food orleans review: Hungry Town by Tom Fitzmorris

How did a city that celebrates the traditional offerings of French Creole landmarks such as Antoine’s and Galatoire’s become an industry trendsetter? How did the 1880s-built Commander’s Palace become the hottest “new” place to dine in New Orleans a hundred years later? Mostly, it’s a combination of timing and the chef/restaurateur relationship--and Tom Fitzmorris has stories to tell. He has covered the restaurant beat for various print publications since 1972, and has discussed the city’s restaurants over the radio waves almost daily since 1979. Hungry Town includes a welcomingly brief explanation of the author’s apprenticeship and tenure writing about the city’s most important industry, and quickly gets to the good stuff--the food. But Fitzmorris’s friendships (and rejections) behind the scenes provide backstory vital to understanding the intensity of the most formative years of New Orleans restaurantism--like when Paul Prudhomme’s blackened redfish hit the scene and so many cast-iron skillets nationwide--or when Prudhomme asked onetime pal Fitzmorris to stay out of his restaurant because of “controversial” discussions held on his radio talk-show--whether K-Paul’s should, in fact, offer diners more selection than their usual two wines.

Prudhomme was not the only major player, although his recipe for blackened redfish was so popular that it eventually led to a fishing ban; the Brennan family, of Brennan’s, Mr. B.’s, Commander’s Palace, and so many other gems, has long been the city’s most contributory group of restaurateurs, with a talent for recognizing talent. Through their doors have passed some of the country’s most influential chefs, including Prudhomme, Emeril Legasse, and the late Jamie Shannon, who have themselves trained many chefs in the new generation. Hungry Town leads us into the 90s, when Legasse and Susan Spicer became the harbingers of ingredient-oriented cooking and highly descriptive menus, and then into the current decade of “sleazy chic” bistros, during which the future of the city’s food culture has been both questioned and reaffirmed, and the dress code has shifted from jacket-and-tie to the more forgiving “Katrina casual.”

New Orleans restaurants share a common repertoire, and it has been this way for decades. Fitzmorris compares the standard Creole menu pre-1980 (built on traditional shrimp remoulade, turtle soup, and trout amandine) with the post-K-Paul’s renovation, with new classics you’ll still find at most Creole bistros (crab and corn bisque, trout with pecans, and bread pudding souffle). The thing is, no matter how often a diner sees the same dishes on the menu, they’re executed well. No matter how many new “twists” a chef may add to the dish or how wildly he “reconstructs” a basic preparation like jambalaya or pecan pie, if it’s served in New Orleans, it’s usually fantastic. Not just good--fantastic. This relentless deliciousness is served up in heavenly proportion in Hungry Town: one-quarter memoir, one-quarter cookbook, and one-half entertaining history of restaurant culture. In a year when two of the three James Beard Foundation cookbook nominees in the category “American Cookery” are New Orleans chefs (John Besh and Donald Link), Hungry Town is a savory source for understanding why.