Beignets are a Crescent City staple. A visit to the French Quarter calls for a stop at Cafe du Monde for cafe au lait (coffee and chicory mixed half and half with hot milk) and a serving of three beignets, the melt-in-your-mouth square French doughnuts served fresh out of the fryer with enough powdered sugar to keep a sugar plantation in business.I have tried to make them, but somehow they are never as light and tasty as those at Cafe du Monde. Now I will be dreaming about these all day at work. Bother!
With the sounds of a saxophone floating in from the sidewalk and a view of Jackson Square across Decatur Street, it’s a perfect place to sit outside under the green- and white-striped canopy and watch people. Inside, under the great high ceiling, is fine for people-watching, too.
Customers have been breathing in the sweet smell of beignets at Cafe du Monde since 1862, when it opened in the upper end of the French Market. Eight years later, Morning Call opened at the lower end, and for more than a century the two coffee stands stood like French Market bookends. In 1974, Morning Call moved to Metairie, where it is still serving traditional beignets and cafe au lait.
Cafe du Monde is open 24 hours a day every day except Christmas and on days when “the occasional hurricane passes too close to New Orleans.”
It closed in the spring of 2001 because of a kitchen fire in an exhaust duct. Employees doused the flames with fire extinguishers and prevented the fire from spreading, and then grabbed posters and old photographs from the walls and hurried out of the building as firefighters hurried in. Repairs were done quickly, and waiters welcomed customers back one week later.
Cafe du Monde also closed on Aug. 27, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina was taking aim at New Orleans. It had only minor damage, but was dark for nearly two months when the city was at a near standstill. When it reopened Oct. 19, there was a line of hungry people waiting to get in.
It now has a number of other locations in the New Orleans area, and in addition to Cafe du Monde and Morning Call, a few other places feature beignets on the menu. One is at Louis Armstrong International Airport. Twice during the mail-borne anthrax scare of 2001, the airport’s hazmat team was called out to inspect a powdery residue reported by travelers. Both times that white residue proved to be leftover powdered sugar from someone’s beignet.
More later.
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I remember these; tasty things they were too.
ReplyDeleteI have to remember to eat before catching up with your writings. :-) I have the taste in my mouth now. There is a little cafe that serves them in little 5 points but are hit and miss thou.
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