This weeks recipe is from our sister publication Louisiana Life.
When I was finalizing a move back to Louisiana from New York 15 years ago, I told friends that the house I had found was originally built as a camp. Initially, it didn’t occur to me that “camp” needed any explanation. Without thinking about it, I just assumed everyone knew what a camp is.
Well, Louisianians may know what a camp is, but not many New Yorkers. Consequently, I explained over and over that a camp is an informal place where people go to get away from the work-day world and city life, a comfortable retreat where activities often center around hunting, fishing, cooking and socializing. Drawing on a familiar analogy, I told them that a camp is something like a weekend house, a summer house or a country place – well-known terms in the Northeast.
Once I had conveyed the idea what my future home was like, there were other questions, as friends tried to understand this abrupt change from apartment life in midtown Manhattan to country living in south Louisiana. One of the big unknowns in their minds was whether this bayou house was accessible by road. Some of them pictured a cabin on stilts in the swamp which could only be reached by pirogue. At times I did nothing to relieve them of those notions and, on occasion, even embroidered my future life with tales of small boats and float planes.
As we know, Louisiana camps actually range from humble shacks to ostentatious waterfront mansions. In between, you’ll find modest and comfortable cottages, houseboats, barges, trailers, mobile homes and cabins. The most unusual camp I’ve seen is a converted oil-storage tank in the Atchafalaya Basin. That one, in fact is accessible only by boat.
Just as camp structures vary, so does the cooking that goes on in them. Meals can range from highly elaborate to simple and straightforward. Some “campers” take prepared foods, either store-bought or homemade, to lighten their cooking duties. But others revel in having uninterrupted time to spend hours preparing meals.
This time of year, as the heat breaks and hunters open their camps, appetites increase and hearty one-pot dishes are in great demand. Gumbos, jambalayas, étouffées and “rice and gravy dishes” simmer in black iron or Magnalite pots on camp stoves throughout the state.
One of those one-pot dishes is courtbouillon, a south Louisiana favorite which changes greatly from cook to cook. This version, from Dr. John L. Beyt III, a New Iberia dentist, is lighter than ones with a thick tomato gravy. Beyt spends as much time as possible, year-round, at his camp and farm on Bayou Teche near Parks, where cooking and eating are the main attractions. His courtbouillon is made with gaspergoo (“goo” in the local idiom), which is a freshwater drum.
Beyt prefers this species for its intensity of flavor, but other firm-fleshed fish can be substituted if necessary. The pork steaks sauce piquante recipe comes from Henry Mayer Jr., a Lafayette stockbroker. During duck season, he can often be found entertaining clients at his camp in Grand Chenier. Mayer, who as a child learned his way around the kitchen at his uncle’s camp in the Atchafalaya Basin, does much of the cooking at his own camp.
If the rice served with the one-pot meals doesn’t provide enough carbohydrates, the roast potato recipe is a simple, foolproof way to add some more.
The sweet potato pie omits the cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg that often render this dessert virtually indistinguishable from pumpkin pie.
Instead, it is flavored simply with cane syrup, vanilla and lemon zest, which enhance, rather than obscure, the natural taste of sweet potatoes.