Smithsonian.com

Image via Archinect.

There are plenty of examples of structures built from recycled materials—even Buddhist temples have been made from them. In Sima Valley, California, an entire village known as Grandma Prisbey’s Bottle Village was constructed from reused glass. But this is no new concept—back in 1960, executives at the Heineken brewery drew up a plan for a “brick that holds beer,” a rectangular beer bottle that could also be used to build homes.

Gerard Adriaan Heineken acquired the “Haystack” brewery in 1864 in Amsterdam, marking the formal beginning of the eponymous brand that is now one of the most successful international breweries. Since the first beer consignment was delivered to the United States upon the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, it has been a top seller in the United States. The distinctive, bright green of a Heineken beer bottle can be found in more than 70 countries today. The founder’s grandson, Alfred Heineken, began his career with the company in 1942 and was later elected Chairman of the Executive Board at Heineken International. Alfred, better known as “Freddy,”oversaw the design of the classic red-starred label released in 1964. He had a good eye for marketing and design.”Had I not been a beer brewer I would have become an advertising man,” he once said. When Freddy’s beer took off in the international market, he made it a point to visit the plants the company had opened as a part of its globalization strategy.

A display of WOBO “bricks” from the Heineken Experience, in Amsterdam. Image courtesy of Flickr user seaotter22.

In 1960, Freddy took a trip to the island of Curacao in the Caribbean Sea and discovered that he could barely walk 15 feet on the beach without stepping on a littered Heineken bottle. He was alarmed by two things: First, the incredible amount of waste that his product was creating due to the region’s lack of infrastructure to collect the bottles for reuse. (Back then, bottles were commonly returned for refilling, lasting about 30 trips back and forth to the breweries). Second, the dearth of proper building materials available to those living in the impoverished communities he visited. So he thought up an idea that might solve both of these problems: A brick that holds beer.

The rectangular, Heineken World Bottle or WOBO, designed with the help of architect John Habraken, would serve as a drinking vessel as well as a brick once the contents were consumed. The long side of the bottle would have interlocking grooved surfaces so that the glass bricks, once laid on their side, could be stacked easily with mortar or cement. A 10-foot-by-10-foot shack would take approximately 1,000 bottles (and a lot of beer consumption) to build. Yu Ren Guang explains in Packaging Prototypes 3: Thinking Green:

“On returning to Holland [from Curacao], Alfred set about conceiving the first ever bottle designed specifically for secondary use as a building component, thereby turning the function of packaging on its head. By this philosophy, Alfred Heineken saw his beer as a useful product to fill a brick with while being shipped overseas. It became more a case of redesigning the brick than the bottle.”

A handful of designers have accepted Alfred’s WOBO as one of the first eco-conscious consumer designs out there. Martin Pawley, for example, writes in Garbage Housing, that the bottle was “the first mass production container ever designed from the outset for secondary use as a building component.”

A WOBO wall. Image courtesy of Flickr user greezer.ch.

There were many variations of the original prototype—all of which were ultimately rejected as many components were considered unworkable. For example, a usable beer bottle needs a neck from which to pour the beer and a protruding neck makes it harder to stack the product once the beer’s run out—problematic for brick laying. The finalized design came in two sizes—350 and 500 milimeters (35 and 50 centimeters)—the smaller of which acted as half-bricks to even out rows during construction. In 1963, the company made 50,000 WOBOs for commercial use.

Both designs (one of the wooden prototypes is pictured in Nigel Whiteley’s Design for Society), were ultimately rejected by the Heineken company. The first prototype for example, was described by the Heineken marketing team as too “effeminate” as the bottle lacked ‘approprate’ connotations of masculinity. A puzzling description, Cabinet writes, “considering that the bottle consisted of two bulbous compartments surmounted by a long shaft.”

For the second model, Habraken and Heineken had to thicken the glass because it was meant to be laid horizontally—a costly decision for an already progressive concept. The established cylindrical designs were more cost effective and could be produced faster than the proposed brick design. But what most likely worked against Habraken’s design was that customers simply liked the easy-to-hold, cylindrical bottle.

Though the brick bottles never saw the market, in 1965 a prototype glass house was built near Alfred Heineken’s villa in Noordwijk, outside Amsterdam. Even the plastic shipping pallets intended for the product were reused as sheet roofing. The two buildings still stand at the company’s former brewery-turned-museum, The Heineken Experience. 

A Heineken label circa 1931. Image courtesy of Heineken International.

Where Heineken failed in creating a reusable brick bottle, the company EM1UM succeeded. The bottles, which were easier to manufacture for most automatic bottling machines than Heineken’s design, were made to attach lengthways or sideways by pushing the knobs of one into the depressions of another. EM1UM was mostly successful in Argentina and collected awards for bottle designs including prisms, cubes and cylinders.

In 2008, French design company, Petit Romain, made plans to make its own take on Alfred Heineken’s WOBO design, the Heineken Cube. It’s similar to the original concept in that it’s stackable, packable and altogether better for travel than the usual, clinky, cylindrical bottles. The major difference is that the cube is meant to save space, not to build homes. Like Freddy’s WOBO, the Cube is still in the prototype stage.

The prototype Heineken cube from Petit Romain via Laughing Squid

Though Freddy’s brick design never took off, it didn’t stop Heineken International from maintaining the lead in the global brew market. By ’68, Heineken merged with its biggest competitor, Amstel. By ’75 Freddy was one of the richest men in Europe.

A fun, slightly-related fact: Alfred Heineken and his chauffeur were kidnapped in 1983 and held at a 10 million dollar ransom in a warehouse for three weeks. Lucky for Freddy, one of the kidnappers gave away their location mistakenly while calling for some Chinese takeout. According to the Guardian, after the incident, Heineken required at least two bodyguards to travel with him at all times.

Alfred played a large role in the company’s expansion, championing a series of successful acquisitions, right up until his death in 2002. While his plans for translucent, green bottle homes never came to fruition commercially, the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple, constructed from a mix of one million bottles from Heineken and the local Chang beer remains proof of the design’s artfulness. For some designers, it seems, there is no such thing as garbage.

A tabletop laden with goodies showcases the nut culture of the French Périgord, where locals make cheese, bread, oil and liqueur using the area’s walnuts. Photo by Alastair Bland.

Walnuts, like almonds, avocados, flax seeds and other things rich in good oils and antioxidants, are among the rising stars of the American whole foods health craze. But it never took a good word from Dr. Oz or Oprah to make this nut a favorite in the Périgord region of southern France, where walnuts have flourished for centuries. Mature orchards line the highways and carpet the Dordogne River floodplain, plots of sapling twigs sprout their first year’s leaves in adjacent plots, trees blossom with the promise of a bumper autumn crop, and heaps and heaps of nuts are sold in bulk in virtually every single market. Deeper inside the local shops and households, one finds other things walnut–including fresh-pressed oil and whiskey-strong walnut booze. And following the road signs of the “Route de la Noix,” a meandering circuit of small highways through the woods, travelers discover the Périgord’s most prolific walnut country–and along this route are walnut oil presses, walnut museums, distilleries, and places to taste the Périgord’s variety of other walnut products. I, as it happens, am on vacation here, and for at least a few days I’m disregarding the region’s foie gras, truffles and wine and, instead, am making this visit to the Dordogne Valley a walnut tasting tour.

Here are five ways I’ve recently learned to enjoy this rising superstar of nuts:

1. Drink it: Eau-de-vie de noix. This liqueur–translated into something like “firewater of walnut”– begins as brandy, distilled from wine, but gains its distinguishing marks through several weeks of sitting on mashed-up walnuts. The final product, which may never touch an oak barrel, is usually just faintly yellow with a subtle candy-like nuttiness. The drink is dry–unsweetened–and usually weighs in at about 42 percent alcohol by volume. (Don’t get it mixed up with drinks like vin de noix, eau de noix or liqueur de noix, discussed below.) Drink eau-de-vie de noix straight or on the rocks to best savor its subtle essence–and in the name of France’s cherished food-and-drink traditions, keep the expensive bottle away from that hair-gelled mixologist friend of yours.

Walnut-infused liquors of varying strength command varying prices at the Distillerie de la Salamandre, in Temniac, France. Photo by Alastair Bland.

2. Drink It, Part II: Walnut wine. You’ll see this billed as “vin de noix” in the Perigord, yet the product is grape-based, made from straight red wine that sits on macerated green walnuts (harvested in the summertime, when bitter and scarcely edible) for several weeks before being sweetened with sugar and sometimes spiked with brandy or vodka. Many households make this drink, as do inns where it may be served to guests. Relatively little is labeled and sold commercially, but visitors to the Dordogne Valley (it occurs in Italy and the Balkans, too) will have little trouble finding a glassful. Walnut wine usually runs about 16 percent alcohol by volume. But those who read bottle labels will observe that a similar product called “eau de noix” runs 18 percent, and that another labeled as “liqueur de noix” measures about 30. They are different renditions of the same recipe. Speaking of which, walnut wine is almost stupid-easy to make yourself; you need just green walnuts, wine, sugar, brandy and a few weeks.

3. Drizzle It: Walnut oil. This is one of those oils that can be so delicious that one hates to do anything with it much more complicated than sipping it from a spoon. It is a product of the autumn, when the walnuts fall by the tons and tons throughout the Périgord. Many farmers rake up at least part of their crop and bring it to the local oil maker. Here, a grinding mill–sometimes decades old–smashes the nuts, rendering a honey-golden juice that comes gurgling out into jugs. Often the walnuts are toasted before being ground, though some farmers of less traditional tendencies are now “cold-pressing” the nuts for a subtler, softer oil–and supposedly with more health benefits. You may find roasted walnut oil to be superior. It is fragrant, rich, warm and toasty. Don’t even think of blending it with balsamic (even though the locals often do, perhaps since they have all they can use), and if you must make a dressing with it, go easy on the vinegar. Also, don’t use walnut oil for cooking, as high temperatures can supposedly annihilate its purported health benefits and burn away its aromas. The best ways to taste walnut oil may be to drizzle it over couscous, charcuterie, a runny egg yolk or a steaming plate of whole-grain bulgur.

4. Eat It: Walnut Bread. The humble baguette may be the oven-made star of the French boulangerie–but walnut bread is better. Produced year-round and available in most good bakeries, walnut bread–sometimes made with whole wheat for a richer, fuller flavor–is often baked into a round loaf with a hard crust, and the nuts are inevitably toasted. Layer a slice with cheese–or drizzle it with walnut oil.

Many sorts of breads in France trump the plain baguette, such as these morning loaves of fresh walnut bread spotted in the village bakery of Saint Julien de Lampon. Photo by Alastair Bland.

5.  Spread it: Walnut cheese. Another specialty of the Périgord, walnut cheese may be encountered as a sticky Tomme-like substance called Echourgnac, made at the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Good Hope and soaked in walnut liquor. This treatment produces a strong-tasting and smoky scent–almost like cured anchovies–yet subtle in the walnut spectrum of flavors. One must consciously wish to taste walnut to believe he actually can–but the label of the Trappe Echourgnac, a 14-ounce walnut cheese wheel, verifies that, indeed, the stuff is bathed in “liqueur de noix.” Want a crunchier experience? Try Gourmandise, a blended cheese studded with crumbled walnuts.

The Route of the Walnuts leads travelers in the Dordogne Valley past oil presses, museums, bakeries and distilleries, all in the midst of the region’s prolific walnut orchards. Photo by Alastair Bland.

A Ricos advertisement for the nacho bowl from the early ’80s. Image courtesy of Ricos Products Co., Inc.

The smell of freshly cut grass, the crack of the bat, the 30 minutes standing in line at the concession stand. Baseball season is up and running and the experience of going to a game wouldn’t be the same without an expensive beer in one hand and a plastic receptacle of nachos covered in ooey-gooey cheese product in the other. But how did nachos become a stadium standard?

In September 1988, Adriana P. Orr, a researcher at the Oxford English Dictionary, was asked to trace the etymology of the word “nachos” and conducted an initial investigation of the nacho story. She followed a paper trail of documents and newspaper articles until she found what she was looking for in the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress:

“As I walked down the long corridor leading back to the library’s central core, I heard a voice softly calling my name. There was a young woman I recognized as a staff member of the Hispanic Division…she told me she had been born and raised in Mexico and there, nacho has only one common usage: it is the word used as a diminutive for a little boy who had been baptized Ignacio. His family and friends call him Nacho… Now I was convinced there was a real Nacho somewhere who had dreamed up a combination of tortilla pieces with melted cheese and jalapeño peppers.”

Using this information, Orr tracked down a quote from the elusive 1954 St Anne’s Cookbook printed by The Church of the Redeemer, Eagle Pass, Texas, which includes a recipe for a dish called “Nachos Especiales.” 

What Orr would find is that, in 1943 in Piedras Negras, Mexico — just across the border from Eagle Pass, a group of hungry army wives were the first to eat the meal. When the ladies went to a restaurant called the Victory Club, the maitre d’, Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya greeted them. Without a chef around, Anaya threw together whatever food he could find in the kitchen that “consisted of near canapes of tortilla chips, cheese, and jalapeno peppers.” The cheese of choice was reportedly Wisconsin cheddar. Anaya named the dish Nachos Especiales and it caught on—on both sides of the border—and the orignal title was shortened to “nachos.”

Anaya died in 1975, but a bronze plaque was put up in Piedras, Negras, to honour his memory and October 21 was declared the International Day of the Nacho.

If Anaya is the progenitor of nachos especiales, then how did it happen that Frank Liberto came to be known as “The Father of Nachos”?  Nachos were already popular at restaurants in Texas by the time Liberto’s recipe hit the scene, but he’s famous in the industry for bringing his version of the dish to the concession stand in 1976 at a Texas Rangers baseball game in Arlington, Texas. What he did that no one else had done before, was create the pump-able consistency of the orangey-gooey goodness we see today—what the company calls “cheese sauce.”  Though some versions are Wisconsin cheddar-based like Anaya’s original, according to the company most of the products are blends. (According to the Food and Drug Administration’s standards, the sauce is technically not “cheese,” but that hasn’t stopped fans from pumping it by the gallons since). Liberto’s innovation didn’t need to be refrigerated and had a longer shelf life. His recipe was top secret—so secret that in 1983 a 29-year-old man was arrested for trying to buy trade secrets into Liberto’s formula.

As a concessionaire, transaction time was key—Frank didn’t want customers to wait more than a minute in line for their snack. To meet this demand, he came up with the idea of warming up a can of cheese sauce, ladling it over the chips and then sprinkling jalapeños on top. Frank’s son and current president of Ricos Products Co., Inc., Anthony ‘Tony’ Liberto, was 13 when Ricos introduced the product in Arlington Stadium. He recalls that the concession operators wouldn’t put the cheesy chips in the stands. They were afraid that the new product launch would cannibalize other popular items like popcorn, hotdogs and sodas.

“We had to build our own nacho carts,”  Liberto, now 50, says. “My dad has an old VHS tape where people were lined up 20 people deep behind these concession carts. You’d hear the crack of the bat and you’d think that they’d want to see what play was going on, but they stayed in line to get their nachos.”

This 35mm film trailer from the ’70s starring Nacho, Rico and Pepe was created by Walt Disney animators and was used during intermission at movie theaters. Image courtesy of Ricos Products Co., Inc.

It was an immediate success: That season Arlington Stadium sold Ricos’ nachos at the rate of one sale per every two-and-a-half patrons—over $800,000 in sales. Popcorn, which previously had the highest sales, only sold to one in 14 patrons for a total of $85,000. There is one ingredient to thank for that shift, Liberto says: The jalapeño pepper.

“When you put a jalapeño pepper on chips and cheese, of course it’s going to be spicy,” he says. “You’re going to start looking for your beverage—a Coke or Pepsi, whatever—you’re gonna need something to drink.”

Beverage sales spiked and hotdog and popcorn sales thereafter, he says. By 1978, the spicy snack became available at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium, where iconic “Monday Night Football” announcer Howard Cosell would put nachos on the map. Cosell, a household name for football fans, sat alongside Frank Gifford and Don Meredith giving viewers the play-by-play, when a plate of nachos was brought to the broadcast room.

“Cosell was trying to take up some dead air and he says ‘They brought us this new snack—what do they call them? knock-o’s or nachos?’” recalls Liberto. “He started using the word ‘nachos’ in the description of plays: ‘Did you see that run? That was a nacho run!’”

Cosell and others used the word for weeks after, allowing nachos to branch out from their Texas birthplace.

“My father first sold a condensed formulation of the product,” Tony says. “You open up the can, add water or milk and pepper juice to the mix.”

Each number ten can contains 107 ounces of the condensed cheese conconction to which 32 ounces of water and 20 ounces of pepper juice are added. Once combined, the cheese blend is put into a dispenser like the pump or button-operated machines you see at concession stands today.

“That’s an added 52 ounces of servable product,” Tony says. “Nearly 50 percent more sauce [than what comes in the can] Plus, the water is free and the pepper juice you get from the jalapenos anyway. You get an additonal 52 0z to serve and it doesn’t cost the company a dime.”

Just to make this profit thing clear—some math: If you have an extra 52 ounces of product and each two-ounce serving of cheese sauce goes for four bucks a pop, that’s 100 dollars directly into the concessionaire’s cash register.

An advertisement from 1956. The company responsible for stadium nachos surprisingly sells a lot of sno-cone products. Image courtesy of Ricos Products Co., Inc.

Tony has two children, a daughter (13) and a son (11), who he hopes will take an interest in working for the family business one day as he did. His niece, Megan Petri (fifth generation), currently works for Ricos Products Co., Inc. 

“We can’t go to any baseball game without getting an order of nachos,” says Liberto. “[My daughter] says ‘I need my nachos I need my nachos.’ It’s like she needs her fix.”

His daughter is not alone in her affinity for her family’s invention. As millions of people crunch into their plates of chips and cheesiness at baseball games and movie theaters around the world, one question remains: How much cheese is actually in the nacho sauce?

“I will not tell you that,” he laughs. ”We’ve got lots of formulas and that is a a trade secret—you never want to give away how much cheese is in your product.”

Cinco de Mayo festival in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

Cinco de Mayo, as celebrated in the United States, shares some similarities to St. Patrick’s Day: a mainstream marketing fiasco that’s evolved out of an authentic celebration of cultural heritage. The typical Cinco de Mayo is a day of eating tacos and drinking margaritas. But, just like you won’t find corned beef and green beer in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day, you won’t find ground beef tacos, nachos and frozen margaritas in Mexico on Cinco de Mayo.

Contrary to popular belief, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico’s Independence Day; it celebrates the Mexican victory at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War, which came after Mexico’s independence from Spain, the Mexican-American War and the Mexican Civil War. In our neighbor to the south, the holiday is mainly celebrated in the region of Puebla, and mostly in the state’s capital city of the same name.

But what America’s Cinco de Mayo misses is the traditional food of Mexico, named to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, a recognition given to only one other cuisine (French). And, nachos with refried beans, cheese wiz and jalapenos is nowhere on the list or in the country. Taco Bell has even tried opening up in Mexico but each time has failed, simply because no one will eat there.

What makes traditional Mexican fare worthy of such a distinction? You won’t find cumin soaked ground beef hard shell tacos topped with iceberg and cheddar. But, you will find lamb barbacoa that has been smoked underground in banana leaves or carnitas topped with queso fresco, pickled onions and homemade salsa verde wrapped in a warm homemade corn tortilla that has been ever so lightly heated on a comal. And Puebla, just so happens to be considered by many, including Rick Bayless and Mark Bittman, as the gastronomic capital of Mexico.

Puebla is not only known for its food, but also for its quaint colorful streets. (Photo courtesy of Flickr user RussBowling).

Before Spanish explorers and immigrants swarmed Mexico, Puebla was already a culinary capital. The sacred town of Cholula known for its great pre-Colombian pyramid was also home to pre-Columbian street food. In this ancient city, vendors would set up outside the pyramid to feed those who came to worship.

After arriving in Puebla, the Spanish settled close to Cholula and created what is known today as the city of Puebla. Religion was a major aspect of Spanish conquest and convents and monasteries were set up across the city. Spanish nuns invented many of Puebla and Mexico’s most cherished dishes in these convents by integrating old world traditions with new world ingredients.

With that history in mind, here are three famous dishes from Puebla to try this Cinco de Mayo.

Mole Poblano is the iconic dish of Puebla. (Photo courtesy of Chantal Martineau).

1) Mole Poblano

Mole Poblano may be the most consumed dish in Puebla for Cinco de Mayo. But, what is mole (accent on the second syllable, as in guacamole)? There are two origin stories to the word mole. The first is that mole is the Spanish translation of the Aztec or Nahuatl word for sauce, mulli. The second is that mole comes from the Spanish word moler, which means to grind. Whichever story you want to believe, mole is a sauce made from ground up ingredients and comes in all colors and consistencies, but the thick dark mole poblano has made its mark on the international gastronomic world.

Legend has it that mole poblano was first created in the kitchen of the Santa Rosa convent in Puebla by Sor Andrea de la Asunción in the late seventeenth century. According to The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist, Sor Andrea de la Asunción is said to have prepared it for don Tomás Antonio de la Cerda y Aragón, the new viceroy of Spain. This dish is the ultimate combination of old and new world ingredients and cooking practices. This sauce can be somewhat daunting by the long laundry list of ingredients that requires various preparations. But, after one taste of this mole, all the roasting and toasting will be worth it.

Recommended Recipes:
Mole Poblano, Pati’s Mexican Table
Chicken in Mole, Puebla Style, Epicurious

Chalupas Poblanas are an infamous street food in Puebla. But, they are so popular that you will find them served at the top restaurants. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Smith Hurd / All About Puebla).

2) Chalupas

Chalupas, an iconic Poblano street food, have a resemblance to tostadas and are the perfect antojito for any Cinco de Mayo celebration. To put it simply, chalupas are fried thick tortillas topped with salsa, shredded meat, chopped onion and sometimes queso fresco.

There are two versions to the history of chalupas. The first is that it gets its name from baskets. According to All About Puebla,

Chalupas date back to Colonial times, when Spanish settlers spent a good part of their days washing clothes by the Almoloya (San Francisco) River. It’s said that the women carried everything to the river in big baskets made of wood called chalupas, after which they’d rush home and quickly fry up corn tortillas in lard, top them with salsa, shredded beef or pork, and chopped onion – and call it dinner.

The second is that they are named after the Aztec boats (chalupas) used in the ancient city of Tenochtitlan.

Recommended Recipes:
Chalupas Poblanas, Saveur Magazine
Chalupas Poblanas, Mexconnect

Chiles en Nogada is one of the most celebrated dishes in Puebla. (Photo courtesy of Lesley Téllez / The Mija Chronicles).

3) Chiles en Nogada

Chiles en nogada is an iconic dish of Mexico. It is said to have been invented in the convent of Santa Monica for Agustin de Iturbide‘s visit to Puebla in 1821. Agustín de Iturbide was Mexico’s first emperor after Mexico won independence from Spain. He was served chiles en nogada in Puebla while traveling back to Mexico City from Veracruz after signing the Treaty of Cordoba, which gave Mexico its independence.

The dish signifies Mexico’s independence and is made up of the colors of the Mexican flag; red, white and green. The flavors are just as colorful as the ingredients. The sweet, savory, picadillo stuffed poblano pepper dipped in egg batter, fried, and topped with a rich walnut sauce, pomegranate seeds and parsley is something you will not regret. Though it is more traditionally made for Mexico’s Independence Day, it is one of Puebla’s most cherished dishes.

Recommended Recipes:
Chiles en Nogada, The Kitchn
Rick Bayless’ Chiles en Nogada, The Atlantic

Booths of food stretch as far as the eye can see and the stomach can handle. All photos by Leah Binkovitz

The annual Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana, is as famous for its music as it is for its food. In fact, some people insist it’s the po’boys and alligator pies that take center stage.

Born in 1970 and christened by the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, Jazz Fest is unlike any other music festival in the country and not just because it actually has good food. Residents and tourists arrive by foot, bike and cab–some official and others just enterprising locals with a car. The acts are a mix of big names–Billy Joel, Black Keys, Frank Ocean–and local favorites–Rebirth Brass Band, Lost Bayou Ramblers, Trombone Shorty. When everything wraps up in the early evening, the crowd filters out into the streets, past colorful shotgun houses, to continue the party around town.

In other words, it’s not just a festival in New Orleans, it’s a festival of New Orleans. So what’s more New Orleans: the food or the music?

Tied with onion and fried, the crawfish sack (right) is a favorite at the festival.

For many who have been coming for many years, the festival can’t get started until they have their favorite dish to kick things off. Catherine King makes a beeline for Patton’s Catering for an oyster patty, crawfish sack and crawfish beignet. “It’s my tradition every year. This is the first thing I have to have.”

And even though seafood tends to dominate the conversation and the cooking, Bill Storer says he comes for the fried chicken. “I travel around the world in search of good fried chicken,” he says and since 1998, he’s traveled to New Orleans from San Jose, California for a plate of the good stuff at Jazz Fest.

Over the years, he says things haven’t changed much but he did have to switch his morning dive bar routine after the one he frequented closed recently. “You like to start off in the morning at a good, seedy bar,” he explains, “Have a few drinks right off and then come here for lunch.” This year he settled on Ms. Mae’s, located  across town. “It’s the ultimate dive bar. I was there and the lady said, please get out of the way, you’re standing in vomit.”

Communal tables are a good place to get food reviews from other patrons before selecting your own menu.

Note the handy beer cooler necklace for convenient two-hand eating.

The festival puts food front and center. After walking in past the gospel and jazz tents, a wide lawn of tables and food stands opens to your right. Each vendor offers one plate or dish. You can get Storer’s fried chicken and Cajun jambalaya from New Orleans’ own Catering Unlimited or cheesy crawfish bread from Panorama Foods based in Marksville, Louisiana. With 22 stands representing all parts of Louisiana, this is just one of nine places to find a bite to eat so pace yourself.

Enchanted by the food, you might miss the truck off to your right, loaded up with produce courtesy a one Mr. Okra. Raised in the 3rd ward, he’s lived in the 8th for nearly 30 years but he’s known all over town. Mr. Okra can usually be found driving his truck loaded with lemons, greens and more through the streets of New Orleans, singing the day’s offering into a speaker system. Joined by his daughter and friend, Mr. Okra now offers his goods to Jazz Fest visitors as well. “I’ve been coming out here about three years. I like it,” he says seated in the truck with a view of the Jazz and Heritage stage, “You meet a lot of people.”

Mr. Okra may be as famous in New Orleans as some of the performers.

If you’re looking for fruit, this is one of the few places to get a piece.

Unlike Storer’s shuttered dive bar, the festival has continued to grow over the years, surviving hurricanes and oil spills. According to retired shrimper Jim Hebert, the explanation for that is simple: “We still have the best seafood around and that’s coming from a Cajun in the seafood industry.” Po’Boy in hand, Hebert explains, “I’m kind of partial to shrimp, my family is in the shrimping business.”

Hebert hadn’t been back to Jazz Fest for nearly 20 years, but says it’s even better than he remembers. “Although it was fantastic back then, this has grown.” Spread over two weekends, the festival attracts hundreds of thousands of food and music fans. Twelve music tents offer a wide variety of experiences. If you want the big shows and big crowds, the Acura Stage offers that for more mainstream acts (and rather un-jazzy) including Maroon 5 and Fleetwood Mac. Breaking the trend at Acura, though, is one act you won’t want to miss: the legendary Trombone Shorty (so named because he was tearing it up even as a kid) and Orleans Avenue, performing Sunday. Meanwhile the Fais Do-Do Stage, named for the Cajun dance parties that borrowed the name from mothers whispering “fais do-do” or “go to sleep” to fussy children, has a smaller stage and bleachers you might even get a chance to sit on. For local acts, like the Stooges Brass Band or the festival favorite Mardi Gras Indians, the Jazz and Heritage Stage also offers a smaller space.

You can also catch some of the Mardi Gras Indians and second line bands as they parade through the festival itself. Born out of funerary traditions, the second-line parades are full of color and big brass and not to be missed. Everyone gets in on the action, including children, and crowds join in behind the slow march, clapping and dancing. There is a schedule but the felicitous appearance of the music makes it all the more infectious.

Hot sauce goes fast at one stand.

After a career in shrimping, Hebert says he’s actually about to invest in oysters, another favorite of the area.

Mardi Gras Indians entertain crowds at Jazz Fest.

Sometimes the most engaging performers aren’t even on the stages.

Not your typical music festival attire.

The second line parades keep things lively as you walk from stage to stage.

Born out of funerary traditions, second line parades get the good times rolling with bright colors and great music.

You can even park at one of the tables after getting your food and likely catch one of these high-energy parades.

A couple of Coors in front of him, Kenneth Gunndersson is digging into a mound of juicy red crawfish as a group of feathered Mardi Gras Indians go by. He traveled all the way from Sweden for the dish and he says it actually reminds him of home. “In Sweden, we eat crawfish but the spices are not that strong,” he explains, “We use dill and salt.”

“And vodka!” His friend interrupts.

“Yeah, we drink vodka too.” Gunndersson says crawfish are popular for a few weeks in August in Sweden. “I remember when I was a boy, fishing for crawfish with my brother, my father and my uncle. Every time I eat crawfish it reminds me of my home and my childhood.”

Halfway through a tour of cities that would take him to Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; Mississippi; and Austin, Texas as well as New Orleans, Gunndersson says, “The best food? New Orleans, of course.”

You can’t go wrong with crawfish and beer.

Only his second time at Jazz Fest, Gunndersson (left) says the reasons for traveling across the world are pretty self-explanatory: “Look around: you listen to music, you eat, you drink, people are friendly, you’re having a good time.”

Cool down with a mango freeze, available at multiple locations around the fair grounds.

Dancing not required, but also irresistible.

If you can’t make it to Jazz Fest this weekend, listen in over at WWOZ.