NEW ORLEANS
We were taken to the Acme
Oyster House on Iberville
Street in the French Quarter,
and I was introduced to a
totally diferent oyster culture.
Here, they were shucked by big
men with bare forearms like
hams, and slapped down onto
the bar like a challenge
I
n the early 1990s, as a young reporter
inding my way, luck smiled upon me.
I was asked if I’d like to go on a press
trip to New Orleans. Would I? The city was
famed for two things: music and cooking. I
loved my jazz, was already a sometime jazz
pianist, and while I was years of being made
a restaurant critic, my decisions were oten
belly-led. I imagined nights on Bourbon
Street, zigzagging from one louche music
bar to another, breaking of only to feast on
gumbo and sugar-dusted beignets.
What I hadn’t expected was to be so
thrilled by the oysters. As a child I’d been
introduced to them by my mother [journalist
and broadcaster Claire Rayner], who took
me to lunch at Rules, London’s oldest
restaurant, in Covent Garden. It began with
oysters. I was enthralled by the accessories
that accompanied them: the stand and the
muslin-wrapped lemon and the fearsome
looking bottle of Tabasco. It seemed to me
the height of adulthood.
On that irst night in New Orleans, we
went to the Acme Oyster House on Iberville
Street deep in the French Quarter, and I
was introduced to a totally diferent oyster
culture. Partly, it was the informality with
which the bivalves were all but lung at us.
Rules had white-jacketed waiters; here,
oysters were shucked by big men with bare
forearms like hams, and slapped down onto
the bar like a challenge. But it was also the
oysters themselves. I was used to something
fragile and silvery, with the saline crash of
the sea. These were big and white and creamy.
They were an invitation to gorge, which
— despite the jet lag — is what I did.
A quarter of a century later, when I came to
write My Last Supper, a book on the pursuit
of my last meal on earth and the stories
behind the dishes and ingredients I’d chosen,
I knew oysters would be a part of it. That in
turn would mean a return to New Orleans.
It’s a city deined by its location on the Gulf
Coast and therefore access to what were,
until relatively recently, some of the most
productive wild oyster beds in the world.
It was here in 1889 that Oysters Rockefeller
was invented. Jules Alciatore, son of
the founder of the venerable Antoine’s
Restaurant, was looking for a dish to replaceIn pursuit of the ultimate last meal on earth, one dish — in all its
simple, unreined glory — makes a lasting impression in the Big Easythe snails that his customers came to him for,
because of a shortage. He decided to put the
topping of breadcrumbs, parsley, butter and
other herbs that they used with their snails
on to oysters instead and then bake them.
In a glorious piece of marketing spin, he
named the dish ater oil tycoon John D
Rockefeller, because it was so rich. In turn,
rival restaurant Arnaud’s created the likes
of Oysters Bienville, topped with shrimp,
mushrooms, green onions and various
herbs, and a bunch of other cooked oyster
dishes too.
On my research trip I worked my way
around many of these stations of the cross,
enjoying the city’s old-school Southern
charm. It’s a cliche to describe modern New
Orleans as a gaudy tourist trap, but that’s to
misunderstand its history. It’s always been
a good-time town, there to serve the waves
of sailors as they come of the ships. It’s one
of the reasons jazz was born here, in the
brothels of the French Quarter.
Where oysters were concerned, the New
Orleans I met this time around was a subdued
city. BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster
of 2010 killed 11 people, and spilled more
oil into the sea than any other petroleum
industry accident in history, decimating
the oyster beds. Many oyster ishermen
had simply taken the multimillion-dollar
compensation and retired. Where the beds
once supplied bivalves to the entire US, now
they produced only enough for local demand.
One morning, I went to an oyster talk at the
warehouse headquarters of the P & J Oyster
Company, which has been around since 1876.
We were told stories of the beds, and slurped
prime raw product of the shell. Between
oysters I asked Al Sunseri, president of the
company, what he thought the appeal was.
“It’s really the only animal you eat while it’s
still alive,” he said simply. “Some people don’t
want to know that, but it’s true.”
I downed another oyster and brooded on
mortality. What better food could there be for
a last supper?My Last Supper: One Meal, a Lifetime in the Making
by Jay Rayner is published by Guardian Faber.
RRP: £16.99.
@jayrayner1NOTES FROM AN AUTHOR // JAY RAYNER
SMART TRAVELLERILLUSTRATION: JACQUI OAKLEY
October 2019 49