Local Lingo
New Orleans Food Terms
While it’s not polite to talk with your mouthful – and your mouth will be full in New Orleans – there are a few words you’re going to need to know if you want to cook – and eat – like a New Orleanian.
- Andouille (ahn doo' e)
- A spicy pork sausage used in gumbo, jambalaya or with red beans and rice
- Alligator Pear
- An avocado
- Beignet (ben yay')
- Lighter than a doughnut, and square (no holes), sprinkled with powdered sugar
- Bisque (Bisk)
- A thick creamy spicy soup served with crawfish, oysters, or shrimp (fantastic with mudbugs!)
- Boudin (boo dan')
- Hot, spicy pork mixed with onions, cooked rice, herbs. Two types: boudin blanc is pork and rice, boudin rouge is a blood sausage
- Bread Pudding
- Custard baked french bread - often served with raisins and rum sauce
- Café au Lait (caf ay' oh lay')
- Coffee served with steamed milk. Chicory based coffee is often used.
- Calas
- Sweet fried rice cakes
- Chicory (Chick' o ree)
- Ground-up, roasted roots from the herb; used to flavor coffee-related to endive
- Court Bouillon (coo' boo yon)
- A rich, spicy fish soup
- Crawfish (craw' fish)
- Spicy freshwater shellfish, also known as "mudbugs" from the bayous!
- Crème Caramel
- A glazed custard
- Dirty Rice
- Pan-fried rice cooked with green peppers, onions, celery, stock and giblets
- Dressed
- Sandwiches served with lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise-"the works"
- Eggs Sardou
- Poached egg served with artichoke hearts, and hollandaise sauce
- Etouffée (ay' too fay)
- "Smothered" with a dark roux (tomato-based sauce) of seasoned vegetables, poured over rice-usually served with Crawfish
- Filé (fee' lay)
- Ground sassafras leaves used to season gumbo and other dishes
- Grillades (gree' yads)
- Thin slices of beef served with a tomato roué
- Grits
- Ground hominy grain, served as breakfast
- Gumbo (Gum bow)
- Thick file' soup stock served with rice, duck, chicken, okra, shrimp, crabs (See New Orleans Gumbo recipe-gotta try it!)
- Holy Trinity
- In a New Orleans kitchen, the Holy Trinity refers to onions bell pepper and celery. Almost every traditional Creole or Cajun recipe call for this trio
- Hurricane
- Popular fruit punch drink served at Pat O'Brien's. Watch them...they sneak up on you!
- Hush Puppy
- Fried cornmeal bread ball
- Jambalaya (Jum' ba lie' ya)
- Rice based dish with just about everything thrown in! Poultry, tomatoes and cooked rice, ham, shrimp, chicken, celery, onions & and just about every seasoning. (See New Orleans recipes for a great one!)
- King Cake
- Extra-large oval doughnut pastry dusted with colored candied sugar and often filled with cream cheese, apple filling, etc. A plastic baby doll is hidden inside the cake-the lucky person who gets the piece of cake with the doll inside buys the kingcake for the next party throughout the Mardi Gras season!
- Mirliton (Mirl' a tawn)
- Pear-shaped vegetable, cooked like squash and stuffed with ham, shrimp and spicy dressing
- Mudbugs
- Crawfish from the bayou! ("Crawfish boils" are a big party in New Orleans!)
- Muffuletta (Muf' a lotta) and a lotta it is!
- Super-large, round, fat sandwich filled with salami-type meats, mozzarella cheese, pickles, and olive salad
- Okra
- A seeded pod chopped and served in gumbo, or served as a fried dish
- Pain Perdu (Pan pair do)
- French bread or "lost bread" served in similar fashion to French toast
- Plantain (plan' ten)
- Vegetable banana side dish - cooked like candied yams, served wih meats; sometimes for breakfast (great!)
- Po-boys
- French Bread sandwich split open and served with oysters, shrimp, ham, roast beef and gravy, soft-shelled crabs - the list goes on.... "Dressed" means using lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on the sandwich (see above).
- Praline (Praw leen')
- Brown sugar, pecan-filled, candy patty. (Very sweet and so delicious you can't eat just one! )
- Red Beans and Rice
- Monday night tradition in New Orleans-Kidney beans served with rice, seasonings, spices and chunks of hot sausage
- Remoulade Sauce (Rum a laud)
- Spicy mustard based cocktail sauce
- Sauce Piquante (Sauce pee kont)
- Spicy red gravy or sauce
- Shrimp Creole
- Shrimp dish served with a garlic, onion, bell pepper and tomato sauce
- Snoball
- Icy, syrupy concotion sold at iconic snoball stands, best enjoyed on humid summer days
- Tasso
- Smoked red pepper ham
- Trout Meuniere (trout men-yare)
- Trout served with a rich butter sauce