A local favorite for fifty years: Recipes, stories, and photos from the New Orleans Creole kitchen famed for its “fabulously good food” (Mimi Sheraton, The New York Times).
Starting in 1944, Buster Holmes served up soulful cuisine from his French Quarter restaurant at 721 Burgundy for half a century. Civil rights leaders and street musicians, debutantes and doxies, and all variety of hungry characters would gather in his shop for the daily specials he listed in scrawling letters on a chalkboard.
This collection of Holmes’ dishes includes his unmistakable and beloved red beans and rice recipe, along with hundreds of other entries ranging from shrimp Creole and Creole gumbo to turnip greens, fried chicken, deviled eggs, meatloaf, and―for the adventurous―preparations for such local game as marsh hare, possum, nutria, and squirrel. Historical photographs, anecdotes, and information about the restaurant and its history pepper the pages of this tribute to the classic Creole kitchen.
Includes a new foreword by award-winning food historian Poppy Tooker
“I've made grits before but nothing like this recipe. It called for 2 eggs added to milk to make a cup, and baked in the oven for 40 minutes. I must say, these are the best grits I’ve ever had. Rich, creamy, and yummy, I’ll be making this recipe again.” ―Reader Views
Hailed the king of red beans and rice, Buster Holmes (1905-1994) fed the masses at his French Quarter restaurant for fifty years. The restaurant's authentic and famously inexpensive Creole cuisine drew crowds of local musicians, including Louis Armstrong, but once its reputation grew, customers traveled far and wide to get a taste of Holmes' authentic, soulful dishes. Holmes entered the restaurant business in the 1950s, and throughout the following decades, the quality of his food served as a subject everyone could agree on, regardless of any social turbulence that plagued the community. With an exterior repellent to tourists, the restaurant catered primarily to locals until a reporter for the New Yorker sampled his staple dish, red beans and rice, and published a review of the restaurant. After his fame expanded beyond New Orleans, Holmes cooked for Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House and followed the Preservation Hall Jazz Band's tour, cooking up hearty servings at each stop. Regardless of where his passion for cooking took him, Holmes emphasized the quality of every meal and traveled with his own stock of ingredients obtained in New Orleans. After sharing his cuisine and recipes with the nation, Holmes died, appropriately, on a Monday in 1994.
