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While he’s on the road or in the kitchen, Brooklyn Brewery Chef Andrew Gerson is always investigating the culinary and cultural landscapes of the cities around him. The Mash Files are snapshots of each city on our Mash Tour in Chef Andrew’s own words. Read Chef Andrew’s thoughts on authenticity while he was in New Orleans below, then check our Mash site for when he’ll be in your neighborhood.
The tight-knit Vietnamese community in New Orleans has remained predominantly on the East side of New Orleans, but its cuisine has begun to spread across the river and into the kitchens of some of the city’s most talented chefs. One of those chefs is Michael Gulotta, Chef and owner of Mopho Restaurant, where the flavors of the Mekong Delta seep seamlessly into those of the more familiar Mississippi Delta. After a long honeymoon in Asia at the start of this year, I was excited to get down to New Orleans, meet Chef Gulotta and further explore the influence Vietnamese immigrants have had in the food culture of NOLA.
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Chef Gulotta was quick to point out the similarities between the two delta regions in terms of land, climate, aquaculture, and the lasting influence of French cuisine. There is much more in common here than just the crust of a good banh mi and the roll of a fully-dressed po’ boys. Both of these deltas are also epicenters of thriving seafood industries home to many crabbers, fishermen, shrimpers, boat builders and other craftsmen. All of these parallels and similar natural offerings have attracted many Vietnamese immigrants to the Crescent City in the last 50 years.
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Many of the folks once employed as fishermen have taken to farming as a source of income and a way of reconnecting to the produce of their homeland. If you wake up super early on a Saturday morning and drive across the US 11 span towards Slidell, you can find a selection of these ingredients spread out between the yellow lines of a shopping mall parking lot. Along with a bunch of old ladies that made me feel as though I had been transported to the markets of Saigon, I recognized many of the same ingredients I had encountered in Vietnam, including dried gulf shrimp, fish herb, fresh turmeric, and dried, fermented fish. I also encountered a monster straight out of my nightmares: a beast of an creature called an alligator gar, with the head of a crocodile and the body of a carp.
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This market, along with the VEGGI Farmers Cooperative Farm operated by Daniel Nguyen (pictured above) located across from the Vietnamese Catholic Church, seems to be the center of the Vietnamese community here in New Orleans. The only clue that it exists to outsiders are the foreign words listed on the signs of a handful of nearby strip malls, within sight of Chef Highway.
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As I travel the world cooking, drinking and collaborating with talented chefs, local farmers, artists, brewers and craftsmen, I have started questioning the notion of authenticity and how it is used to shape one’s culinary vision. What is an authentic dish? Is it based on local ingredients and paying homage to historical preparations? Or does it have more to do with the person cooking the food? Is the dish more authentic when your Vietnamese grandmother makes it, or when a white guy raised in the Mississippi Delta and classically trained in French-Creole cooking and inspired by his local Vietnamese community dishes it out? Should it transport you to a different land, or resonate with where you are?
I admit I don’t have the answers, but I am sure enjoying the conversation. One thing I do know is that if one looks at the myriad of cultural influences at work in what we call “traditional” New Orleans cuisine, then the food of Chef Gulotta at Mopho is as authentic a part of New Orleans as gumbo and brass ensembles on second lines. So pass the nuoc pham and a pair of chopsticks, and I’ll slurp that clam sauce with this annatto seed beignet until there’s nothing left.
