Cooking With St. Clair
Second Edition
by
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As a Northerner who never has set foot inside Louisiana, I have no business writing the introduction for a book on Creole cookery. On the other hand, as a Northerner who spent a couple of years setting foot, with great anticipation and joy, inside Fred deClouet's restaurant toward the other end of the Mississippi, I feel positively righteous in attempting to introduce the cookery of deClouet as represented in the recipes in these pages. Until deClouet's Restaurant came to Minneapolis, Creole was almost a dirty word on any menu in this northern area. It meant a tired chef had stewed up some canned tomatoes with a few peppers and onions and produced a gut-depressant that, slopped over any given piece of meat or fish, would turn that item into a something Creole. (On the days they didn't call it Spanish, that is). The fragrant, golden dishes that came out of deClouet's kitchen bore little resemblance to anything that had, in these parts, been labeled Creole before, or, for that matter, since. For, unfortunately, deClouet's lasted for only two years, thanks largely to the function of primitive liquor licensing laws in Minnesota, which made it impossible for deClouet to add the civilizing grace note of wine to the meals served in his small restaurant. Economic necessity forced deClouet to face up to the fact that what he had learned about electronics in this clime was somehow more valuable than educating the resident Nordic types to what he had learned about Creole cookery since he was a boy in Louisiana. Most discussions of Creole food begin and end with New Orleans and its famous restaurants. Until deClouet came along, I'd never heard much about such places as Houma, Morgan City, Patterson, Franklin, Baldwin, Jeanerette, New Iberia, Lafayette, and Crowley, strung along the Old Spanish Trail (Highway 90) northwest from New Orleans. deClouet insists real Creole cookery happens in the houses and small restaurants around these towns, and on the sugar plantations a few miles off the highway in between. It happens also in those fabled antebellum mansions, surrounded by oaks draped in Spanish moss. deClouet knows about that, because he grew up on such a plantation, living there until he was twelve. His father and grandfather were both Creole chefs, and his father ' St. Clair deClouet, was particularly famous in the area. St. Clair cooked for sugar plantation boarding houses and restaurants, and also on special occasions in the summer houses and on the yachts of the wealthy. Prominent families of the likes of Robichaux, Moresi Caldwell, Bourgeois called on him to cook for important parties and important guests. The elder deClouet had frequent offers to join such households as permanent chef, but he always declined because it would have meant living in the city much of the time. He preferred to remain unattached, free to move about the countryside.
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About the Book
In discussing this book, Fred has suggested this guideline for success: If you find a recipe that you like, and use it exactly and successfully, then this is a successful recipe book, and you’re a successful reader and cook. But if you find a recipe that you like, and out of necessity or invention successfully add or subtract something of your own, then this is a real Creole cook book, and you are a real Creole cook. These are not just recipes to be followed to the letter (although that procedure will certainly result in some sublimely rewarding hours and meals). These are also recipes to be improvised upon, to be altered, to be adapted to necessity; to be used, in spirit, for whatever happens to be in the kitchen. To be improved upon, if You will, given your own tastes and resources. One cold, blustery night in Minneapolis, a night too bitter to go out anywhere for ingredients deClouet demonstrated the basics of Creole cookery to a couple of friends by offering to create a gumbo with whatever he had in the house. And so, he made a gumbo of smoked sausage, green onions, shortening, dried shrimps, and a little flour. They thought it was a classic. So you will find some classic gumbos in the pages beyond, but if you don’t happen to have at hand everything that’s called for, don’t be intimidated. Read on – in another recipe, you’ll probably find a perfectly adequate (and possibly inspired) substitute.
About the Author
Just to be born and raised in the Louisiana Bayou Teche country may seem, and rightly so, a rather vague qualification to be writing a Creole cook book so I will try to give a brief account of some of the sources of Fred deClouet’s knowledge of Creole cooking. Fred deClouet’s father and grandfather were both Creole chefs and his father, St. Clair deClouet, was particularly famous in the New Orleans area. St. Clair cooked for sugar plantations, boarding houses and restaurants and also on special occasions in the summer houses and on the yachts of the wealthy in the new Orleans area. Most discussions of Creole food begin and end with New Orleans and its famous restaurants. At age 13, young Fred became his father’s apprentice. During the six years of intensive training under his father’s supervision, he did much of his learning at boarding houses which supplied meals for both migrant and local workers at sugar refineries of mills during the three months of harvest season. At age 17 Fred was sent as an assistant to Mr. Bill Dooley, a plantation chef at Erath, Louisiana for one year. Due to the failing health of Mr. Dooley, the chef, Fred was plunged into the responsibility and supervision of a staff of eight in the preparation of 500 – 700 noontime meals daily as well as 100 –150 morning and evening meals, seven days a week. He did so well that he was hired permanently as top chef. He held that position for three years. On special occasions he served as Chef aboard yachts during annual local game fishing events in the Gulf of Mexico. Fred spent three and one-half years during World War II in the United States Marine Corps. From there he became a Restaurant Owner-Operator in Minneapolis, Minnesota during the 1950s. During the 1960s he was a Space Program Technician (Minneapolis Honeywell Inc.) Fred deClouet came to Denver in 1964 as an employee in the Education Department of the U.S. Justice Department, Bureau of Prisons. He retired as a Media Production Officer/Education in 1984. His professional background encompasses various responsible capabilities, e.g. Small Business Administration (SBA) counseling, research and writing, consulting and corporate management. As an author, Fred has produced works on Adult Basic Education, Occupational Educational Curricula, Personal Recruitment, Equal Opportunities and instructional television and educational media. Fred designed, built and implemented a closed circuit television system to support the Justice Department’s overall education treatment program. He also taught a televisions production course of study. Fred published his first Creole cookbook "Cooking with St. Clair" which is still in print, in 1978. He has since written and had published "The First Black Marines", "You Don’t Have to Lose", a guide for casino players; "Scandalous New Orleans", a look at the past of the city known to Americans as its most interesting city including lives, customs, voodoo and more; and now "Cooking with St. Clair, the 2nd Edition".