The BIG Easy

Hi, y'all.  The lovely Chris and I have just returned from a trip to the Big Easy, aka New Orleans, so if I come over all Southern from time to time in this post, I hope you will forgive me.  I'm not sure how  many of you have been there, but it's quite some place, especially if you like to party.  This was Chris's first trip, and my second , although my first trip was more years ago than I care to remember.  In between, of course, there was Katrina, which devastated the city, but fortunately barely touched the French Quarter, the historic centre and tourist magnet of New Orleans, a part of which is pictured below.  There's so much to tell in this post, that I'm not quite sure where to start, so I'm going to go with some themes, the clue to the first of which is in the title.

My regular readers will know that I like to have some fun with the titles to my posts and the message in this one will be clear to anyone who has visited New Orleans, or probably any other

city in the U.S. recently.  This is America's "obesity problem" come to life.  Now I'm no skelf (my Scottish friends will know what I mean - the rest of you will have to Google it) and I spend much of my life in Singapore - where most of the women are a U.K. size 6 and I'm a 14 - feeling outsize,  but I felt positively petite in Nawlins.  It was especially noticeable in restaurants, and I'm talking about the waiting staff as well as the diners, but when you consider the food that's generally on offer, then it's not such a surprise.  One example: New Orleans is heaven for seafood lovers, even though the BP oil spill created a huge problem for the Louisiana fishermen, and while you can find oysters served raw, it's much easier to find them fried, largely because it's much easier to find everything fried.  Now, as a native of the land of the fried Mars Bar, you may be thinking pots and kettles, but trust me on this, New Orleans  could teach Glasgow a thing or two about turning its population into heart attacks just waiting to happen.  Consider the example below.

It took Chris and me just a couple of meals to realise that ordering only one course each was the way to have any chance of finishing what we had ordered; in some places, just one starter each was plenty, but this approach is not common in the Big E.  This is a photo that I took of the table next to us one evening.  Unfortunately, because I took it from above, you don't get the full impression of how high this tower of fried seafood is, but I'd say over a foot.  The people beside us had ordered one platter for a table of four and couldn't finish it, but some tables around seemed to be ordering one per person!  Scary.  New Orleans has a great reputation for food, and there are some specialities that are worth trying to experience the local Creole cuisine, which is a blend of many different influences.  Beignets are a sort of fried doughnut, very popular served with cafe au lait, Po'boys and Muffulettas are sandwiches, the former made with a baguette and feature  fried oysters, shrimp or crayfish.  Jambalaya is a sort of stew with seafood and rice and gumbo is a soup made with similar ingredients.  There is nothing light about this cuisine!

As we were taking the photo, we got chatting to the people at the next table – a couple from New Orleans and their friends who were visiting them from Australia - one of whom turned out to be the person who developed the concept of “apparent temperature”.  Now I’d never heard of this before, but I have experienced it, especially since moving to Singapore.  The apparent temperature is a “measure of relative discomfort due to combined heat and high humidity”.  The person who put this together is one R.G. Steadman (Bob to his friends), who is also the author of the wonderfully titled “The assessment of sultriness”.  Sadly, this turns out not to be about how to compute your own vamp rating, but it is worth a read nevertheless, particularly if you live in the tropics (or New Orleans).  Bob, if you read this, thank you for pointing me in the direction of your work.  You are a true gentleman.

So, moving on to my second theme, as well as eating, the other thing that is really noticeable about the New Orleans way of life is drinking.  In most cities in the U.S. it is against the law to drink outside, in New Orleans, it's positively the norm.  Most bars serve drinks (Margaritas and Daiquiris are especially popular) in big plastic takeaway cups and everywhere you go in the French Quarter you see people sipping away.  Since many of the bars are open 24/7, you see this a lot!

Of course New Orleans has other attractions, like some wonderful architecture, most of which was fortunately untouched by Katrina, the hurricane that wreaked havoc on the area just over 5 years ago. The tour we went on covered the lower 9th ward, the area of New Orleans that was worst affected by Katrina, as well as the architectural beauties of the French Quarter and the Garden District – and what a contrast.  While everything in the latter areas is ship shape and flourishing, much of the damage that was done to the lower 9th ward, which was absolutely devastated by the flooding, has not been rectified.  Houses with holes cut in the roof (to let the residents out when the emergency services came to rescue them) are slowly rotting where they stand; schools and hospitals remain boarded up; some shops have never re-opened. It’s sad to see. But there is good news as well.  At the time of Katrina, a number of celebrities pitched in, perhaps most famously Brad Pitt, who set up a charity to help build hurricane-safe, sustainable homes for working families in the lower 9th ward.  The charity is called Make it Right; have a look at their website – it’s inspiring.