By Wesley Harris
South Louisiana cuisine is renowned for its bold flavors with hearty dishes like jambalaya, gumbo, étouffée, shrimp Creole, and all manner of seafood. The celebrity of the food south of Ville Platte would have you believe North Louisianans don’t know how to eat.
I disagree. I’m perfectly happy with a plate of what most people consider “soul food.” What I always called “real food.” It never came from a box. Mostly, it’s what our ancestors raised in the back yard.
Especially in the summer, I crave purple hull peas, fried okra, squash casserole, watermelon, Ruston peaches, and the other fruits and vegetables I grew up on, especially when I ate at my grandmother’s.
Not to be outdone by the Cajun and Creole fare of down south, North Louisiana has an official meal reminiscent of what my grandmother fed me. Simple fare but filling and tasty.
Chef Hardette Harris of Bossier City created the official meal from regional dishes that showcase North Louisiana’s culinary heritage. The menu offers a mix-and-match of main dishes, sides, and desserts representing North Louisiana home cooking. The meal also incorporates some of Louisiana’s other official food symbols such as the Natchitoches meat pie, mayhaw, and strawberries.
The official North Louisiana state meal was established in 2015 by the Louisiana Legislature. State Representative Gene Reynolds of Dubberly took Chef Harris’s list, converted it into a bill and got it passed in the Legislature to recognize the culinary uniqueness of the North Louisiana.
Reynolds’s bill serves the purpose of recognizing “the proud cuisines birthed from the mix of ethnic heritages and identities that, blended together, produce these recipes for delightfully edible comestibles.”
Oklahoma is the only other state to officially recognize a state meal.
I ate many meals at my grandmother’s table. No sandwiches, fast food, or other shortcuts for her. If you ate at her house, you got the full deal cooked on a stove. The official North Louisiana Meal covers nearly everything served at her table. She would have added fried pork chops and fried peach pies.
For the cornbread, fresh butter made from the cow she milked daily. And that cornbread—cooked in two tablespoons of bacon grease in a heavy black skillet. Then to the broiler under the oven to brown the top perfectly. Cut in the shape of a triangle. None of that sweet stuff that comes in a box.
I yearn for more restaurants to serve the “real food” my grandmother cooked.
Menu of North Louisiana’s State Meal
APPETIZER: Mini Natchitoches Meat Pie
MAIN DISH: Fried Catfish – Fried Chicken – Barbeque Ribs – Barbeque Chicken – Barbeque Smoked Sausage – Baked Ham
GREENS: Cabbage – Collards – Mustards – Turnips (cooked with smoked neck bones and/or smoked ham hocks)
PEAS & BEANS: Blackeye – Purple hull – Pinto – Butter (cooked with smoked neck bones and/or smoked ham hocks)
SIDE DISHES: Baked Sweet Potato – Rice with Gravy – Potato Salad – Fried Okra
BREADS: Hot Water Cornbread – Skillet Cornbread – Homemade Biscuits
DESSERTS: Sweet Potato Pie – Pecan Pie – Pound Cake – Peach Cobbler – Fruit Salad (sliced watermelon chunk topped with fresh blueberries, peaches and strawberries)
CONDIMENTS: Homemade Mayhaw and Plum Jelly – Cucumber. Tomato, Onion and Green Onion Salad – Hot Sauce – Homemade Pepper Sauce – Cane Syrup
BEVERAGE: Sweet Tea
