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12
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2016
the
Italian
issue
M
any of us want to cook like
momma. I was always eager for
someone else’s momma to be in
the kitchen. Mine could barely cook; she
was much better at opening cans and boxes.
It could be that I’m prejudiced. I’m certain
of it, so I honestly appreciate a great meal.
At lunch one afternoon, Jimmy Moran, one
of Jimmy Brocato Moran’s four sons, was
almost giddy when he confided that his
mother was in the kitchen. Mary Latino
Brocato (the restaurant Brocatos were
distant relations via Cefalu, Italy, to the ice
cream Brocato family) wasn’t cooking for
the restaurant — Moran’s La Louisiane
on Iberville — although the entire family
would pitch in from time to time, but
this day she was cooking specifically for
Jimmy. “She picked these crabs herself,” he
explained to everyone at the table.
Mrs. Brocato had coaxed béchamel sauce
(only a coincidence that it is one of the five
classic “mother” sauces) into an embrace
with jumbo lumps of crabmeat, then
crowned the dish with buttered and toasted
breadcrumbs. Ethereal. For me, another
food benchmark. Still is, and a lesson in
the rewards of patience, carefully picking
out itty-bitty pieces of shell, leaving the
crabmeat lumps intact, and cooking the
béchamel sauce long on low.
Jimmy’s mother taught her sons to cook.Her
late husband had changed his name from
Brocato to Moran, hiding a misspent youth
from his mother, Jimmy’s grandmother.
A brief boxing career and a flirtation with
slot machine distribution led to a gamble
on Moran’s La Louisiane. The flamboyant
restaurateur’s instinct for publicity was
Diamond jim &
the fettuccine king
by
Kit Wohl