Local Food Souvenirs

by Caitlin

I'm not a huge fan of...stuff. Of totchkes, of buying useless junk for the sake of getting someone a gift.

Quick detour before we even get started! Speaking of gifts, allow me to remind you to check out the Food Lush Gift Guide, where I really try not to include any junk, either. Did you know you can win something from the gift guide for your very own? Click HERE. (Make sure you comment on the giveaway post, not the guide itself.) Giveaway ends tomorow, Friday, December 7, so get on it.

So. Because I don't really like Stuff For The Sake of Stuff, typical souvenirs aren't really my thing. I don't want more junk in my house. The one exception I do make is for tacky magnets: Zach and I try to find the tackiest magents possible when we're on a trip together. But other than that, how best to remember a place you've been besides pictures and, uh, memories? Foodstuffs.

I was in New Orleans about a month ago and asked Zach if there was anything he wanted. He said maybe some blackening seasoning. One morning before brunch, my friend and fellow Food Lush writer Maura (who by the way is a total sweetheart, and sent me the nicest and most thoughtful care packge when I was laid up after my recent surgery) and I wandered into a small grocery store just off Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. We had to search a little, but found all kinds of packets of seasoning blends from a company called River Road: Blackening powder, BBQ Shrimp seasoning (with a recipe on the back, which is what sold me), cajun spice, and more. The spices have no MSG (many other seasonings we pawed through did), no weird ingedients, and many were salt-free.

(Photo from http://worldfamousnawlins.com, where else?)

Zach and I were supposed to try the blackening seasoning tonight, but sometimes you just need to go out to dinner, so tomorrow it is! Zach and I somewhat regularly have a ceasar salad with blackened shrimp for dinner, and we'll try our old favorite with this new seasoning; currently we use a blend Zach makes. We (where we = Zach) lightly coat raw shrimp in olive oil, liberally douse them with blackening seasoning, and sear them in a favorite, well-seasoned cast iron pan. Served over romaine tossed with a family favorite ceasar vinaigrette recipe (recipe is not mine to give away, but it's somewhat similar to this recipe), and some parm reggiano grated on top. RECOMMEND.

(Photo from igourmet.com)

I also walked out of that grocery store with a box of Cafe du Monde beignet mix, and Maura walked away with a can of Cafe du Monde coffee. I should probably ask her how it was. We haven't made the beignets yet. Maybe we'll make that happen when we're busy making ourselves fatter over the holidays. Go big or go home!

Have you tried River Road seasonings? Do you have a favorite local food souvenir from your travels? 

Comments

[Katia]

good luck with the beignets... hopefully Zach will do a better job than we did with the at-home version. They were just fried bits of dough and it was super gross :( nothing like the perfection of the real ones!

[Caitlin]

Katia, this is kind of my fear. We rarely deep-fry anything - maybe calamari once a year and wings once a year. Honestly, I'm not even sure we will get to it. We shall see. But at least it's fun to hang on to the memories!

[Ann Hannah]

Other than wine from Napa, I think the only food-souvenier we've brought home was Barry's tea, bought in a pub in Ireland. Tea from a pub. Can that really foster an accurate recollection of Ireland? It was not our usual practice to stop every afternoon at a pub and have a cup of tea. However, Ann had been looking for Barry's (this was 1998 and we couldn't find Barry's here then, although we can now). On our last day, we stopped in a pub (really, they're all so different its hard to pass one by...) and there were boxes of tea for sale.

Love,
Dad

[Emily]

I'll bring you something interesting from Amsterdam.