Insatiable City: Food and Race in New Orleans

A food historian and former curator at the Smithsonian Institution, Theresa McCulla explores the indelible imprint of racial inequality on the culinary character of New Orleans, from its origins to the Civil Rights era.

Drawing on a host of documents, from city archives and court decisions to abolitionist memoirs, restaurant menus, and period cookbooks, as well as oral histories, McCulla traces the divisions which characterized the way food was grown, prepared, served, and enjoyed.

Although many boundaries in New Orleans were fluid and evolving as the city passed from French to Spanish to French to American control, and new groups of immigrants continued to arrive, distinctions between what was claimed by white culture and what was relegated to black culture were essential to local identities as well as to New Orleans’ national profile. And of course, it was black traditions which were pushed to the margins, and black workers whose contributions were minimized.

Insatiable City is no antidote to those long years of segregation, but the light it sheds on the dynamics of power is significant.

Paperback. Black-and-white photographs.