Jeanne Marie Bouisson Esparbe
Five Mothers of Classic New Orleans Cuisine
While men controlled the restaurant and catering world in many American cities, professional women culinarians existed everywhere—usually heading boarding houses or providing food serve for hospitals and schools. In several cities, women played central roles in the restaurant and hotel culture. New Orleans was one, particularly during the period 1880-1920. Here are five luminaries from old New Orleans.
Elizabeth Kettenring Begue (1831-1906). Madam Begue became nationally famous in 1884 for her eight to ten course brunches that lasted from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 pm when New York newspapermen chanced upon her establishment while in the city reporting on the preparation of the World Cotton Exposition. A native of Bavaria, Elizabeth Kettenring came to New Orleans in 1853 with her brother Phillip, a butcher. She secured a job as cook at Dutrey’s Café across from the meat market. Louis Dutreil, the proprietor, courted and married his cook and the house became famous among the butchers for the breakfast served at 11:00 a.m., the hour when the meat market closed. Dutreil died in 1875. Widow Dutreil ran the café two years. In 1877 she convinced Hypolite Begue, one of the butchers, to tend bar for her in the first floor saloon beneath the breakfast room. They proved congenial co-workers, married in 1880, and renamed Dutrey’s “Begue’s Exchange.” Several rituals attended the breakfast—Hypolite Begue’s whistle announcing to the waiters the time to produce the first course. His sitting at the head of the table, with a guest of honor at the far opposite of the long table. At the end of the meal the guest books with their inscriptions were produced for inspection. Celebrities from Walt Whitman to Julia Marlowe’s names appeared. The bill was produced--$1.25 per person including wine. Documenting Begue’s lavish spreads became a literary sub-genre of turn of the century travel writing: 1905: “Promptly at 11 the first course is served which on the day of our visit was shrimp salad, with pepper sauce, then boiled fish with potatoes closely followed by oysters a la Newberg or a la Begue for such a dish was never tasted before or since. By this time our stock of adjectives was so diminished that we said little, but wondered what next. At this stage of the meal Monsieur Begue (he was formerly a butcher in the French market) enter with an immense omelette which he carried around the table and exhibited to the guests. Upon cutting it was found to be filled with sweetbreads. Such a delectable dish but it was really becoming a question where we could stow away the cauliflower with egg dressing which came next. The delicious broiled mutton chops and peas were merely tasted much to our regret. Madame ended this feast with fruit, coffee, and cheese. And the way those who knew how drank their coffee at Madam Begue’s! In the first place the coffee is strong, the blackest of black. Into a spoon very old brandy is poured, then lighted and allowed to pour into the coffee. “ In the 1890s Madam Begue consented to teach classes to young wives of the city. These took place in the later afternoon. A highlight of this instruction was her dictation of numbers of her recipes, intoned slowly and precisely for the women to copy. She told her students, “I am willing you should know all I know, but as long as I live and we make our living out of this restaurant, don’t tell anyone any of the secrets I have told you.” By the turn of the century, however, the fame of her breakfast had grown so great that it was inconceivable that her custom would diminish if the recipes were published. So she undertook the task of preparing a cook book of her works—including directions on her famous liver, Kidney with Tomato Sauce, Eggs a la Eugene Field, Stuffed Eggs, Oyster Soup, Jambalaya of Chicken, Stuffed Sweet Peppers, and Spaghetti with Shrimp. The Southern Pacific Railroad funded the printing and distribution of the book, Mme. Begue and Her Recipes, as a tourist promotion to visit New Orleans. It was the first cookbook published by a professional chef in New Orleans.
Nellie Murray (1835-1918), was the foremost caterer for New Orleans society during the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century. Born into slavery on the plantation of Governor Paul O. Hebert at Bayou Goula, she had been trained as a hair dresser, but her interest lay in the kitchens where her mother served as Hebert’s cook. She learned a Creole plantation cuisine that celebrated game, fresh vegetables, and baked goods. As a free woman after the Civil War she worked as a salaried cook for Mrs. Thomas Miller in New Orleans. Her second employer, Mrs. Frank T. Howard, allowed Murray to contract cater private occasions in the city. Word of mouth spread through the city’s society women and demand for her services grew so great in 1888 that she set up as a public caterer working out of her house on Delachaise Street. She interrupted her labors providing banquets and social brunches twice—once in 1893 to supervise at the Louisiana Mansion House at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago—again in 1894 to accompany the Howard family on an extended European excursion. Murray’s curiosity about European cooking prompted her to agree. She spent six months in Paris, a year in Berlin, and explored cuisine in Vienna, Bucharest, Bern, and London. She returned to New Orleans with a new cosmopolitan take on Creole Cookery, and became so greatly in demand that every date on the calendar had a waiting list for her services. A personal highlight of her career was catering the 1903 National Suffrage Convention in New Orleans. She retired from active catering at age 70 and worked informally for two old families until her death in 1918.
Sophie Dorn Flêche (1836-1906). Madam Eugène, the empress of nineteenth-century New Orleans restaurant cookery, presided over three important Louisiana kitchens: the Gem Saloon in Baton Rouge during the later1850s, Le Pellerin (the Pilgrim) in New Orleans from 1860 to 1879, and Moreau’s from 1880 to 1887. A native of Reichshoffen, Alsace, in France, she emigrated with her husband Eugène Flêche to Louisiana in 1853. At age seventeen she was a fully trained pastry chef when she began her career as a confectioner in one of the New Orleans kitchens. She became a name in 1858 when she took over the Gem Saloon in Baton Rouge and made it the best restaurant in Louisiana outside of New Orleans. Madam Eugène is noteworthy for her championing the lady’s luncheon as a restaurant meal. While the hotels had a free lunch from businessmen in its bar, the ladie’s dining rooms in the hotels had no such service. Madam Eugène sought to serve the ladies shopping in the city during mid-day. Women’s embrace of Madam Eugène’s cuisine in New Orleans had several consequences. When Charles Rhodes, proprietor of Moreau’s Restaurant, one of the city’s great institutions, retired in 1880, instead of turning it over to his son, he entertained Flêche’s offer to assume control of the restaurant. Installed on Canal Street, Madam Eugène made Moreau’s the finest French restaurant in the city. Rival establishment were abandoned by the city’s bon vivants—Victor’s suffered its great decline after the death of George Martin in 1873, and Antoine’s after the death of Antoine Alciatore in 1874 and before the ascension of his son Jules in 1891. A second consequence was the sisterly embrace of the city’s women, who adopted Madam Eugène as an honorary Creole home cook, including her recipes in landmark 1885 collection Creole Cookery. She was the only professional chef in the city to be accorded such an honor. She was neither Creole nor a home cook. She was a widow when she ruled over Moreau’s. In 1887she married the retired merchant Jean B. Laporte, returning Moreau’s to Charles Rhodes.
Jeanne Marie Bouisson Esparbe (1849-1923), like Madam Begue was a French-born cook who married a butcher named Hypolite and specialized in serving dejeunere a la fourechette (brunch). Her venue from 1878 to 1923 was a beloved enclave and masculine camaraderie, Maylie’s, at 1001 Poydras Street. At first the the 10:00 a.m. meal was the sole seating for the day, but at the turn of the center a dinner was added. Men sat refectory style and two long tables and consumed French-Louisianan bistro fare: “boiled crabs with cream gravy and mountains of snowy rice if it was a Friday; spaghetti with rich tomato sauce and highly seasoned daube, if it was Monday; sweet breads, veal pie, with a crust that Dickens would have immortalized; crisp salads, two of them, one at the early stage of the meal, the other later, with the roast preceding the dessert of ginger snaps and cheese and fruit. Always there was chicken or turkey and roast beef, mutton, veal or pork falling in smoking tempting slices from the carving knife.” When Madam Begue died in 1906, Marie Esparbe became the leading practitioner of the morning meal in the city. Prohibition cleared the tables of wine in 1919, Marie’s nephew took over management in the early 1920s, and stag meals became a thing of the past. Marie died in 1923. She shared her recipes with newspaper readers in 1916, albeit with the seasonings expunged from the formulae. Maylie’s lived on until the 1950s and Lavedon Maylie published Maylie’s Table d’hote Recipies in 1950.
Magadelena “Lena” Frey Fabacher Like Madames Eugene and Begue, Lena Fabacher was a native of Alsace who came to Louisiana while a girl. She learned cooking in New Orleans during the later 1850s when Baptiste Moreau, Victor Martin, and Antoine Alciatore dominated the city’s cuisine. From 1879 to 1915 she ran the most profitable restaurant in the city, Fabacher’s, a popular restaurant that offered fine meals at modest prices with solid wine pairings. A woman of iron will, she raised 12 children while presiding of the kitchen of the restaurant. The first restaurant, Fabacher Hall, was on Gravier Street; it was so successful the family moved to a larger space on the corner of Customhouse and Royal Streets and in subsequent years would cannabilize the adjacent buildings as “Fabacher’s Royal Restaurant, Oyster Saloon and Hotel.” Cost was kept low by arranging exclusive provisioning arrangements with certain farmers and oystermen. The latter were important, for a distinguishing mark of the offerings was that “during the summer fines oysters in every style were to be had.” The menu for the most part was in English—the exception being a quartet of fishes served au gratin—pompano, sheepshead, red snapper and trout. Sheepshead was also her featured fish in Bouillabaisse. While she did offer a red fish courtbouillion, better versions were served in the city. Her frog legs and shrimp creole, however, had no rivals. Her lunch offerings included creole beefsteak and tripe a la creole. “Fabacher’s Restaurant has a reputation for good cooking polite attention and moderate charges. Upon this principle it has grown to be the largest, handsomest and most popular restaurant in town.” Part of its immense popularity derived from its effective display of food in picturesque tableaux in the front window on Royal Street, particularly in holidays. Lena presided over the dinner meal. She trained several important chefs in the restaurant including Max Richter and W. Brechtel. Lena died in 1914. A year later Fabacher’s closed.