The Food at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

The festival known mostly as Jazzfest has some of the best food in the world all at one setting, I thought it should deserve it's own thread. A place for folks to tell about their favorite foods from one of the best festivals around. I am going back after a 3 year lay-off after a 9 year run! To say I am excited about my return and 10th Jazzfest is an understatement. Now to some of the food!
I usually start my day meeting Friends at Liuzza's by the track a few blocks from the fairgrounds. A couple of their bloody mary's, discussing the mischief of the night before and getting an appetite together. Then in we go! I almost alway's start my day with a small Cochon De Lait po-boy and a cup of pheasant, duck and andouille gumbo. Now I know I am in New Orleans. As the day goes by I might have some stuffed cheese and crawfish bread, Fried cracklins cooked up in front of your very own eyes, boiled crawfish, jambalaya, fried shrimp and oyster po-boys etc. The list is endless with sweet and savory options. Banana bread pudding, sweet potato pie, homemade pralines. Man I am hungry! To some the famed Crawfish Monica is a huge crowd favorite, think crawfish alfredo. Just ok for me.
Also a lot of ethnic food, Sushi, Vietnamese, Mexican just a few. I also love going over to the bar in the grandstand and Getting fresh dozens of shucked oyster's!! When you want to get out of the sun a spell they also have cooking demo's by some of the great chef's from the region!
I am excited to hear others favorite food and jazzfest stories past and present, so have a great fest if you are going and report back, I will!!
Danny

sounds like a blast,
i have the N O jazz fest on my radar for a while.
i will have to make that trip one of these years

Last NO Jazzfest was probably 1989ish and I can still taste the stuffed crawfish bread and Crawfish Monica I remember some pretty great dirty rice as well. SOOOOOO jealous. Have a blast!

Hi- One of my sisters lives in New Orleans, and I have gone every year since 2005. The first year, I went because I had a $100 voucher that United gave me because my flight to NO at Christmas, got delayed 7 hours leaving O'Hare. My sister told me that I should use the voucher to fly down to NO for jazzfest. I love it there, and it is definitely cheap. Where else can you hear eight hours of fantastic music for $45 for the day? It helps too that I get to stay with my sister, and so I get free lodging.

The food is also wonderful. I always head for the crawfish monica booth. This is the number 1 seller at jazzfest, and last year they offered a small bowl for $5 and a larger bowl for $7. I ended up springing for the large bowl, but this year I think I will go with the small bowl. I also always get the mango freeze, which is sold by the WWOZ community radio station. I also recommend the beignets at Cafe Du Monde, although I usually end up getting them at their original location on another day.

This year I will try the shucked oysters, and maybe the boiled crawfish. The crawfish sushi rolls sound good too. Crawfish dishes are the most common ones there. I just looked at the list of food vendors there this year, and there is only one new food vendor this year. After Katrina they gave the food vendors a reprieve if they could not make it there in 2006 or 2007. At least a third of the food vendors did not show up in 2006 either because they lost most of their equipment during Katrina, or because they were also employed in the building trades, and had lots of post Katrina work to keep them busy. For those food vendors who could not make it, they left their slot vacant until they could return.

The list of food vendors as well as musicians at jazzfest can be view at their website.

http://www.nojazzfest.com

Everything I've ever heard about the NOLA Jazzfest makes it, to me, the anti-Taste-of-Chicago ... or maybe what Taste started out wanting to be. Considering how much I love both the food and the music, it's my goal to make it down there one year soon and stay for the entire 'fest. I always make it to the Jazzfest up here in late August-early September, but it never has the appropriate food to go with it, and that's always disappointed me.

Anyone going down to NOLA for the 'fest this year? Help us out here by giving us a complete rundown of all the food there, yes? Much appreciated!

Hi- There is a lot of jazz music there, but it is not all jazz. There are 10 stages there, and only about 4 of them are jazz. They also have a blues tent, a gospel tent, and several stages that have big name acts such as Simon and Garfunkle and Lionel Ritchie I am really into jazz, and I normally stay clear of the BNA because of the crowds, but I have seen James Taylor, Brian WIlson and Pete Seeger there. The gospel tent is also very good.

One of the nice things about the food is that it is really reasonable. Most of the dishes are $8 or less. If you like jazz, you will love jazzfest. 80% of the musicians performing there are local.

From what my sister tells me, NOLA can use lots more tourist business, although the second weekend of jazzfest this year, there is also supposed to be a medical convention going on, so hotel rooms are going for prime money. Hope this helps, Nancy

A music writer reporter that the food shares top billing with the music:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/2010/04/the_foods_of_new_orleans_jazz_fest.html#more

Jonah,
Thanks for the link! To say I am giddy is an understatement. I have spent plenty of time in the Big Easy and missing the last 3 Jazzfests has been a little tough. However tomorrow morning at 8 am I will be on a plane bound for the Bayou!! Yes the Music is wonderful but as the article states the food is also the star. I will report back on things seen and consumed and hope others will as well!!

Danny

From today's NY Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/dinin ... ref=dining

Hi- I have been home from Jazzfest for eight days now, and I have been meaning to post about my trip there. It was lots of fun there, even though it rained the first day of the fest, so I got my eating done early before the rain started, and I stayed inside most of the day. The first day I had an oyster po'boy. I also had a beignet and iced coffee from Cafe Dumonde. They were fantastic. The second day, I had an oysters Rockefeller Bisque, an alligator pie, and a small dish of strawberry sorbet. The alligator pie was just okay, but the bisque and the sorbet were fantastic. You only got a really small dish of sorbet for $4 though, and they charged an extra dollar if you wanted it in a cone. I also had a strawberry lemonade. The third day, I had a spicy crawfish sushi, 6 oysters on the half shell, crawfish monica, and a mango freeze. The mango freeze is a fundraiser for the community radio station WWOZ, and I get that every year. I also get crawfish monica every year. The sushi was fantastic, and the crawfish monica and the mango freeze I always enjoy. The oysters on the half shell went for $7 for six, and I wished I would have skipped on those.

I only eat twice outside of jazzfest, and that was on the Monday after jazzfest when I spent the day at the World War II museum. My sister had plenty of leftovers in her refrigerator, so I just helped myself to those when Jazzfest was finished for the day. I eat lunch at a place on Monday right next to the museum called American Sector, and the food was wonderful, but the service was awful. I had a sausage po'boy, with homemade potato chips, and it was really tasty, but it took me over 15 minutes before somebody finally took my order, and that is only because I complained about how long I had been sitting there, and somebody got my waiter. 15 minutes after that the same person that got my waiter, went to see if my food was done, and brought it to me, and later on gave me my check. My waiter never stopped by to see if I needed anything.

That evening my sister and I went to a Cajun restaurant in the Quarter that a friend of her's recommended. It was just okay. The only thing going for it was that we got tons of food. We got this crawfish sampler for $24.95, and split it between the two of us, and we still had food left over. We also got this fried alligator appetizer which we could not finish. Everything that we got was just typical Cajun food, including crawfish etofe and fried crawfish.

After we left the restaurant, we went over to the House of Blues for a piano benefit that WWOZ was sponsoring. They do this every year. The tickets were $35 on their website, but when we got there, we found out that there was a $6 surcharge per ticket, and so the tickets were $41. We had a good time there, and they had two stages going on, and the stage upstairs had solo piano, while the stage downstairs had more big time acts like Dr. John. The downstairs stage was too noisy for us, and even though we enjoyed it, we left at midnight, because we could not deal with the noise anymore. My sister even told somebody that it was way too loud downstairs, as we were walking out the door.

American Sector
945 Magazine Street
New Orleans, La

Hope this helps, Nancy

Time to bump this thread and eat some crow. I am sorry I never posted about last year.. As soon as DaBeef teaches me to post pictures I will update. Three weeks from tonight I will return for 4 nights in my adopted Second City and 11th Jazzfest! Last year I ate oysters like I might not eat them again. It was about the 10th day of the Gulf Coast Oil disaster and tensions were very high. Looking forward to going back. Anyone else headed down?
Danny

I will be heading down on the 27th for my second ever visit to New Orleans. Just decided yesterday to head over to Jazz Fest on the 29th. Thanks for bumping the thread so I can get more ideas and some kind of an attack plan for the food.

Yes I promise to get this done over the weekend! You will have the time of your life at Jazzfest and hopefully i can get a few photo's up to get you primed!

Jazzfest is the best!
Hubby and went a couple of times in the DBT... (days before twins)
Some of the best food, best music...
Oyster po-boys , steamed crawfish are standouts.
I remember getting alligator, which was just OK. I think they mostly sell it so us Yankees can say we've eaten it.
Anyhow I am so envious-Laissez les bon temps roulez!
maybe I can go next year.

Crawfish Monica. Last time I had it was in 1990. I still vividly remember the taste. YES it's just a gut bomb of cream, fat crawfish and rotini noodles but it is one of those memories that burns in the brain.

And don't miss the Radiators --it's the final jazzfest appearance of this iconic touring band.
Suck the heads baby!!!!!

http://new.music.yahoo.com/radiators/tracks/suck-the-head-squeeze-the-tip--187824258

Heading out tomorrow for an annual trip to the festival known as Jazzfest. I have uploaded last years photos to photobucket so I will learn how to upload as soon as I get back. Anyone else make it down? Have a new media card to get tons of cool pics. Let the good times roll...DB!!