The Taste of Creole-Italian
A cultural history told in terms of cuisine
Creole is a short word for a long history. Describing race, culture, cuisine, and language, it can be hard to untangle all it encapsulates. When it comes to food, Creole is a category of cooking influenced by West African, French, Native American, German, Italian, English, and Spanish peoples; but it’s a title affixed to cream cheese, spice blends, tomatoes. What then, do the Italian restaurants of New Orleans mean when they tout their food as “Creole-Italian”? Is it a way to say poboys and penne coexist side-by-side, or does it suggest an attitude? A nod to time and place?
My research included the oh-so-burdensome ground work of sampling the garlicky chicken cacciatore of Mosca’s, the tomato-stewed shrimp of Mandina’s, and chatting with the owners and servers of some of the city’s longest standing Creole-Italian spots. But first, a little history was in order.
I turned to the work of Loyola University professor Justin Nystrom, author of Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture (2018, University of Georgia Press). Nystrom sifts through the tourist-grabbing mythology of “Creole” to unmask the historical contributions of Sicilians in New Orleans. Throughout the nineteenth century, political conditions in Sicily and a need for labor in Louisiana encouraged Sicilians to pour into New Orleans and surrounding rural areas. The Quarter had become an enclave for Sicilians and other Italians who worked as importers, plantation laborers, and fruit vendors. By the 1910s, 45,000 Sicilians were residing in Louisiana and the French Quarter had emerged as one of the country’s largest pasta hubs. Markets throughout the city offered Italian imports like citrus and olives. Central Grocery, original home of the muffuletta, is a still-surviving stand out.
What then, do the Italian restaurants of New Orleans mean when they tout their food as “Creole-Italian”? Is it a way to say poboys and penne coexist side-by-side, or does it suggest an attitude? A nod to time and place?
As the Italian working class began to gain foothold, so did their restaurants. In his book, Nystrom covers a 1908 Mardi Gras banquet dinner that served "a spaghetti supper” to the financial elite at the St. Louis Exchange Hotel. He noted that at the time, serving pasta at such an event was "a daring choice … bewildering many non-Italian diners only beginning their acquaintance with red sauce,” especially in this fine dining setting. But it marked the beginning of Sicilian prosperity outside of the Quarter’s “Little Palermo”.
Now that the Italians were brushing shoulders with the ruling Creole class of New Orleans, perhaps the term Creole-Italian was a knighting of approval? I asked two long time experts about their Creole-Italian label: the former Manager of Liuzza’s, Lori Bordelon—whose late husband Frank’s family ran the Bienville Street restaurant for decades before she sold it in September—and Lisa Mosca, part owner/manager of Mosca’s in Westwego. Their answers surprised me.
[Read more about the Italian history of the French Quarter here.]
“I know they call the restaurant Creole-Italian,” explained Bordelon, “but I don't know that if that's really a name. You know, I feel like that's something somebody just sort of put together.”
“Everyone calls it Creole-Italian, and I do too,” echoed Mosca when I interviewed her before dinner service at her family’s famous restaurant, located on Highway 90. The dining room smelled of butter and garlic from the pots her mother was stirring in the kitchen, and Michael Jackson was playing as servers set a table for twenty. “And I [wonder], what is Creole-Italian?”
Mosca’s grandparents grew up in Central Italy, so Mosca’s Italian menu hits a slightly different culinary tone than its Sicilian counterparts. Mosca sees the Creole of her family’s menu as the inevitable synthesis of traditional Italian dishes with available product, but also, as a matter of perception. Diners at Mosca’s have compared their shrimp dish to barbecue shrimp, the Oysters Mosca to Louisiana oyster stuffing and dressing. Even though “that wasn’t the intention, it’s comparable to that … maybe the Creole-Italian comes in because it’s things people recognize,” she said.
Still, I wanted to find the specific dishes that screamed Creole. Perhaps it’s the mirliton stuffed with soft shell crab and shrimp, appropriately fried and buttered at Vincent’s Italian Cuisine on St. Charles. Or the red gravy of Liuzza’s and Mandina’s on Canal—both examples of how French cooking is incorporated into the Italian, the tomato paste browned like flour for a roux. The colliding of influences seems especially obvious in Luizza’s “Frenchuletta,” which entails the muffuletta’s Italian cured-meat-and-olive-salad filling served on French bread. There are other examples of confluence: the French-inspired Bordelaise sauce of Mosca’s spaghetti, the “Creole crawfish cream sauce” layered on top of Vincent’s seafood medallions.
But there was one dish whose inclusion on many Italian menus across the city had a different story: the poboy. How the classic sandwich ended up alongside lasagna and meatball specials was a matter of responding to the needs of the neighborhood, according to Cindy Mandina, the fourth-generation proprietor of Mandina’s. “When you used to go eat at little neighborhood places or a little counter somewhere, they would serve you a poboy because people couldn’t afford a big plate of food,” she said. Mandina’s, which originated as a Mid-City grocery store in 1898, has readily adapted as needed. Bordelon shared the sentiment: “You had to get on with what people wanted. It's just always been on the menu.” The neighborhood expected poboys, could afford poboys, and so that was offered alongside chicken parmesan (and in Liuzza’s case, chicken parmesan as a poboy).
Still, I wanted to find the specific dishes that screamed Creole. Perhaps it’s the mirliton stuffed with soft shell crab and shrimp, appropriately fried and buttered at Vincent’s Italian Cuisine on St. Charles. Or the red gravy of Liuzza’s and Mandina’s on Canal—both examples of how French cooking is incorporated into the Italian, the tomato paste browned like flour for a roux.
Though the poboy won’t be found on every menu, Creole-Italian restaurants seem to share a similar spirit of adapting to the community. Whether their institutions cater to casual weeknight dinners or anniversary celebrations, the owners are out there on the floor, bridging tradition with current customer needs. From teenagers getting their bearings in their first job to long-time bartenders shaking up a martini like Tom Cruise in Cocktail, service is paramount, with an emphasis on locally-sourced ingredients.
During my night at Mosca’s, sizzling plates of Oysters Mosca arrived in front of the table for twenty. Tables of birthdays and get-togethers ordered second rounds of martinis. Between sips of Chianti and ice-cold Peroni, my table dug into chicken cacciatore and dunked our bread into the white wine sauce of our Shrimp Mosca. We topped off our meal with crisp and creamy cannoli from Angelo Brocato, as the photographs on the walls welcomed us into the past decades of excursions out to Highway 90. When Mosca’s grandparents opened the restaurant in 1946 on a quiet stretch of highway, they cooked for the workers or gamblers of the nearby casinos. Now, bachelorette parties rent party buses for the trek to Westwego.
The term “Creole-Italian” certainly adds to the mythos of New Orleans cuisine. It’s a moniker spat out from the gumbo pot, a bridge to the red gravy pot next to it on many New Orleans stoves. An easy way to say: it’s a little bit of this, it’s a little bit of that. That hyphen also localizes a distant cuisine, as Mosca observed. "Creole-Italian” emphasizes the reinvention and adaptation of both cook and diner.
Find Nystrom’s book at ugapress.org.
Peruse the menus of the best Creole-Italian restaurants in the Crescent City at: