I NOLA a Great City When I See One

Have you ever been on a cuisine tour? Well let me tell you, I took my very first one today and it was amazing. I don't know why I haven't done one before! If you're planning to come to New Orleans (which I hope you do), a cuisine tour is a must. You will have some incredible food, but not only that, you will gain a lot of insight to the history of the food itself. New Orleans has such a wide variety of history with different rulings and influences of the vast cultures. You will learn the term Creole a lot down here, which is the name of the foods influenced from the culture through out the years, and what brings us to the meals we eat today. The foods are intermixed from different cultures, therefore Creole is the type of food. On the tour, we tasted a wide variety of foods to give us a feel for what foods are the biggest sell around here. During our tour, we went to multiple restaurants. The first food we enjoyed was the Creole Beef Brisket. It was so tender and the sauce was perfect. It has a good amount of horseradish in it. I understand if you are not a big horseradish person, but you need to try it at least once! I, myself am not a big horseradish fan, but this was just incredible. At another stop in our tour, we had gelato and a cannoli. Let me tell you guys, do not wear jeans. Honestly, just wear your fat pants (you'll thank me later). The gelato has this creamy texture and the perfect amount of sweetness that you just can't seem to get enough of. The cannoli was honestly the best cannoli I have ever had in my life. My Dad is a huge cannoli guy, so I just had to send him a picture of it. (He was jealous!) I think my favorite part of the tour was when our tour guide, Naif, took us into a restaurant for our very last meal. When we were finished, he showed us this back door that led to multiple other dining rooms. There were secret dining areas that you would never know about. There was this one dining area that was set up 1920s style. There were coat hooks all around the room and these huge wreaths on the wall that were hanging in these five large windows. There were three large portraits on the wall. One was the owner, the next his wife, and lastly the sister of the wife. There is a mystery as to why the sister in law is up there, but no one actually knows!

 

Now, just when you think the surprise is over.... Naif took us to a staircase. The owner of the restaurant had a daughter. The daughter did not want to take over the family business, so she chose a different route instead. She was a party girl! She went off to live in Paris where she just partied away, but eventually she came back home. Her name is Germaine Wells. When she came back home, she had won the Mardi Gras queen 22 times! If that's not impressive, I don't know what is. While being home, she also created a museum of the dresses she had worn for the parties. She had the photograph of her wearing them, along with the dresses themselves placed on manikins that looked like her. Some of these dresses were so extravagent that they had wings on them and trains so long they were pinned on the wall behind her. These dresses were so beautiful and she literally looked like a princess in everyone. This girl lived every girl's dream!

The cuisine tour was not the only thing we did today. Before hand, we went to the Ursuline Convent and the St. Louis Cathedral.

 Ursuline Convent

To be honest, I was disappointed that nuns no longer live there. I understand that they are preserving it, and it is a museum now, but I think having nuns there would be very neat. New Orleans has been through so much as a city. From who has owned it and the natural disasters that have taken place here. My mother used to work at a summer camp with nuns, and the only thing she really told me about them was that they prayed. Constantly. It was important to me to see the convent because I am religious myself. I wanted to understand what it was like for them and actually see how big their faith was. From reading the letter of one of the nuns back home to her father really hit home. I mean, it took them five months to get to New Orleans when it should have only taken a few. They bared the worst of storms and throughout it all prayed through it. As I said, I am religious, but I don't think I could ever be a nun. I have a lot of respect for those who do. It is incredible to see the amount of faith through their lives. Since I am a visual learner, actually going into the convent and walking around gave me a lot of insight as to how they truly lived. Unfortunately they do not let visitors go upstairs anymore, but I like to imagine what it was like back then.


This was the exact clock that they brought over in 1727.

St. Louis Cathedral 

This place was just beautiful. The cathedral definitely had the biggest impact on me today. As I said earlier, I am religious, specifically Christian. Although I am Christian and this was a Catholic church, I learned so much today. I am a very open minded person, so I was really intrigued to listen to the speaker and what he was saying about the church. While I was in there, I really observed the people who were there to pray. Religion is very important to me, so I made sure to respect those around me. Something that I found very interesting was that there is a chair that is strictly for the Bishop. One time, the Pope came to visit and he was not even allowed to sit in the chair. That was probably the most shocking and interesting thing to me. I mean, the Pope is well, the Pope! He was not even allowed to sit in that chair. I totally respect their religion, so learning these things was very interesting to me. I spoke with a couple classmates who are Catholic and they gave me some information about their rituals as well. I learned things about Catholics that I never learned before. My favorite part of the Cathedral was the artwork on the ceiling. I have been to multiple churches in Europe, and their ceilings were just as beautiful. I mean, these churches were built in the 1700 and 1800s, so I can't help, but wonder how they did it without the equipment we have today.