, literally.
These names — these words — spoken between any
two of us reassures each other of membership in the
same tribe. We come from the same people. We
are
the
same people.
Particularly if we are what we eat. And I don’t mean that
in an I’m-a-crawfish, you’re-a-muffaletta and you’re-
momma’s a regular ole’ Moon Pie sort of way. (Though,
admittedly, once you start playing around with terms
like remoulade, étouffée, comeback sauce and chow
chow — you can have a lot of giddy wordplay indeed.)
What’s also funny is how that phrase “you are what
you eat” — so familiar and home spun — was more
appropriate for our region before it was Anglicized from
it’s original French wording, and its original meaning
was changed ever-so-slightly.
Let me display my worldly erudition (and advanced
Google skills) by laying out what is believed to be the
first printed use of the phrase in 1824: “
Dis-moi ce que tu
manges, je te dirai ce que tu es
,” by Jean Anthelme Brillat-
Savarin. As is almost intuitive from the gravitas of his
name, Savarin was a lawyer and a politician by trade, but
he is also credited as one of the founders of a literary
genre that came of age in the early 19
th
century — the
gastronomic essay.
In other words, he was one of the earliest known foodies,
a gustatory trailblazer of his time. Think Anthony
Bourdain with a powder wig and a law degree. (Which,
for some reason, isn’t that hard to do!)
Brillat-Savarin’s phrase, translated literally, says: “Tell
me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.”
See how much more fitting those words seem when
applied from Cajun Country through New Orleans
along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines? How
much closer to the truth they get than “you are what
you eat?”
At the risk of being
presumptuous, I would add a
few words to Brillat-Savarin’s
Epicurean musing to make it
truly Gulf Coast local — and
a little more modern: Tell
me what you eat, and I will
tell you not only what you
are, but where you are from
and probably, what kind of
music you like and, in New
Orleans, maybe even what
high school you went to.
Such is the gloriously
provincial
nature
of
life here, where one
man’s Bunny Bread is
by
Chris Rose
We Are
What We Eat
the
Anniversary
issue
photo by
Romney Caruso