On particular events, Chef Megan Bickford’s household in southern Louisiana would throw a pig celebration—or a boucherie, as they name it in Cajun nation. Her dad and mom, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins would slaughter a hog and spend your entire day turning the meat into chops, bacon, sausage, cracklings, boudin, and different porcine delicacies. The pièce de résistance was at all times her grandmother’s blood stew, however the recipe was misplaced along with her passing and no person has fairly been capable of replicate it—not even Bickford herself, who went on to turn into the manager chef on the most well-known restaurant in New Orleans.
“I’m from a giant south Louisiana household, and everyone is aware of the right way to cook dinner,” she says. “It’s simply such a giant a part of our tradition, understanding the right way to feed individuals.”
For Bickford, being the primary girl to helm the kitchen of Commander’s Palace, a century-old mecca of Cajun and Creole delicacies within the New Orleans Backyard District, doesn’t outline her profession. Neither does following within the footsteps of legendary Commander’s Palace alumni like Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Legasse.
For her, being a chef is concerning the boucheries, the neighborhood seafood boils, and the enormous pots of gumbo and jambalaya shared with pals, household, and random passersby on Mardi Gras Day. “I really feel like I get to offer these experiences for individuals and produce all of that emotion that meals can carry, into the eating room.”
Bickford, now 35, moved across the South as a toddler, however she and her brother at all times went again to Louisiana for summers and Mardi Gras festivities. When she determined to pursue a profession in cooking, her father insisted she additionally earn a science diploma as a fallback. She discovered a loophole on the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute in Thibodaux, Louisiana: The varsity affords a “bachelor of science” in culinary arts.
“If I used to be going to check cooking, I didn’t assume there can be a greater place,” she says. “It has the delicacies that I like, that I’ve true ties to, and that I actually wished to discover deeper.”
She was referring, after all, to the delicacies of decrease Louisiana, with its regional mix of French-, Spanish- and African-inspired flavors. These unfamiliar with the meals of this area may certainly acknowledge dishes like jambalaya, gumbo, and bread pudding. They could even know that Creole dishes are usually saucy with a lot of tomato, whereas Cajun dishes are inclined to function a whole lot of smoked meat and spicy boiled seafood. (Crawfish étouffée, purple beans and rice: Creole. Boiled crawfish, andouille sausage: Cajun. Gumbo, jambalaya: It relies upon.) However that hardly skims the floor of the culinary bayou.
“Right here, you say ‘étouffée’ and other people say, ‘Okay, what’s your étouffée? Do you make it with roux or not make it with roux?’” says Bickford. “For each dish, everybody has a unique manner their grandmother made it.”
She rattles off dishes like “maque choux” and “shrimp remoulade” as if everybody is aware of them—as a result of in her world, everybody does. Rising up, whereas youngsters in different elements of America ate pancakes and bacon on Sunday mornings, Bickford loved her mom’s grillades and grits, a savory Creole breakfast of saucy braised veal good for fueling up earlier than an extended day of Mardi Gras parades. (Or, for the grown-ups, banishing a hangover the following morning.)
Bickford made her personal model of grillades and grits (which makes use of a light-weight veal sauce with house-made whey curd folded into the grits) for the menu at Commander’s Palace, the historic restaurant that has drawn generations of gourmands to New Orleans since Emile Commander based it in 1893.
Bickford joined Commander’s Palace as a cook dinner in 2008, recent out of culinary college. Earlier than that, she had been feeling assured and was jonesing to check her mettle in knowledgeable kitchen. However when she first shadowed at Commander’s Palace, she discovered herself in an entire new league. Waiters would name out the orders, as soon as, earlier than vanishing again into the eating room, and the cooks would put together the dishes from reminiscence, protecting three or 4 tickets of their heads at a time. Everybody operated with a velocity and beauty Bickford had by no means seen. “How shortly these professionals labored, how in tune they have been to the heartbeat of the restaurant…I simply realized how a lot I needed to study,” she recollects.
After a stint at one of many institution’s sister eating places, Bickford earned the position of govt chef at Commander’s Palace in 2018, turning into the primary girl to carry that place. Although Bickford is pleased with that honor, she hopes patrons can even recognize her culinary talent.
“All people desires to speak about the truth that I used to be the primary feminine chef,” she says. “So what although? Can we speak concerning the job?”
Bickford’s fast rise by one of many world’s most well-known culinary scenes took dedication, drive, and sacrifice, particularly in a subject nonetheless rife with sexism and misogyny. She notes that she didn’t do it alone, and had the help of mentors and colleagues who guided her to the place she is right now and taught her the significance and worth of a profession in service.
“To us, we have a look at it as, ‘At this time we serve you. Tomorrow, you serve me.’ As a result of it’s that sort of tradition. It’s simply what we do. It’s in our DNA,” says Bickford.
The Louisiana spirit of service, sharing, and mutual mirth isn’t just a quirk of the restaurant workers at Commander’s Palace, Bickford says. It’s baked into Cajun and Creole delicacies itself, with loads of hearty, sharable one-pot staples like jambalaya and gumbo made to be scooped out for any hungry guests. This spirit is clear within the boucheries, on the jazz block events, and most of all, throughout Mardi Gras celebrations, when your entire metropolis throws open its doorways for one big celebration.
Whereas prepping for Mardi Gras weekend, I requested Bickford what I ought to carry for a day of events and parades: What snacks ought to I pack? Ought to I take a cooler? What’s the very best technique for lunch planning?
Her recommendation? “Don’t carry something in any respect. In the event you’re hungry, you will see that meals. In the event you’re lonely, you will see that pals. In the event you discover pals, you will see that drink. We’re the one metropolis on the earth the place you may pull this off.”
Wander into the French Quarter, and somebody will hand you a daiquiri and deck you out in beads. You could be served a styrofoam bowl of purple beans and rice below the oak bushes of St. Charles Avenue, or be invited into a celebration in a shotgun home on Journal Road—most likely with a pot of grillades and grits simmering on the range.
“It wasn’t essentially the precise meals that acquired me into cooking,” Bickford stated. “It was the ability meals has over individuals. It will probably heal you once you’re down. It will probably show you how to have a good time essentially the most joyous events. I wished to be part of that.”
