If you’ve ever visited New Orleans, you know it’s a melting pot of rich cultures: Creole, Cajun, Haitian, and Caribbean. On July 5th, at our Food And Wine Festival Experience, we hosted a chat with NOLA-based chefs about their culinary beginnings, Caribbean roots, and the connections between their culture and traditional New Orleans cuisine, Barkue Tubman-Zawolo, Chief of Diasporic Engagement at ESSENCE Ventures served as our moderator and led an engaging conversation with the following chefs: Nina Compton who is from St. Lucia, and Trini Lisa of Queen Trini Lisa restaurant who is from Trinidad, and Charly Pierre of Fritai restaurant, who is from Haiti. Tubman-Zawolo opened up the conversation by sharing how she’s originally from West Africa, Liberia, but every time I come to New Orleans, it reminds her so much of home. She asked the panelists what made them want to visit New Orleans and share their culture with the beautiful city.
Pierre said, “Ever since I was a kid, I've been infatuated with New Orleans. So, I was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But, I am of Haitian descent and a first-generation Haitian American. I first came here in 2008 at a chef’s conference and fell in love. Over the years, I grew and understood what it was to be Haitian and what it means to be a Black cook in the South and New Orleans. Being in New Orleans itself is such a beautiful thing because it's the closest place to being Caribbean without being in the Caribbean, and I really love that,” he shared.
Trini Lisa has lived in New Orleans for 18 years and hasn’t grown tired of the city’s nuanced culture and food yet. “We came for construction after Katrina. I like to say I didn't plan to be a chef or to go down this culinary experience, but I had a corner store and a Ninth Ward, and I had five kids. I needed a way to get the kids to eat healthy food because they would always eat snacks and po-boys. Customers began to frequent the store, and I became Queen Lisa because of their curiosity about Trinidadian food,” she said.
When it comes to some of New Orleans’ traditional cuisines that are fused with Caribbean culture, each chef has their favorite, but Compton sees the correlation between French, Indian, and African influences throughout the Crescent City. “a lot of people may not know this, but Saint Lucia was seven times British and seven times French. So we have a lot of very classic French dishes to offer. But you also see the influences of Indian and African culture there and here in New Orleans, like saltfish, breadfruits, many yams, and heavily spiced ingredients or cured pigtails or salted pork,” Compton shared.
Tubman-Zawolo closed the conversation with a powerful quote: “New Orleans is a place that feels like home. If you're from Africa or the Caribbean, you can come here and find community; that’s what makes it special.”