New
Orleans has not just recovered from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. Its
tourism is booming. More people are flocking to the city, which has more
restaurants, hotels and attractions than before the storm.
Louisiana
and city tourism officials note only 3.7 million people visited New Orleans in
2006, a year after the hurricane hit. Last summer, the number had climbed to
9.5 million and it is expected to match or exceed the pre-Katrina figure this
year.
In
addition to the opening of new attractions, including parks, museums and a
trolley line, visitors now are greeted by about 1,400 restaurants that feature
the classic Creole and Cajun dishes, as well as a wide range of contemporary
and ethnic food.
I
confess. I love New Orleans and not for the debauchery of Madri Gras, which I
have never attended. Rather, I am attracted to the centuries-old port city by
my love of travel and history, and my desire to sample its different cultures
and food. (I suspect with enough garlic and butter, New Orleans chefs can make
eating an old boot a treat.)
The
cost of traveling to New Orleans depends on how and when you want to go. I
played around with the United Airlines website and found a round-trip summer
airfare for about $480 from Bakersfield and about $230 from Los Angeles (LAX).
But
many of my trips to the city have been detours from longer, cross-country road
trips. When I am in the “neighborhood,” I’m obliged to stop. And that’s how once
again I ended up in New Orleans this spring.
But
you can only hang out on Bourbon Street so long. And, really, if you have seen
one souvenir shop, you have seen them all. This time, I went in search of the
city’s “real flavor” and that required a two-hour drive through some of
Louisiana’s most spectacular countryside.
Headed
out
Out
of New Orleans, we pointed our car southwest on U.S. 90. (If you fly to New
Orleans, you will have to rent a car, which is worth the cost.)
The
well-maintained highway and its adjoining routes comprise the Bayou Byways and
are listed on many guides as one of the nation’s most scenic drives. The
highway snakes (pun intended) through swamps and farmland, with beautiful, but
creepy-looking moss-draped forests of oak trees creating a canopy that in
places seem to engulf the asphalt. The intermittent expanses of swamps are
bordered by farmland, where all sorts of plants are grown, including pepper
plants.
The
billboards lining the highway leave no doubt that you have entered alligator
country. And the folks who live here seem to have both a healthy respect and
love for these toothy animals.
Next
come the signs about crawfish and just about any other critter that crawls out
of the Gulf of Mexico to please a person’s palate or scare them out of their
skins.
Highway
90 passes through or near places called Kraemer, a base for alligator
processing and swamp tours; Houma, the confluence of several bayous and another
base for swamp tours; Franklin, another home of bayous, swamp tours and sugarcane
growers; Shadows-on-the-Teche and its collection of antebellum homes; and
finally, Avery Island, our destination.
The
route continues west for many more miles, with additional classic Louisiana
bayou attractions. But we turned off on Louisiana 329, just east of New Iberia,
which ends at the gated entrance to Avery Island, the birthplace of one of the
region’s most distinct flavors — the peppery red sauce we know as Tabasco.
Visit
to historic spot
Tabasco
was developed on Avery Island by Edmund McIlhenny, a banker, who began
commercial production of the hot sauce after the Civil War. McIlhenny’s
descendents continue to grow the peppers, and bottle and distribute Tabasco
from their processing plant on Avery Island.
Avery
Island is not really an “island.” Instead, it is a 165-foot high dry mound, or
salt dome, surrounded by wetlands. The land was recognized as a source of salt
by Native Americans, who mined salt and sold it to other Midwestern and
Southern tribes.
Originally
called Petite Anse Island, the land was purchased in 1818 by John Craig March,
who used it to operate a sugar plantation. Through subsequent marriages, its
ownership morphed to include many family branches and its name changed to Avery
Island.
Before
the Civil War, McIlhenny married Mary Eliza Avery, the daughter of the island’s
owner. As the Civil War raged, family members fled New Orleans to live first on
the island and later in Texas.
The
island became the scene of pitched battles between Confederate and Union forces
lusting after its rich salt deposits. When the McIlhenny family returned after
the war, they found their plantation ruined, their mansion plundered and their
business destroyed.
What
remained were a few dried peppers and seeds that a soldier returning from the
U.S.- Mexican War had given McIlhenny around 1850. McIlhenny had eaten some of the
peppers with his food and saved some seeds for planting in the family’s garden
on the island. Determined to turn the peppers into income, McIlhenny combined
vinegar, Avery Island salt and mashed capsicum peppers to create a spicy sauce
that eventually was named Tabasco.
Packaging
and aging the sauce in 350 used cologne bottles, he distributed samples to
grocery wholesalers, including one in New York. On the strength of these
purchases, McIlhenny began the commercial production of Tabasco in 1868.
The
spicy sauce adorned all types of tables — from country folks to royalty. It
became the critical ingredient in such delicacies as the bloody Mary, a mixed
drink invented in New York in the 1920s. A legendary treatment for a hangover,
it includes vodka, tomato juice, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, lemon, lime,
horseradish and, of course, Tabasco.
People
don’t just “use” Tabasco on their food. They are fervently devoted to the
sauce. Consider the 1932 isolationist “Buy British” frenzy that threatened to
ban the importation of Tabasco into Britain. It caused such a stir that the ban
had to be lifted. It is said that to this day, the queen uses Tabasco pepper
sauce on her lobster cocktail.
Tabasco
Pepper Sauce and other Tabasco-branded products are sold in more than 160
countries.
After
running out of land needed for growing peppers on Avery Island in the 1960s,
the McIlhenny Co. began shipping special varieties of Avery Island capsicum
pepper seeds to countries in South America and Africa. Peppers harvested in
these areas are mashed, mixed with salt from Avery Island and fermented for
three years in white oak former whiskey barrels, before being blended with
vinegar and bottled at the Avery Island processing plant.
Checking
things out
A
visit to Avery Island includes a walking tour of the production process —
including the growing of seeds, aging, blending and bottling. The visitor’s
center includes a gift shop that features all things Tabasco, including some
items seldom found on store shelves, as well as a restaurant that offers
classic Louisiana food.
The
island is about 3 miles long and 2 ½ miles wide. It includes a 170-acre
drive-through Jungle Gardens that was developed decades ago by a McIlhenny son,
who was a naturalist. It features a variety of azaleas, camellias, bamboo, a
“Bird City” sanctuary, and even a centuries-old Buddha that was a gift to the
family in 1936.
This
article appeared in The Bakersfield Californian on Aug. 12, 2016.
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