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(Lively blues music)
Mena: Just beyond where
the Mississippi River flows out to the Gulf of Mexico
lies New Orleans, Louisiana,
the most unique city in the American South
or, as many residents here see it,
the Caribbean North.
You don't have to be born on the bayou
to know that The Big Easy is clearly different.
It's jazz floating and riffing in the cross-currents
of Indigenous, French, Spanish, African, Caribbean,
and Southern cultures.
Visitors can feel it in the humidity, the architecture,
and taste it in the remarkable food.
For whatever reasons, what cooks in NOLA tends to stay in NOLA.
The long traditions and palates of the Creole and Cajun
don't export much.
The famed gumbo and beignets are rare outside of town,
and they're certainly best eaten here.
We hit a lot of cities where plant-based cooking
is well-established.
But checking into New Orleans,
it's clearly in the early stages of its journey.
So we're meeting up with OG vegan chefs
planting seeds of change in the backyards of the bayou.
Welcome to the Big Easy.
♪
(Upbeat rock music)
I'm Mena Massoud.
I'm travelling across the world
and eating my way through
some of the coolest cities to show you how beautiful meals,
talented chefs and restaurateurs
are making plant-based living
delicious and attainable.
So, join me as I show you how the world
is evolving vegan.
♪
(Dynamic music)
♪
Just steps away from the natural levee of the Mississippi river
is Breads on Oak, a creator of wonderful organic vegan baking.
It's run by Chamain O'Mahony
and her husband Sean, a former marine.
They're at the forefront
of bringing plant-based foods to New Orleans.
Hello!
Hey! You must be Sean and Chamain?
Yeah.
Mena: Loving this power couple vibe here, I gotta say.
So is this all plant-based here?
Everything you see.
Sean: We have tartines.
These are cinnamon rolls.
And then, we make various brioche-type doughnuts.
This is amazing!
And the bread.
Mena: Look at that! The breads!
Chamain: Sourdough breads. Sean: Organic in-house.
Mena: Oh, my gosh!
So tell me about Breads on Oak.
We didn't start out all vegan.
As we built clients
we'd slowly swap out a non-vegan item
with a vegan item
and we'd try to match it and make it better.
And then, eventually we went 100% vegan.
I love it!
So you evolved vegan quite literally.
And then, a lot of people that aren't vegan
they come here to eat and they just enjoy the food.
Sean, I need you to just hand me something.
Sean: How about a Boston cream
with our house-made pastry cream?
Mena: I mean, I love a Boston cream donut.
♪
Wow. Chamain: It's like a pillow.
Mena: It's creamy on the inside.
You can tell it's so fresh.
We're off to an incredible start, I must say.
What's next?
Well, probably our best-selling item is our tea biscuit.
The biscuit? We have three varieties.
This is blueberry
and here's a morning glory,
which is loaded with walnuts, raisins, carrots.
And this is orange cranberry.
We actually grow the oranges and use the rind
in this tea biscuit.
It smells amazing.
Oh, look at that.
Nice and flaky.
♪
Mmm.
Perfect morning snack.
With a coffee!
Sean: All day-- yeah.
Mena: Mmm.
Sean: We make our own buttermilk
in house, and we use that in our biscuits
and that'll be part of the process that we're going
to go back there and do today.
We're going to make biscuits?
We're going to make biscuits.
American biscuits-- we're going to have
a Southern breakfast today.
Okay, alright, well, I'm going to get back there.
I can't wait to make some of these biscuits.
Sounds great. Let's go.
♪
We'll start out mixing all our dry ingredients.
Am I using all of this or are we measuring?
You're going to use all of this.
So, we'll pour all of that flour into the bowl.
Mena: Southern biscuits
use soft wheat, which has nearly half
the gluten of standard wheat,
creating a lighter, fluffier biscuit.
After the flour, we add baking soda and salt.
Let's go ahead and whisk this around well.
Mena: Okay, alright.
Sean: And we're going to cut in the butter into the flour.
We have very cold butter, right out of the freezer.
Mena: Their house butter is made of a blend of coconut oils.
And you've shredded the butter almost.
We shredded it.
It just...
Mena: Helps work it in.
Sean: ...helps at the table.
So, I'll give you this.
So, I just... do a little bit of this?
Just start breaking it up
and scraping the sides, bringing it in...
and mixing it as you go.
So, tell me, when did you and Chamain go plant-based?
Almost 35 years ago.
I was in the Marines, I was going in for a physical,
and the doctor said, "You know, Lieutenant,
you're in great shape
but your cholesterol is really high."
And I went home, I told Chamain that day
and she said well, we're going to do
something about it.
She decided we're going to go vegetarian.
I said, Chamain, you know, I'm in--
I'm in the Marines...
(Laughing) I need food, you know?
(Laughing) And...
I need calories, Chamain.
I don't know if this is going to work.
Sure enough, and I stayed vegetarian through
and we both did.
And then eventually over time, we went full vegan.
It's kept us with energy and at the same time
it's nice for the environment.
Wow, that's amazing.
Alright, how am I doing here on this?
So, feel around and how does it feel?
Do you feel little peas of butter in there
and everything's still kind of good and cold?
I guess, yes.
Sean: Okay, so let's go ahead
and make ourselves a nice well.
Mena: Okay.
Sean: We'll add our buttermilk.
So, there's like a soy milk and apple cider vinegar mix
that clabbers the soy milk,
just like buttermilk is clabbered.
And when you say clabbered, what do you mean?
I think of clabbered, I think of someone beating someone up.
What does clabbered mean?
It's close to clobber.
So, clabber, we're actually souring it,
and we're getting the proteins
to separate from the whey.
Mena: Look at that-- you see the curds in there.
Wow.
There we go. Amazing.
Okay, now you want to start folding the flour in.
And a key thing with biscuits: it's not a lot of mixing
or it'll become rubbery.
You've done this before.
(Laughing)
I've watched enough food shows to know.
(Chuckle)
Chef Sean likes to ensure his biscuits are always
a uniform height, so he uses a specially built
wooden frame to roll out the dough
with military precision.
Let's cut this biscuit.
There you go.
Mena: It's very satisfying.
♪
Last one. Now, the remnant?
Yes?
We call that a doodad and we just kind of put it together
and we stick it on the end and we got something to taste real
quick to make sure we didn't miss any ingredients.
Mena: There you go, that last one there.
Now we'll just toss that guy--
Where do we put the doodad?
We'll give him front row seat right there.
(Chuckling)
Alright, there we go.
So, now we're going to the oven.
Off to the oven.
Mena: The biscuits and the doodad
bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
I'll come over and I can open the door for ya.
Yeah.
Sean: And then you want to bend at your knees.
If you're not bent, your arm will go at an angle,
you can burn.
So-- but if you come bend,
you can go straight in and pull straight out.
I'm going to bend, I'm going to bend in.
Alright.
♪
Mena: Is that a good bend there?
Perfect.
It's a good job.
And then we'll slide that right into the speed rack.
Mena: Alright.
Look at that, they came out beautiful.
Sean: Those came out really nice.
Now, we can try a doodad.
Make sure that we got everything in our mix.
What do you think?
Mm-hmm, that's a doodad approval.
Mena: Alright.
Up next, assembling the sandwich.
I stack up the garbanzo bean patty,
the tofu scramble,
and provolone-style cheese,
all before tossing this biscuit tower
back in the oven to melt and get "extra-licious".
Oh, look at that.
(Smooth instrumental music)
Okay.
Ah, that looks amazing.
The reveal.
Sean: Now, that's breakfast.
Okay. Cheers.
Cheers, to a Southern New Orleans breakfast.
Definitely.
Mmm!
That is exquisite.
Doing it? Mmm.
The butter biscuit warmed up with the sausage
and the tofu, the melted cheese.
Oh man, this is heaven in a bite.
Really.
I love it. Mena: This is phenomenal.
This must be a best seller here.
Sean: It's a best seller.
Mena: Fantastic.
I'll definitely be back.
Wonderful, we'd love to have you back.
Alright, take this to go with me.
I'm going to finish this.
(Chuckle)
Incredible.
I already know I'm going to hit this place again
before I leave town.
NOLA, we're just getting started.
♪
(Twangy bluegrass music)
Mena: You hear so much about
Southern hospitality that I guess
I shouldn't be surprised that my next stop
is dining in someone's home.
The Mississippi Vegan, Timothy Pakron.
He's one of the most prominent vegan influencers
on social media, as well as a cookbook author
and talented food photographer.
Hey, hey, Timothy.
How's it going?
Mena: Timothy's inviting us over
for a home-cooked meal and a tour of his garden,
alongside his friendly rescue cat, Chi Chi.
Wow, how high is this bamboo?
Like, 30 feet?
Timothy: Yeah, 30, 40 feet for sure.
Mena: Oh my gosh.
This is like the best entrance to-- what the heck?
You're not kidding here!
Timothy: My little garden.
Mena: Little?
(Laughing) This is amazing.
Timothy: It's like a little private sanctuary back here.
Mena: Yeah, it's like a jungle garden.
We're in middle of November.
I have tomato plants, I have okra.
My basil's still going.
So, we do have a long growing season
and I'm thankful for that.
Mena: Yeah, everything looks lush right now.
This garden's taught me a lot, about cooking and ingredients.
(Upbeat instrumental music)
And you didn't live in New Orleans
your whole life, right?
No-- so, my family's from here
but I grew up in Mississippi.
Hence your first book title, the Mississippi Vegan.
Yep. I wrote my first cookbook there,
but then I moved here six years ago.
I got these set up right when I moved in and I've been growing
all kinds of things.
I have this Brazilian starfish pepper and I started from seed.
They're tiny!
Timothy: (Chuckles) I know.
But you can see they kind of have this peculiar shape.
And this is how big they get?
Yeah. Sometimes they get a little bigger,
but, yeah, this is about the size.
Wow. And you got some cilantro here as well?
Timothy: That's, yeah, that's cilantro.
Good eye.
And what is this tower of okra here?
These are honker okras here.
Timothy: Yeah, they're huge.
So this is a Jamaican variety and I'm letting it go to seed.
So I'm letting the pods get really big.
And then when they dry out, they kind of crack open and then
you can plant the seeds again.
The other cool thing about okra is these young tender leaves
are totally edible.
Mena: Yeah.
Timothy: And so you can put those
in gumbo, stir-fry, they're delicious.
Mena: This is amazing!
Timothy: I have some radish right here.
And I actually love the radish tops, they're delicious.
Mena: Yeah, yeah.
And then this is burgundy okra.
Burgundy okra?
Timothy: That's burgundy okra.
Mena: I've never seen that before.
Timothy: Yeah.
Other than being an amazing cook,
you obviously know how to grow your own stuff.
Where did that come from?
How did you teach yourself all this?
Well, I think it all started with cooking.
I just wanted to find out where the ingredients came from.
Right.
Timothy: And then it just, it deepen
my relationship with it.
When you start something from seed and you watch it grow
and then you harvest it, it's just very satisfying.
Yeah. Would you consider this organic?
Like, do you put any insecticides,
pesticides in here?
I don't put anything.
I would consider it more than organic because--
More than organic.
Like, what would you call that?
But yeah, I really let things go.
You can see, like,
there's some caterpillars eating this beet plant.
But it's a beautiful butterfly and that's a host plant.
So I just grow enough to share.
Mena: Timothy's a generous guy,
whether he's feeding caterpillars or sharing meals
with guests from afar.
Today, he's down to share some of his world-famous gumbo
and I can not wait.
♪
Oh my goodness.
Timothy: Gumbo!
Oh, that smells amazing. I want to swim in it.
Timothy: Here we have my classic gumbo.
We have different mushrooms, so we have maitake,
trumpet and then shiitake mushrooms in the gumbo.
And then we also have shiitake bacon on top,
which is a nice little crunch and a little umami boost.
And then we have a curry leaf and bay leaf baked rice.
Mena: Gumbo comes from
the West African word for okra.
Gumbos use okra as a thickener or central ingredient.
It's like a chonky, spicy stew,
somewhere between soup and gravy,
and smells like an unbelievable, multi-layered flavour sensation.
And this fresh focaccia.
So in New Orleans, traditionally they serve gumbo
with this like fluffy po' boy bread.
But I thought I would do my very own sourdough focaccia.
♪
Ah, it smells so good.
♪
Mm.
(Munching)
Wow.
Out of this world, man.
You can smell the spice from those peppers in there.
You can see the okra.
And then you get a lot of the woodiness from the mushrooms
in there and I think shiitake bacon as well.
This is my first ever gumbo in New Orleans.
Timothy: Right.
And I think it'll be my last because I don't want anything
to ruin this moment.
I'm so glad you like it.
Mena: Is this recipe
in Mississippi Vegan, your book?
Yup.
So this is the classic gumbo and I actually put it on the blog,
so it's on MississippiVegan.com.
Mm.
Timothy: And, yeah, and it's--
And it's frickin' fantastic! That's what you should say.
It's in my book and it's frickin' fantastic.
It's so good.
Timothy: Yeah, it's a flavour bomb.
My mom taught me how to make gumbo when I was like 15.
The foundation of the gumbo that she taught me was vegan.
She didn't say that, but the foundation
is brown flour and oil, celery, bell peppers,
onion, garlic, bay leaves, paprika.
And then it was at the end she would put in
the animal products.
So I just put mushrooms in instead.
♪
How'd you find being vegan growing up in the South?
People were always like, Mississippi Vegan, like,
that doesn't make any sense.
And I'm like, I grew up blueberry picking,
blackberry picking, eating watermelons,
sweet potatoes, peanuts, okra.
Okra has always been one of my favourite vegetables.
I mean, I grew up eating fried okra.
So when I say all those things, those are all beautiful,
you know, examples of plants that are vegan.
Well, it goes back to this concept that people have
vegan food every day, they just don't think of it as vegan.
Totally.
Have you seen the South embrace vegan culture
and restaurants and community?
I feel like it is slowly happening here.
And in New Orleans,
in particular, it's gotten so much better.
We're still not where the big cities are,
but there is a shift happening.
I think people hadn't seen southern dishes veganised
the way that I was doing it.
Mm-hmm.
And people started following me and they were really excited.
And so that made me really excited.
I feel like vegan food has had a huge breakthrough because
of social media and internet.
And now people see it and they're like,
oh, that actually looks really good.
I want to thank you for, you know,
letting me in your home.
Of course.
And letting me experience a homemade southern meal.
I always tell people I'd rather them come to my home
to have cooking because I think this is the most special, so.
Mena: Oh yeah, I agree.
♪
(Trumpet instrumental music)
Mena: If you spend any time
rolling down Bourbon Street
or garbling the speakeasies of New Orleans,
you'll realise the outsized impact the city's had on
the drinking culture of America.
I mean, these streets are where
the ubiquitous cocktail was invented.
I'm about to get a liquid lesson from educator Elizabeth Pearce,
who's taking me to the Loa Bar, located in
the International House Hotel, the world's first trade centre.
The wood is tended by mixologist Abigail Gullo, who sees drinks
as a form of art and history.
This was the very first craft cocktail bar in New Orleans.
We opened up 25 years ago.
This is a sacred place for crafting beautiful
handmade cocktails that tell the story of New Orleans.
The story of the city through cocktails.
Elizabeth: Yes. That's my favourite way to tell a story.
Yeah, history in a glass.
We're going to start with the St. Charles Hotel Punch.
Abigail: We're going to do
a little lemon juice in here, simple syrup.
We're going to do cognac. And then we have a little port.
♪
Two St. Charles Hotel punches. Enjoy, cheers.
Mena: Beautiful, thank you.
♪
Ah, that's always so good.
Wow! Stiff, but refreshing.
It kind of tastes like a boozy sangria.
I truly don't think I've ever tasted a sangria this good.
I know it's not sangria, but the way you described it...
You can drink a lot of these.
The St. Charles Hotel Punch is invented at
Mena: Right. the St. Charles Hotel,
which is no longer here,
but it was near where we are right now.
The St. Charles Hotel was the first great American hotel
that was built in the 1830s.
And the reason that I say it was American
is because it was really big.
New Orleans was the city in America
in which it is the easiest to get richest the quickest.
In the late 1700s,
Haiti was one of the largest producers
of sugar in the world.
And they had a slave revolt.
So, all of those French speaking Catholic sugar makers
come to New Orleans,
the closest French speaking Catholic port
where you can cultivate sugarcane.
Sugar at the time was referred to as white gold.
And in a town of 120,000 people,
we have about 40,000 people coming here annually
to do business
and 40,000 people got to sleep somewhere.
You don't build the largest hotel in the United States
unless you know you're going to fill it.
And there's no better indicator of what New Orleans
became than the construction of the St. Charles Hotel.
That's fantastic!
Elizabeth: Yes.
You're a historical encyclopaedia!
Elizabeth: Thank-- thank you.
I love it. I mean, the brandy helps.
Yeah, of course, right?
Let's keep the cocktail train moving.
What are we having next?
The next drink is the Sazerac.
It's the official cocktail of New Orleans.
What? This is the official cocktail of the city?
By law.
Yes, in 2008, the Louisiana Legislature passed this
resolution making the Sazerac the city's official cocktail.
And it is appropriate because each ingredient in this drink is
connected with a story of the city.
♪
You have the Peychaud bitters from Mr. Antoine Peychaud
who lived here.
You have Herbsaint from Mr. Marion Legendre
who lived here.
We were a French city drinking French brandy.
Mena: Yes.
Becoming an American city drinking American rye whiskey.
The drink follows the timeline of the city.
♪
Cheers.
(Glasses clinking)
♪
Wow, ma'am, wow. Yes.
That is a stiff-- I thought the first one was stiff.
This is stiff. I love it.
This might be my go-to now.
So, visitors who say, oh, I want to make a Sazerac at home,
do I have to use Peychaud bitters?
And I say, yes.
(Laughing)
Because if you don't, then you can't call it a Sazerac.
There are very few other bitters that are gonna give it
this really pretty red.
Alright, what cocktail are we doing next?
Because I can't wait to hear the climax of the story.
Sure, it's the Hurricane.
Here's what I can tell you if you come to New Orleans
and you order a Hurricane.
It's gonna be red and it's gonna have rum in it
and after that, no promises.
(Laughs)
Well, the secret to a true Hurricane to me is passionfruit.
It's got to have passionfruit puree.
And that looks like very good passionfruit.
It's real passionfruit puree.
A little bit of satsuma juice, the local citrus
that grows here.
This is the house made hibiscus syrup.
It adds colour.
I'm adding some white rum and some aged rum.
♪
Both: Cheers.
♪
Wow. That's fantastic.
This is the kind of drink I want to have on the beach.
Yes, I mean, it's essentially a rum punch.
And does the Hurricane,
does it resonate with people now even more
just because of Hurricane Katrina and the long history
of hurricanes in New Orleans?
What's complicated about the Hurricane is that visitors
know the Hurricane,
but in general, locals don't drink it.
Like, you've had the Sazerac, right?
The Sazerac and the Hurricane are at opposite ends
of the taste spectrum.
Yes.
And Bourbon Street is a street you can walk down.
Well, you're not gonna really take a modified Old Fashioned...
Yes.
...as you stroll down a street, but having a rum punch
that is kind of a friendlier drink.
So, visitors love it because they have wonderful memories
of Bourbon Street.
This was the funnest way to learn about the history
of New Orleans.
I'm going to pick up my favourite drink to cheers you,
the Sazerac.
It's my new go-to stiff drink, I think.
Both: Cheers.
♪
(Upbeat instrumental music)
♪
Treme.
One of America's most historically important
neighbourhoods.
At the heart of it, you'll find an agent of change,
the vegan outpost I-Tal Garden.
It's run by Rastafarian Chef Ra,
who brings his plant-based lens to cooking Creole
and Cajun classics.
What kind of food do you guys do here at I-Tal?
Right, so it's mostly like vegan New Orleans style soul food.
Wow, look at that.
Ra: The avocado fries are one of a kind.
A lot of people like them here.
We batter them in a chickpea batter, toss them in panko
and fry them with our remoulade sauce.
♪
(Munching)
Mm.
Nice, huh?
Mena: Very good.
Right, crispy. Mena: Mm-hmm.
Creamy.
Mena: It just kind of oozes and melts in your mouth
because of the avocado.
And of course the sauce is terrific.
The remoulade.
A lot of nice spices in there.
It's just like smoked paprika, lemon juice, Creole mustard.
Creole has a great influence in New Orleans cooking.
You'll hear that a lot. Creole and Cajun.
Mena: Of course. Yeah, yeah.
So, we're here in a unique part of town.
It's called Treme.
Yeah, Treme actually has a lot of history.
It's one of the oldest black established neighbourhoods
in the country. Wow.
Right, back in slavery time, my ancestors were able
to buy their freedom
and that's where we were for the most part in the Treme area.
A lot of our ancestors came from West Africa
and they came to New Orleans
and they brought their spices and customs with them, you know,
and it's here to stay.
♪
It's the quinoa jambalaya.
It's a traditional New Orleans dish.
A lot of people normally do it with rice, but I try to look
for more healthier kicks in dishes.
And it originated in West Africa known as the Jollof.
You ever heard of Jollof rice?
Yeah, I have heard of Jollof.
So, that's where this comes from.
New Orleans is a big gumbo pot.
So, we had many cultures had influences on different types
of styles of dishes.
♪
Mm! I can eat quinoa all day if it tasted like this.
Right.
And then there's definitely a kick.
Ra: It's the seitan andouille sausage.
It just gives it more of a bang of a flavour.
Tell me where the name I-Tal came from.
So, I-Tal is a Rastafarian inspired name.
I-Tal just means vital as in to eat healthy and live vibrant.
♪
Mena: So, this is your Cajun pasta.
It kind of looks like an alfredo pasta.
Exactly.
It's like an alfredo with a Cajun spin.
♪
Wow.
It's incredibly creamy.
I definitely taste some nuts.
Mm-hmm, exactly. Cashew.
It's really, really nice.
Then you've got the crabless crab cakes which adds
like a nice, breaded touch.
This is a Cajun comfort dish.
Yes, yes, a lot of people love this pasta.
I get a lot of clientele
that's not even plant-based and they'll eat something
and they'll be like, wow.
They'll just come back, you know?
Yeah, once they try it once, they're hooked.
Yeah, yeah, they're amazed.
You know, they think about plant-based,
they think about not being seasoned or you know, bland
and we're far from that.
Mena: And with a final bite of that mouth-watering Cajun pasta,
it's easy to see how Chef Ra is changing minds and palates
in his community.
Just steps away from the winding narrows
of the ever shifting Mississippi.
♪
Speaking of, I'm going on a tour of the Mississippi with
Captain Richie on his traditional
Louisiana trawler boat.
And that's all I know right now.
I know I'm going to get on a boat with you,
but where we going?
So today we're going to head off to Neptune Pass.
And Neptune is a new distributary of the Mississippi.
Just so much wildlife and life there.
Things are looking healthy there,
it's really encouraging to see.
Alright, well let's go check it out.
Richie: Yeah, let's do it.
Mena: Look, I've got one of the singularly best gigs
in the world.
I tour around, eat delicious food,
and talk to fascinating people.
But we travel to these spectacular cities to talk grub,
surrounded by these mind-boggling vistas.
And sometimes we just have to part to the flavour talk
for a minute and take advantage of just being here.
Woo! Sorry, y'all.
Mena: The Mississippi, the most storied waterway in America
that stretches from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
I think what makes the Mississippi River Delta unique
in particular is it juts out so far into the sea, right?
So we're talking like, 120 kilometre long River Delta.
So you have this like, freshwater intertidal wetland,
and there's really nothing else like it on earth.
Mena: Thing is, a shift in perspective, getting outside the
restos actually puts the city in context.
Out here in the Bayou surrounding New Orleans, you
start to understand the impact the perpetual vigorous change
in the local waters and land has on the city and its cuisine.
This is brand-new land, it's just a few months old.
Maybe from the spring of this year.
So the river is well on its way to making a new Delta here.
We're down here at the confluence of the
Mississippi River in Neptune Pass.
And what's happening here, there's probably another 50
or 60 kilometres to get the sea, right, where it's just like,
two or three right here.
This is a shortcut, it cuts straight into the sea here?
That's it.
This was a tiny little cut, maybe 10 metres wide.
And what happened is, we had about 10 years of high rivers.
And the river was quietly doing river things, right?
It was deepening this cut under the surface out of sight.
Wow.
The nature of a Delta is to change.
Mena: Change is the one thing that New Orleans is used to.
The constant is shifting shorelines, drastic flooding,
new cut channels, and the locals just adapt.
Everything's influx, the ever evolving Delta creates
an environment and a city unlike anywhere else.
(Dynamic music)
Mena: The historic French Market.
This intoxicating jumble of alleys, vendors, spice and cafés
was first established as an Indigenous trading post, and
evolved into a more commercial hub in the late 1700s
as French and Spanish ships arrived.
Ever since, immigrants from Africa, Europe and the
Caribbean have made it their own inimitable bizarre.
Once known as the meat market, nowadays it houses
a health-conscious café, Meals From The Heart,
run by Chef Jay Doucette,
which serves up some regional favourites.
You here for some vegan beignets?
You know it, exactly.
Come on back with us, my man.
Alright.
Chef Jay got me. I'm all about the beignet.
If you've never heard of them, beignets are basically the
donut's French cousin, made with choux pastry,
and piled high with powdered sugar.
You have to have a beignet down here.
Beignets are everywhere.
We don't really do regular donuts here in New Orleans.
Alright, alright, let's do it.
Let's get into it.
You're one of the only places in New Orleans, if not the only
place that advertises vegan beignets.
Jay: Most beignets are not going to be vegan.
So they're going to have butter, and they're going to have milk
in them traditionally.
So here we found the substitution for the butter,
substitution for the milk,
and a substitution for the powdered sugar,
which traditional powdered sugar has bone char in it.
Yeah, that's true.
Table salt and table sugar, a lot of people don't know,
they use animal bones to refine them.
Yes, our vegan powdered sugar doesn't.
It's completely vegan all the way.
Right now I am just forming the flour, and then we're going to
roll it out.
Mena: Though the dough's prepped in similar fashion,
there's no mistaking the beignet for a donut.
They're cut totally differently, and there's definitely no
beignet holes.
What we use is this really fancy roller here--
Nice.
Jay: --to make our beignet.
Mena: Make sure they're nice and even?
Jay: Yes.
But here's the thing, it really doesn't matter what
shape your beignet is, as long as it tastes good.
Mena: Exactly.
Are you cooking these? You're frying these up?
Sure, I'll fry 'em up.
Yeah, why not? I'll fry that.
That's another key difference.
Beignets have a darker finish than donuts,
which gives them a harder crust.
Chef Jay uses olive oil instead of vegetable oil
to fry his beignets.
Alright, here we go, beignets done. Boom!
Look at that, golden brown.
And where the common donut is glazed, beignets get a hefty
dose of powdered sugar dropped on top.
Like, avalanche hefty.
You tell me when to stop!
You got a little ways to go.
Really?
Yeah, so typically it's not gonna be considered a beignet
unless you have powdered sugar on your body after eating it.
So you're going to need that much powdered sugar.
Alright, that good right there?
Jay: That looks good.
Mena: Okay, thanks to Chef Jay, I've got a plate full of
snow capped pastry ready to go.
To try them out, I've invited Zella Palmer to the market
for a sampling.
She's a food historian, educator, and author who works
to preserve Nola's multicultural culinary legacy.
We got a lot to talk about, but I just made these
vegan beignets.
Zella: Oh my goodness.
I want you to try them. I haven't tried them yet either.
So...
Okay, you're not in New Orleans if you don't get
a beignet.
Right? Exactly. I'm so excited.
Zella: Mm! You did this?
Mm, I did this.
Okay! I see you. Mm, this is good.
How does it compare to a regular beignet?
It tastes exactly the same.
You know, Meals From The Heart is really special
and they know what they're doing.
So, you know, just to have these in the city means a lot
in a really non-vegan town.
So tell me about the New Orleans food scene.
How has the food scene changed
from your historical perspective?
What I love about New Orleans is they hold onto their cultures
and traditions.
And so when you think about Creole culture here in
New Orleans, it's very strong.
Each area has its own gumbo and its own story.
Each family has their own recipe.
And not only that, when enslaved Africans came here, Indigenous
folks, you know, that was a beautiful hodgepodge and mix of
people that love their culture and tradition.
Even when you just think of the history of fritters,
fried fritters, I mean, this is the history of Africa.
And when you think about the first enslaved Africans, they
came to the United States, they came with that cultural memory
and brought that to this new world.
And when you talk about things like gumbo,
things like po' boys, things like beignets...
You're making my mouth water.
Right?
I mean, we're here at the epicentre of food.
You know, are these dishes something that you're only going
to find here in New Orleans?
Well, we don't like to export New Orleans food.
So, you know, don't try it.
(Laughter)
And what about the vegan scene specifically here
in New Orleans? How have you seen that change?
Well obviously Hurricane Katrina, you know,
changed a lot in New Orleans.
We've seen more vegan restaurants pop up,
which is amazing.
But then when you look at the history of New Orleans,
we were farmers, you know?
There were, in Louisiana, Black farmers were everywhere.
I mean, that's a huge part of American history.
We didn't eat meat every day.
We only ate on the weekends for special occasions.
We couldn't afford meat like that.
My parents say the same thing.
You know, from Egypt in the 50s, my dad would tell me,
"You could always tell the rich kids at school
because they had egg sandwiches
and everybody else had bean sandwiches.
Right.
So only really wealthy families had meat and animal products.
Yeah.
Alright, well as we dig into this last piece of beignet here,
thank you for taking the time because to sit down with someone
like you to actually explain the history and learn about
New Orleans, I think it's one of the most historically rich
places in America I've ever visited.
We're happy to have you here. (Laughing)
Mena: Oh, thank you.
♪
You did a great job.
♪
I'm proud of myself. You should be.
I'm proud of myself, they're good, they've very good.
♪
(Music fades)
(Relaxing instrumental music)
Mena: New Orleans' renowned 9th ward was hit by some of the
worst, catastrophic flooding of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
In some areas, the recovery is still ongoing.
In spots, though, vibrant eateries and galleries
have popped up and are thriving!
I'm here to visit food truck savant Chef Whitt,
who runs her business in both LA and NOLA,
and knows what's cooking on both coasts
at the local Trap Kitchen.
Hey Chef Whitt.
Hey, Mena, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
We're at the wonderful Trap Kitchen.
What is that, that's not Voodoo Vegan,
because you have a food truck as well.
Right, right.
Trap Kitchen is a coop kitchen that allows a bunch of different
chefs from the community to kind of use the space,
put whatever fits for them.
We like to do supper clubs and pop clubs here and then when
we're doing a lot of the larger festivals in New Orleans,
like French Quarter Fest and things like that,
we'll do all our prep
in here and then take it out to the field.
Well I want to try some of this souther Voodoo Vegan food,
what can I have?
Well how about a Po Boy?
Po Boys are like New Orleans, like, staple dish.
Now I'm in for a Po Boy, let's do it. Let's do it.
Mena: The Po Boy is a New Orleans sandwich
on a baguette-style bun, or French bread,
served with remoulade and whatever fixings you like.
It was invented by former streetcar drivers who served
them for free to striking union brethren with the call,
'Here comes another Po Boy'.
It's evolved over the years, but it's still
a classic crowd-pleaser.
We're using a plant-based shrimp made from Jack Fruit.
Jack Fruit is an east-Asian vegetable, kind of similar to
cassava or yucca, very starchy, but what they do with this is
they mix it with a little tapioca flour, some brown sugar,
then it has this amazing texture, I'll let you see.
Mena: Oh yeah, it looks exactly like cooked shrimp.
Zella: It kind of mimics, yeah.
And it's got, like, a fish,
kind of, fleshy-like texture so it's great.
We love it.
First up, we're going to throw a few shrimp in the dry batter.
Mena: Okay.
Then we're going to batter these up here
and then I'ma let you help me out
and we're going to throw those into the wet batter.
Mena: Okay, okay. So dry...
Just the shrimp though, don't take all that flour with you.
I got it, I got it.
Right, look at you, a professional.
And then you're going to take the spoon
and we're just going to mix these.
So this is a slurry; two parts batter and one part liquid.
Just 'til it, kind of, makes it a little thick.
And you put it back in.
That's how I know these are going to be good.
Right.
So you do a double-dry?
Exactly.
So I'm expecting these to be...
Zella: Extra crispy.
Mena: ...extra crispiness, right.
We drop the konjac "shrimp" into the fryer for 30 seconds,
just long enough to cook the batter
and make 'em nice and crispy.
Zella: We've got our shrimp nice and golden brown.
We're just going to place four in our sandwich.
Mena: Okay.
And how did you transition into a vegan diet?
I went plant-based sheerly for vanity reasons.
(Laughing)
You're the first person to say that, that's great.
I lived in Puerto Rico for a while
and when I lived in Puerto Rico I was living, okay?
I came back to the States like 40 pounds heavier
and so I did a plant-based cleanse and I did it for a week.
And I'm not going to lie, I lost like ten pounds.
It was so good that I decided I would do it for
another week and then another week.
We're like six years deep in this thing.
I love it, I'm here.
Last but certainly not least, we're going
to get our Voodoo sauce.
And is that a mayo-base there?
So it is.
Voodoo sauce is like a remoulade.
Remoulade is super popular
in New Orleans and we put it on everything.
Like a classic French sauce.
Zella: Right.
Mena: Most remoulades are mayo-based.
Chef Whitt's Voodoo sauce is soy-mayo infused with
horseradish and chillis.
Alright, let me get some of this Voodoo sauce.
Zella: Sauce it up, sauce it up.
Mena: I'm saucing this Po Boy to eleven!
Time to crush this thing.
Mena: Mmm...
That was a disappointing bite.
I'm going to need you to just...
Mena: Just go for it?
...just attack that thing.
There you go.
Mm-hmm.
That's what I'm talking about.
(Unclear), now you need a napkin?
(Laughing)
♪
The shrimp obviously is the star of the sandwich.
Right.
Mena: The batter, it has a perfect amount of spice to it.
It tastes exactly like shrimp.
You can't tell me that doesn't look like shrimp?
It looks like shrimp.
Zella: It literally does.
And it tastes like shrimp.
Zella: The best.
♪
Mena: Great job. Thanks!
Mena: That Po Boy was pure voo-doo!
Let's see how it stacks up against the competition.
♪
The Oak Street Po Boy Festival is now in its fifteenth year.
It attracts nearly 50,000 visitors each year
to the Pidgin Town district where the Po Boy
is perennially re-interpreted by local chefs...
including one familiar face.
♪
Mena: Hey, Sean, good to see you man.
Sean: Welcome to the Po Boy Fest.
This is amazing and it all goes to charity?
All goes to charity.
Mena: Well I got to have one more Po Boy
before I get out of New Orleans.
We have a char-grilled mushroom with house-made blue cheese.
Oh...
♪
Mena: Two vegan Po Boys down and both delicious.
Let's just say everyone's a winner.
Mostly my stomach.
♪
In a way, it's no surprise to see Sean here.
New Orleans is a community town,
so half the chefs are here on the street,
slinging Po Boys.
♪
They say you gotta be in New Orleans to eat New Orleans.
The same goes for cooking New Orleans.
A savoury gumbo pot of flavours and cultures,
that brings its history along as it changes and evolves.
Both: Cheers.
That, like the Mississippi at its heart,
is always carving new channels.
♪
(Ticking)
♪