New Orleans cooks Creole and Cajun with equal seriousness, built on the holy trinity of onion, celery, and bell pepper. Seafood is everywhere, coffee comes cut with chicory, and the city is happy to feed you at odd hours. Few American cities have a food culture this distinct and this proud.
Lunch is a po'boy, fried shrimp or oyster or roast beef on crackly French bread, and dressed means lettuce, tomato, pickle, and mayo. Gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice carry the everyday tradition, while char-grilled oysters and a muffuletta reward a bigger appetite.
Finish with beignets buried in powdered sugar beside a chicory cafe au lait at a marble counter. Crawfish has a season, roughly late winter into spring, when the boils run hot and long. Soulful and unpretentious, New Orleans eats like nowhere else in America.
