AUTHOR: Anna Chai, Director, The Mind of a Chef
EPISODE: LOUISIANA
CHEF: SEAN BROCK

4 days in Louisiana with Sean Brock? Who would refuse that!? I mean, have you heard the man laugh?

First stop, New Orleans. Beignets by the Mississippi. Jambalaya at Coop’s. Royal Red Shrimp at Peche … and that’s a list of crew meals — don’t look for any of that in the episode.

What you can look forward to is a trip 156 miles deep into Southern Louisiana. A late-night adventure gigging for frogs. We knew to expect extreme heat and humidity, ravenous mosquitoes, and gators ranging anywhere from 2 to 6 feet in length that “weren’t too bad in terms of aggression,” as we were told. Let’s just say this trip was shaping up to be unlike any other shoot I’d ever been on.

Sean says it best. “Everyone I’ve ever met from Louisiana is the coolest, the most country, the most fun to be around, enjoying life type of person.” I couldn’t agree more.

P.S.: This was my very first time in NOLA. Clearly, I’ve shorted myself for not coming here sooner. It’s a great town.

Upon arriving at the Frogging Location, DPs Mo Fallon and Selene Preston jumped into action and started filming timelapses of the gorgeous sunset. Mo insisted that rolling thunder in the distance would make this scene even better. He would settle for heat lightning, but Mo would really prefer rolling thunder.

As luck would have it, Mo got what he wished for… But it turns out, a spectacular thunderstorm and driving rain are a good thing because, evidently, bullfrogs like the rain.

We did not catch any bullfrogs. Got totally skunked. But, we did learn a few things that night in the marsh… Bullfrogs come out late at night, the darker the better. A good flashlight is essential to catching bullfrogs. According to Donald, “I can’t say I’ve ever successfully snuck up on a frog from behind. It’s pretty much head-on with a light is the only way you can get them to freeze.”

And a friendly word of warning: The mosquitoes are merciless. Bring DEET.

Sean muses on bugs in the swamp: “I’ve never been attacked by bugs like that in my life. Bugs flying in your mouth and your eyes and your ears, up your pants. Mosquitoes that want to carry you away. Big, huge dragonflies attacking your face. You swat them away, they come right back. But strangely enough, you kind of get used to it.”

Donald Link grew up in Cajun country. “I never remember going to the grocery store and buying anything. Milk and cereal, maybe. There was no going to stores. Granddad had a garden. We hunted, we shrimped.”

Sean remembers the grocery store as the place you went to for “toilet paper and magazines.” The food came from elsewhere.

Sean goes “Grandma Style” and chops chilis over a bowl. “I never saw my grandmother use a cutting board. I don’t even think she owned one… She’d be standing over a hot pot [dicing onions] but, like, lightning fast!”

The joke about Cajun cooking is that it seems like every recipe starts with “First, you make a roux.” But a little-known fact about roux is “this stuff sticks to you, like you wear it the rest of the day.”

Donald tells a funny story about going to a store after making a roux. “The woman at the counter was like, Oh, something smells good. I said, Yeah that’s me, and she laughed and I said, No really it’s me. I just finished making a roux.“

Donald swears by “Cajun Cologne.” “Girls love it. Girls like that roux smell.”

Sean prefers his shaved catfish with a liberal dose of hot sauce. His advice? “Make it rain hot sauce.”

The inspiration behind Shaved Catfish is Middendorf’s Seafood in Akers, LA. John T. Edge describes it as “a catfish potato chip.” Allegedly, slicing the catfish paper-thin is a throwback to the Depression, when the cooks could make one fillet stretch a lot further. Sean admires the top-secret shaving technique. “It looks like a bizarre sea creature.”

“Welcome to New Orleans. Here’s a million dollar dish, named after the richest man in the country.” According to Historian Riel Fertel, it was the beginning of the Golden Age of New Orleans Creole dining and Chef Jules Alciatore wanted to create a flamboyant, really rich dish to show off to visitors.

So in 1889, Oysters Rockefeller was created. A half-shell oyster, topped with a “bunch of greens” and grilled in the oven. The recipe is a fiercely kept secret. Sean guessed parsley, a lot of cream and butter. The Antoine’s staff did not confirm. The kitchen would only deny that spinach is part of the recipe.

Sean’s assessment of the richness of this dish? “I’m surprised more rappers don’t rap about Oysters Rockefeller… That is awesome. I’d write a hip-hop song about that … somebody needs to text Lil Wayne.”

Photography by Zero Point Zero, from The Mind of a Chef.