Louisiana Food Contributors

Episode Description | State Plate Seasons

Personal Farm | Hank Rimmer

Crawfish | Website

Parkway Bakery & Tavern | Justin Kennedy

Po’ Boy Sandwich | Website

With more than a hundred years of memories on the walls, Parkway has become a New Orleans legend. Named “Best Po’boy in Louisiana” in USA TODAY’s “10 Best Readers’ Choice” Contest in 2016, this treasured institution has come to symbolize “the real New Orleans” for locals and visitors from all around the world.

Since 1911, they’ve been a family run business with a reputation for high quality, delicious food and real New Orleans hospitality. General Manager, Justin Kennedy carries on that tradition and work ethic. He makes sure everything is made from scratch and always fresh. You’ll never taste premade roast beef at Parkway. In fact, over 1,000 pounds of beef is slow cooked in Parkway’s kitchen each week, along with over fifty gallons of gravy.

The restaurant features spacious seating and parking, plus a full bar, photo booth, and more—something for everyone at Parkway.

They’re proud to symbolize home for many New Orleanians who’ve had to move away and connect with their city through our food, laughter, and friendship. Whether a local or a visitor, Parkway has a seat waiting for you.

Party with the Poor Boys! When you think New Orleans, you think “party!” Well, the Poor Boy Sandwich has its very own celebration! The Oak Street Po-Boy Festival is a one-day event with live music at the feast and in restaurants, local and regional breweries, arts and crafts, a 3K race, and every type of mouthwatering Poor Boy sandwich imaginable!

Mother’s Restaurant | Roland Swazy

Gumbo | Website

Roland Swazy has been the head cook at Mother’s Restaurant for the last 15 years. He started working at the restaurant in 1987 as a dishwasher, and worked his way up the ranks from biscuit and pie maker to cook. Chef/Partner Jerry Amato, who sadly passed away, March 12, 2016, mentored Roland and taught him how to cook Mother’s specialties. Indeed Roland is his protégé. In his current role, Roland supervises the production of thousands of meals per week. He is a native of New Orleans and a graduate of Walker L. Cohen High School.

The internationally-known restaurant, famous for its Shrimp Creole, jambalaya and red beans, and other regional specialties, remains a family eatery, now with Denny Amato, Jerry’s nephew taking over the day-to-day business.

Listen to Your Mother! Mother’s Restaurant has its own dictionary and recipes. Study up before you go. Here’s one entry to start you off: “Debris” is the roast beef that falls into the gravy while baking in the oven.

Want to try your hand cooking Mother’s style? Try these Mother’s Recipes.

Frugé Aquafarms | Courtney & Mike Frugé

Red Beans & Rice | Website

Rice and crawdads go great together—even off the dinner plate! Frugé Aquafarms harvests two crops of rice every year. Not only is rice a nutritious food, but once the grain is harvested, the crawfish eat the remaining rice stalks.

Mike and brother, Mark Frugé started their company on a 20-acre, Branch, Louisiana crawfish farm as a way to help pay for college. Today, their farm stretches to 3,500 acres, still in the heart of “Cajun Country,” shipping fresh products throughout Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

Mike is a hands-on company owner who revels in analyzing all aspects of the business, even when pursuing his passion as an outdoorsman—whether it’s fishing or serving as a duck- and goose-hunting guide.

Mike’s wife, Courtney serves as the Marketing Director for Frugé Aquafarms, Frugé Seafood Company and Cajuncrawfish.com, creating and/or overseeing all the advertising and promo materials and coordinating event planning. She is a graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in graphic design, a talent, which we hear she sometimes uses to prank her colleagues!

In addition to her work at Frugé Seafood, she owns Frugé & Frugé Graphic Design, a full-service design company, located in Crowley, LA.

It’s All in the Timing!

Rice: According to the LSU Ag Center, rice planted in southwest Louisiana by April 15 has the best chance of producing a good second crop, but the first crop should be harvested by mid-August.

Crawdads: Everything depends on water temperature and weather! But a very general timetable has the harvest from December, to a peak period around mid-March with continued harvest into July.

Café Du Monde | Burt Benrud

Beignet | Website

The Café Du Monde opened in the French Market section of New Orleans in 1862. In 1942, Hubert Fernandez bought the coffee shop, and now, three generations later, the iconic, open-air café is still a family-run business, known for their chicory-flavored coffee and their mouthwatering, world-renowned beignets.

In a video featured on their website, Café Du Monde Vice President, Burt Benrud says, “Every culture has a fried dough, and our culture here, our fried dough is the beignet. People in New Orleans grow up eating beignets.”

When you visit Café Du Monde, you can watch the pastry chef at work, creating the sweet delights. The beignets are rolled out and cut into squares, fried in cottonseed oil, and topped with a generous amount of powdered sugar.

“It’s truly amazing how people identify with that taste, the beignets,” Burt says, “How they expect what those beignets are going to taste like.”

A beacon of hope in the devastated city after Hurricane Katrina hit was the day Café Du Monde re-opened its doors for business.

“When we re-opened after the storm, moms brought their school kids on their way to school to come celebrate the re-opening of the Café Du Monde,” Burt says in the video, “I got really choked up that morning watching how happy everybody really was that we had finally done so.”

The Café Du Monde opening, once again, after the storm was such a symbol of the city’s strength and resilience that the event gained national media attention.

Café Du Monde is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, except Christmas.

Beignet the Café Du Monde Way…

A few tips from the chef:

Don’t overmix your dough, or your beignets will be tough
Ideal temp for cooking oil should be 370 degrees F
You want your beignets to puff up and be light. So don’t add too many to the oil at one time or they’ll come out flat.