F6
SMART MOUTH
New Orleans has the po-boy sandwich and all that jazz
by Eliza Barclay
New Orleans is not like other cities, and its Jazz & Heritage Festival is not like other music festivals: It’s wonderfully chaotic and yet orderly, with blaring brass bands that squeeze through the crowd and perform- ances scheduled for 6:05 p.m. that actually start at 6:05 p.m. So don’t expect popcorn, cot- ton candy or customary slick franks in starchy buns here: This is a music festival that takes food very, very seriously. To methodi- cally sample its well-priced of- ferings over the course of a late April weekend is to dip into this region’s exceptional cuisine. The rows of stalls in the food areas have a bit of an Old West storefront feel, and few vendors have changed either their look or their food in the past 20 years. But behind the simple wooden facades, smoking and roasting in hot mobile kitchens, awaits an ace lineup of Louisiana vittles. Some Jazz Fest loyalists insist on the superiority of crawfish bread (juicy bits of crawfish in a gooey mass of three cheeses en- closed in a crusty pocket) or crawfish Monica (crawfish cling- ing to rotini pasta in an alfredo sauce). But I salute the humble po-boy, which at Jazz Fest comes in 14 glorious forms. What is a po-boy? It’s a sand- wich, always made with fresh French bread (in New Orleans there are two or three preferred bakers for Jazz Fest sandwiches) and usually spare on fillings. These sandwiches are not jammed with meats or oozing with condiments. They are ele- gantly simple and stand in sharp contrast to another New Orleans sandwich, the muffuletta, which involves cured meats stacked in an orderly pile. The po-boy, and especially the four-or-so-inch versions at Jazz Fest, is more del- icate than the macho muffuletta. Despite the po-boy’s many charms, some are worried about its future. The organizers of the New Orleans Po-Boy Preserva- tion Festival, held annually in November, say that Hurricane Katrina flooded many neighbor- hood po-boy shops, dangerously cutting into the city’s supply of the sandwich. Out-of-towners, however, might question the need for po-boy activism, espe- cially after a tour of Jazz Fest’s impressive assemblage of sand- wiches. Fried oysters are perhaps the most celebrated of po-boy fill- ings, and because Washington has its own laudable versions of this sandwich (the ones at Hank’s Oyster Bar and Eatonville come to mind), a wise visitor to Jazz Fest will zero in on others. Tempting options abound, in- cluding succulent pork, fried ga- tor, Cajun duck, crawfish sau- sage or even turkey with spicy,
vinegary giardiniera, or pickled vegetables.
While the po-boy innards kin- dle most of the attention, the bread shouldn’t be overlooked. And the history of breadmaking and the po-boy are intimately entwined. According to Michael Mizell-Nelson, a historian at the University of New Orleans, the name was coined in 1929, when a pair of brothers sympathetic to a group of streetcar strikers decid- ed to help out the “poor boys” by fixing them extra-large sand- wiches. The original po-boys were filled with luncheon meats and made with specially ordered 40-inch loaves (longer and thick- er than traditional loaves). Though the sandwiches were popular long before the Depres- sion, sandwich makers around the city, especially those special- izing in the “oyster loaf,” even- tually adopted the names poor- boy and po-boy. Today, po-boy bread is less
crusty and has an airier, fluffier crumb than typical French bread, says Michelle Nugent, Jazz Fest’s food director. Po-boy vending, or vending
any food at Jazz Fest, for that matter, is no small catering feat. About 30,000 people pass through the fairgrounds every year, and vendors need to feed them quickly and cheaply. Vance Vaucresson, a third-generation Creole sausagemaker and pur- veyor of excellent hot sausage and crawfish sausage po-boys, says that fellow vendors, who uphold a certain po-boy camara- derie, are likely to lend him bread or seasonings if he runs out. Po-boys go for $5 to $10 at the
festival, with fried oysters at the top end. Last year, the food booth with the consistently long- est line was the one selling the cochon (pronounced “coosh- awn” by locals) de lait po-boy. The tender shredded pork butt in this sandwich comes from suckling pigs, and is seasoned and slow-cooked for 12 hours in a pit. Adorned with cabbage, car- rot and a zesty horseradish sauce, the sandwich is a stand- out. Proprietor Wanda Walker still swoons over her cochon de lait sandwiches even after 12 years of serving them at Jazz Fest. “When you open those pit doors in the morning and you smell that pork, oh ho, you just want to go crazy,” she says. If a thorough exploration of the po-boy at Jazz Fest seems in- sufficient, consider returning in November for the preservation festival. Surely, this winsome sandwich should never die.
travel@washpost.com
Barclay is a Washington writer.
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, April 23-25 and April 29-May 2. www.nojazzfest.com.
KLMNO
SIDE ORDER
SUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2010
Steppe lively: Mongolia’s Naadam games
by Michael Shapiro
When President Nixon visited
China in 1972, he said that it takes a great people to build a Great Wall. In Mongolia they countered: It takes an even greater people to make them want to build it. That warrior pride is on full display at the Naadam festival. Featuring contests in the
“manly” sports of wrestling, horseback riding and archery, Mongolia’s Naadam Games date back eight centuries to the era of Genghis Khan. Before embark- ing on a 10-day, 300-mile moun- tain-bike tour of Mongolia’s steppes, our cycling group spent two days at the games, held an- nually on July 11-12. Arriving at the national stadi- um in Ulan Bator just moments before the official start of the Naadam, my buddy Walt and I encountered a carnival atmos- phere. Archers wearing tradi- tional Mongolian robes, called dels, were warming up by flexing their bowstrings.
Burly wrestlers, clad in sky blue or magenta briefs with frilly matching jackets, were stretch- ing and practicing their take- down moves. Lamb sizzling over pit barbecues cast a heavenly scent across the dusty paths. The games originated in 1206, when Genghis Khan (pro- nounced Chinggis Khan in Mon- golia) founded the Mongolian empire, naming himself “univer- sal king.” Once a training ground for Mongolia’s warriors, the Naadam festival today is a na- tional gala celebrating the coun- try’s heritage and resurgent in- dependence after seven decades under Soviet communism. In a way, Naadam is Mongo-
lia’s Super Bowl, a bacchanal spotlighting the country’s be- loved pop and hip-hop singers, soldiers high-stepping to mar- tial music, a pageant of demons in fearsome masks, the celes- tially lovely Miss Mongolia and dancing maidens. Just as in the Olympics, they all parade around an oval track in the games’ opening ceremonies. And here’s the amazing thing:
Unlike at the security-obsessed Olympics or a U.S. football game, you can get close to everyone. I greeted Miss Mongolia and she held out her hand, silken to the touch. I wandered over to the arch-
CROWD PHOTO BY SKIP BOLEN; SANDWICH PHOTO BY ELIZA BARCLAY
Top, Jazz Fest fans line up at food booths; above, a hot sausage po-boy, one of 14 permutations of the sandwich sold at the festival.
ery practice field. After most of the arrow slingers had complet- ed their warm-ups, an elderly, bespectacled archer beckoned me over and asked whether I’d like to try out his hand-hewn bow. I grasped the bow, ornately painted with horse designs, placed the arrow in it, aimed for a target about 80 yards away and shot. I missed, but came close. The archer straightened out my left arm and I shot again, com- ing even closer to the small wooden targets perched on a log. He flashed me a thumbs-up and a big grin. I gave him a little money, which he gratefully ac- cepted, offering me in return a shot of whiskey from his bottle. An odd thing about the manly games: Wrestling is the sole event in which only men can compete. This is a progressive society: Women participate in the archery contests. And the
PHOTOS BY MICHAEL SHAPIRO
Relax, Beijing, there’s no wall-scaling event: Boys jockey horses in Naadam’s 14.3-mile race to lighten the load on the animals. The festival features traditional Mongolian sports and clothing.
jockeys are boys, typically about 6 to 12 years old, because they’re light enough for the horses to manage over the 14.3-mile course. We drove about an hour west of the capital to watch the gru- eling horse races. Some horses don’t make it across the finish line, collapsing under the heat of the midday sun. We saw a boy walk in front of his horse, pull- ing the bedraggled beast across the finish line by the reins. All around us, nomads who
had traveled vast distances on horseback greeted friends they hadn’t seen in a year. They
Once, a match went on so long that at dusk, cars had to shine headlights on the wrestlers until one of the exhausted men collapsed.
clasped hands, hugged and caught up on recent events. Most don’t have phones, and they’re certainly not online, so this annual gathering is their time for sharing their news and hearing how old friends are do- ing. Near the finish line, I joined a group of nomads for lamb and potato stew cooked in a metal jug with hot stones, a genuine Mongolian barbecue. “Good?” asked the cook, a sun-browned woman with rosy cheeks and a crinkly smile. I smiled and gave her a thumbs- up, a common gesture of approv- al in Mongolia. Through our translator she said that it’s like “hunted meat,” rich, hearty and nutritious. “You eat just a little bit and feel full.” She was right. Back at the stadium that after- noon, nine pairs of wrestlers grunted and tugged at one an- other simultaneously. It’s an elimination tournament with 512 men; the loser is out, the winner moves to the next round. There’s a single objective: to take down your opponent. A wrestler doesn’t have to pin his adversary: If a competitor’s knee hits the ground, the match is over.
Contests have been known to
go on for hours. A few years ago, one spectator told me effusively in English, one match went on so long that at dusk, a dozen cars drove into the stadium, sur- rounded the wrestlers and shone their headlights on them to keep the match going until one of the exhausted men col- lapsed. Unlike in sumo, there’s no
ring. Wrestlers spiraled out like a beast with four legs. Referees, clad in burgundy robes with gold sashes, followed the beast as it twirled across the field. At the end of each match, the win- ner bowed to the referee and danced like a steppe eagle, flap- ping his arms in a gesture of vic- tory. After two days, the field was down to the two strongest wres- tlers in Mongolia. Each man had thousands of howling fans ex- horting him. As the late after- noon match commenced, light- ning shattered a gunmetal sky. The atmosphere was literally electric. The wrestlers feinted and
grabbed each other’s shoulders. After 10 minutes of pressing and pushing and leg strikes, the beefier man got his chest atop the other man’s back. The small- er man resisted and appeared to be on the verge of escape. The top man exerted a final
forceful push, the smaller man buckled, and his knee hit the ground with a dusty thud. Mon- golia had a new champion. Thousands of spectators thrust their arms skyward, hol- lering and hooting. Then they leaned back in their seats and exhaled, appearing as spent as the wrestlers, and just about everyone around me lit a ciga- rette.
travel@washpost.com
Michael Shapiro is the author of "A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration" and co-author of "Guatemala: A Journey Through the Land of the Maya," His Web site is
www.michaelshapiro.net.
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