What I Miss
I miss Mrs. Forstall’s red beans and rice. I’m making up a batch for the family tonight, and every time I do, I think of Mrs. Forstall. Growing up in Pensacola, Florida my mom and dad were very close friends with John and Nancy Forstall, who to me will always be Mr. and Mrs. Forstall. You see, in those days, in the Heart of Dixie, children did not use adults’ first names, ever. Mr. Forstall was born and raised in New Orleans. He married Nancy Forstall, a Japanese woman, and when she came to the USA with him she learned to make his favorite New Orleans foods, one of which is red beans and rice, served traditionally on Mondays in New Orleans. We would spend many a wonderful Sunday afternoon and evening at their home on Perdido Bay and often would have red beans and rice.
It became a signature dish in New Orleans because it was cheap, filling, nutritious and easy to make. Just toss Sunday’s ham dinner leftover bone in a pot, with red beans,
onions, garlic, smoked sausage, spices and cover with water and simmer
for 2.5 hours or so. Serve over long grain white rice and add a few
dashes of Tobasco and you are talking some mighty fine eats.
Thankfully there’s a number of excellent French/New Orleans style restaurants in our Saint Louis French district: Nortons serves a wonderful seafood gumbo and jambalaya. Soulards, serves red beans and rice, so I still manage to get my red beans and rice fix occasionally, but nothing is as good as Mrs. Forstall’s red beans and rice. I suspect the reason it will always be my favorite doesn’t have much to do with the food, great though it was, but has everything to do with the fun, family and fellowship around the table and the good times we had out there enjoying the bay, playing our instruments [that's for another post], and finishing the day with red beans and rice. Mighty nice.
Your description piqued my interest so I looked for recipes on the internet. Found a lot of variations, and this interesting little note: “An excerpt from “The Picayune Creole Cookbook”
“In all the ancient homes of New Orleans, and in the colleges and convents, where large numbers of children are sent to be reared to be strong and useful men and women, several times a week there appear on the table either the nicely cooked dish of Red Beans, which are eaten with rice, or the equally wholesome White Beans a la Creme, or Red or White beans boiled with a piece of salt pork or ham.”
-The Picayune Creole Cookbook, 1900
In grammar school and in junior high lunchrooms, in south Louisiana, we were served beans over rice, usually, twice a week. Red beans on Monday, and large white butterbeans later in the week. These were always a welcomed favorite of mine.
We had beans on rice just as often at home. However, the black woman who kept us added fishcakes to the red bean meal. She made the cakes from canned, white fish flakes, boiled potatoes, an egg, and onions, then patted them flat and fried them in the skillet. We had rice at almost every meal, and on Sundays with gravy from the fried chicken or the rump roast.
I learned as I got older that our eating pattern was not common outside our part of the American South. For many years I wondered where we got such different eating habits.
Many years later I did some reading in Caribbean history, sparked by a passing passion for the novels of V.S. Naipaul. In those histories I read about the staples that plantation managers purchased to feed the slaves. Dried cod flakes, dried beans, and rice from New England shipping companies. They bought them in bulk. Fresh meat and seasonings were supplied locally.
Like a light bulb turning on in my head, I knew instantly that our low cuisine had indeed a logical and long pedigree. Amazing, how simple things endure.