From Cedar to Cypress

Lebanese communities—and their cuisine—thrive in Louisiana

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Related recipes: Fried Kibbeh and Maamoul.

Want to grab Lebanese food for dinner? If you live in South Louisiana, you probably have a multitude of options. In Baton Rouge alone, I can list about half a dozen restaurants. And if you’re from Lafayette or Lake Charles, you probably have an opinion about the best gyro in town. Growing up in a blended Lebanese family in Louisiana, I have always been curious: Just why is there such a large Lebanese population in Louisiana? 

Emigration from Lebanon to the United States reached its peak in the early 1900s, before World War I, according to the Louisiana Folklife essay, “Roots of the Cedar: The Lebanese Heritage in Louisiana” by Yvonne Nassar Saloom and I. Bruce Turner. The piece argues that the country’s Maronite Catholics were drawn to Louisiana due to the “amitié traditionelle (age-old friendship) between Maronites of Mount Lebanon and the French,” sustained from the Crusades through Ottoman rule and into the post-World War I period of the French Mandate in Lebanon. Many Lebanese spoke French in addition to Arabic, and this commonality may have attracted Lebanese immigrants to Louisiana. 

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My Lebanese family members began arriving in Louisiana as early as the 1890s, but the chapter of my family’s immigrant history that I best understand comes from my grandparents, my Lebanese-American grandfather John John (yes, that’s his name) and his German war bride, Charlotte John. Like most immigrants in their early days in a new country, in the face of adversity, my family assimilated. My great-grandfather owned a popular corner store, and the family chose to Anglicize their names. When my great-grandfather arrived in America, his surname was dropped and he became Joseph John, the English versions of his first and middle names, Yusuf Hanna. When Joseph John’s first son, my grandfather, was born, he carried on a tradition of giving a firstborn son his father’s middle name as a first name: in this case, John. That’s how my grandfather was named John Joseph John. 

I grew up hearing the ever-so-romantic story of how my grandmother met my grandfather when she worked as his interpreter in post-World War II Germany, where he was stationed with the American military. Soon after the couple arrived in America, my grandfather was called back overseas to Korea, so my German grandmother lived with the Lebanese-American John family in Sulphur—5,000 miles from her old home. There, she learned Lebanese and Louisiana food traditions from her mother-in-law, Annie John; she would prepare these dishes and her own German ones throughout my childhood.

When Joseph John’s first son, my grandfather, was born, he carried on a tradition of giving a firstborn son his father’s middle name as a first name: in this case, John. That’s how my grandfather was named John Joseph John. 

Louisiana’s culture and crops influenced Lebanese traditions and cuisine. My great-grandmother’s old family recipe for pistachio cookies, or maamoul, evolved in her Louisiana kitchen. What Louisiana lacked in pistachios, it more than made up for in pecans. And balls of kibbeh became a staple for Louisiana State University game days in my grandparents’ household, as the shape of the fried meat and wheat balls resembles a football. (I grew up calling the dish “football kibbeh.”) Like most kids or grandkids of immigrants, I can speak to the fact that some food gets lost in translation: In grade school, I would proudly gross out classmates by talking about how my family ate raw beef, or kibbeh nayeh. 

Some traditions have faded through time and generations. Now that I am a vegetarian, kibbeh nayeh no longer tempts me. But as Christmas approaches, and my husband and I create our own traditions, I can’t let go of my blended Lebanese, German, and Southern holiday table. My grandparents have passed away, but each year I still kindle our family’s unique blend of cultures and cuisines:  Blaukraut, a German cabbage dish, and the Middle East’s famous eggplant spread baba ganoush are served alongside jambalaya, evoking all who came before and the holidays we’ve shared together. 

Related recipes: Fried Kibbeh and Maamoul.