New Orleans, a musical and gastronomic epiphany
There is a smell that hits you as soon as you step on the french quarter that will probably reappear in your sensory memory every time someone mentions you New Orleans .
A stench that suggests a concoction of stale beer reheated on asphalt , at least three kinds of bodily fluxes and wood moistened by other distilled liquors, like a bum fragrance. The famous neighborhood where much of the city nightlife , like any other popular destination associated with debauchery, attracts the best and the worst from every corner.
As soon as the sun goes down, neon signs come on and visitors let their hair down; this picturesque neighborhood of colonial buildings can seem Magaluf , only instead of playing eurodance, it plays the greatest hits of any southern rock band that recorded a song in the seventies, and the logos on people's shirts belong to NFL teams instead of Man United.
Many of the citizens of New Orleans, from hotel clerks to bus drivers, behave as if they had private label bourbon for breakfast with their cereal. The difference from other cities affected by natural disasters or economic collapses is that no one here ever forgets that life is a celebration , and at no time do they stop reminding you.
The night, a reminder that in New Orleans everything is celebrated
The streets are full of items, many of them stray bullets that fed on the moral codes or capitalist pressure from the rest of the US and went to live the Bohemian life to one of the few places in the entire country where no one judges you for going at your own pace.
Nicolas Cage his own tomb has already been bought in one of his cemeteries, and on every corner you find musicians who cover songs from Alice In Chains or Led Zeppelin acoustically and mediocrely, in exchange for a few coins.
Walking one noon, the heat forced us to go to a dark bar decorated like a gothic bar on Halloween night , but in which the pattern - a kind of pipe killing joke with the attitude of a cabaret diva - she chose songs from Diana Ross in its juke box while he attended to all her clients, among whom was a bus driver who had just finished her day and two others who looked like Metallica stage technicians.
With those characteristic southern good manners they asked us about Spain, and we were able to hear a range of accents that are part of the musicality of the native pat.
If this is the usual scenario that John Kennedy Toole encountered every time he went out for a walk, it is inevitable that he created the characters of The conjuing of the ceciuos.
Music: a way of life, another inhabitant of New Orleans
The area adjacent to the French Quarter, Merigny, it's packed with bars like **The Spotted Cat Music Club,** where jazz revisionists play for hours, true to the most primitive and festive style of the genre , nothing to do with the night blues that can come to your mind when you think about what he played Duke Ellington or Charlie Parker in the clubs of Harlem.
New Orleans Jazz is a constant celebration in which the winds stand out accompanied by more bluesy instruments such as the banjo , but many of the musicians are passionate youngsters fresh out of conservatories.
If what you are looking for is to see some of the pioneers who played with the greats, you have to move a little away from the river, and go into the Treme neighborhood , Where is he Candlelight Lounge .
It is a diaphanous place without any kind of imposed aesthetic value, with some tables and chairs from a wedding hall from 1973, a precarious platform illuminated with a neon energy drink, and a lady at the back of the room serving beans with rice in plastic plates in exchange for the will, constitute one of the most emblematic concert halls of the cradle of jazz.
Trème: New Orleans after Katrina
The presence of other tourists who come from the four corners of the planet is the only thing that breaks the illusion of being in a chapter of Treme , but there is no shortage of local characters, since due to its popular prices, the neighbors continue to come in to enjoy the music and cans of beer for a dollar.
When I walked in at about nine o'clock on a Wednesday night, there was only one man in his eighties on the platform, sitting up waiting with a clarinet on his lap. As the time passed, more people of different ages arrived, taking seats next to him. They were joined by a Japanese girl, holding a trombone, and little by little the stage filled with some eleven musicians , among which I entertained myself thinking that it was possibly one of the inventors of jazz, retired from glory, but investing his last breaths in the only thing that has sustained him all these years: your instrument.
Without exchanging a single word, they started the music, and they played non-stop for two hours, as if they had been rehearsing for years, even though some were playing there for the first time. When they finished playing and I dried my tears, it was midnight.
The Spotted Cat Music Club
Two nights before in one of my lonely night walks I arrived in this same neighborhood and for the first time in my life I felt real fear that something dangerous would happen to me. There was not a soul on the street and suddenly I heard a voice from the shadows asking me to come closer. My heartbeat tripled in speed and it occurred to me that if something happened to me and the police came looking for me, they would find the body of a person who could be another neighbor from the humble neighborhood, without a passport, complicating the search for my poor girlfriend. that he had much to reproach me for when I told him what had happened.
Fortunately, she was shocked and I managed to get out of the darkness until I found a lonely bar where they served an attractive selection of IPAs, stouts Y porters to calm my nerves.
When commenting on the sustillo that I lived a few streets from her place, the barman advised me never walk alone in the neighborhood at that time, and noticing my desire to continue getting into trouble, he asked me for a taxi to take me to BJ´s where a local band called King James & The Special Men played a particular style of cool boogie blues every Monday.
Upon arrival, I found the type of one-story wooden house like the ones you see in movies set in the southern United States , with a porch illuminated by Christmas lights under which hipster tourists from other North American cities smoked.
Inside, once again, there was the pot of beans and rice in one corner, and cheap beer served in a plastic cup. In a land where they are used to losing everything overnight, no one invests in goods like crystal glasses or floral crockery anymore. They only create the intangible or the immediate to consume and they recycle everything else.
Chatting with some students from Toronto, they confirm that the most raw have seen on this trip has been the same Candlelight Lounge where days later I would experience my musical epiphany.
The most famous balcony in the United States behind the White House
WHAT TO EAT IN NEW ORLEANS?
There is an exciting current of young chefs opening places like Cochón or Bacchanal where they claim the local gastronomy with touches of contemporary grace , and it is worth visiting them; but if your heart and cholesterol levels allow it, New Orleans is one of the capitals of the soul food , and it is convenient to go on a diet weeks before traveling there to be able to deliver one to the fryer from the moment she steps on the runway.
Here are some of the essential dishes of NOLA that can accompany you until the end of your days.
Po' Boy
Once you try a real Po' Boy, it's hard to think of anything other than that fluffy baguette sandwich filled with battered oysters , tomato slices and lettuce leaves, seasoned to taste with various flavors of one of the "local characters" omnipresent in all the bars and restaurants you visit; Tabasco sauce.
It's just as easy to come across a memorable Po'Boy as it is to find a good kebab in Granada or a decent potato omelette in Madrid. They are literally everywhere but especially in the French Quarter. If I remember correctly, I took my first in Killer Po'Boys at Ellin Rose , and I still wake up some mornings longing for that first meeting.
Po'Boy or the lust in New Orleans
Jambalaya
When it comes to finding a good Jambalaya dish, the same thing will happen to you as if you ask a Valencian where to eat the best paellas : at a mother's house . But if you lower the bar, there are places like the Napoleon House where they can serve you a decent one, in addition to the emblematic local cocktail, Sazerac.
Jambalaya
**Creole Cuisine at Dooky Chase **
Dooky Chase is one of the oldest family restaurants in Tremé, founded in 1941 , and one of the few to be resurrected after Hurricane Katrina. An institution of Creole cuisine , its stews and elaborations with prawns are a true standard of the southern comfort food.
Outside of the kitchen, the establishment has also been a meeting point for the most famous musicians in the history of jazz, and all kinds of illustrious figures from the civil rights movement and politics, from Martin Luther King to Barack Obama, they have taken their seats to enjoy social gatherings and plates of gumbo.
**Southern Fried Chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House**
Willie Mae's Scotch House opened its doors in 1957 and boast of serving the America's best fried chicken. When you walk in, it's nothing more than a simple American diner, where battered and fried chicken is one of the specialties. Before taking out the star dish we were served a simple dish of white beans, humble in appearance and fabulous in taste.
Bacchanal
**Beignets at Cafe du Monde**
Even if you are one of those who avoid the obligatory stops of guides to use, it would be a shame to skip the long queue to try a paper cone filled with the famous beignets of Café Du Monde . They are just a kind of fried profiterole generously sprinkled with icing sugar , and there are enough less crowded stops to enjoy them, but there are times when you have to give up, shut up, wait, take your picture and devour.
Bacchanal
Away from all the noise of Marigny in a semi-abandoned residential area is Bacchanal , a store of natural wines in a dilapidated building end of charles street with a backyard where they set up some tremendous parties encouraged by the sensational wines that you can buy by the bottle as soon as you enter and the musicians who play every day until midnight.
Here the food is inspired by the Mediterranean, and you find excellently cooked ingredients, well presented and served once again on plastic plates. A clash between the sophisticated and the street that works at all levels. It is advisable to go there by taxi and carry your identity card with you.