Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this product, free of charge, from LSU Press, via Edelweissplus, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it. All opinions are my own
All this week I will be bringing you unique items for back to school aimed at high schoolers and college kids!
Well I talk to you earlier today about mushroom coffee and the benefits it provides you, for some people that's just not the way they get their caffeine. I understand that totally!
This book brought back a lot of memories of my high school days in New Orleans, and the many ways we got our coffee en route to school as we had a 30 minute commute. I didn't realize at the time, as high school kids do, that we were part of a longstanding culture in the area and we're helping to be part of the change that was coming for coffee culture not only in New Orleans, but in the country.......
Synopsis
Starting in the early eighteenth century, importation was New Orleans’s lifeblood, as coffee and other agricultural goods moved through the city’s port and fanned out to all corners of the emerging nation. New Orleans became the United States’ top coffee importer in the nineteenth century, jockeying for position with larger port cities. As the century progressed, coffee importers and brokers built ever-stronger connections between New Orleans and the national coffee trade.
Because New Orleans was such a coffee town, coffee culture began infiltrating the city’s practices. Coffee exchanges opened, creating spaces to share new ideas and partake in important cultural conversations over coffee. For guests, coffee was prepared at home and served black or café au lait with milk. The French Market and similar venues boasted coffee stands, and enslaved women such as Rose Nicaud bought their freedom by selling coffee from carts in the market.
Heading into the twentieth century, Café du Monde and other coffee stands became integral to New Orleans traditions, and Louisiana coffee brands such as Community Coffee and PJ’s made a name for themselves on grocery shelves across the country. When someone wasn’t enjoying coffee at home, they drank coffee with chicory in the French Market—a tradition now closely associated with New Orleans, despite having its origins in Holland and France. Other cultures have also made an impact on the coffee culture of the Crescent City. The Vietnamese integrated New Orleans coffee practices into their own, using Café du Monde coffee in their traditional coffee preparation.
Modern New Orleans has become more interested in specialty coffee grown on small farms and ethically harvested. Multiple coffee roasters call New Orleans home and import their coffee from small farms in Guatemala, Brazil, and Colombia. The next generation of coffee production is creating a heightened interest in farming practices and sustainability, with coffee consumers gravitating toward brands that provide a living wage to farmers. Coffee Culture New Orleans tells the story of the Crescent City’s flourishing coffee traditions from its founding to the present.
Review
I bet when you read that synopsis you didn't realize that New Orleans had been the coffee capital of the United States in the 18th century! It really shouldn't come as a surprise as New Orleans has been a melting pot of different cultures literally since it's beginning and each one of those brought in their own food habits and preferences. But for New Orleans it really was a huge part of the economy, and the French Quarter as tourists know it today is really built upon the foundation of the coffee business that was there on the piers.
The beloved French market that today is full of food and tourist items, has long been a part of the New Orleans riverfront. But very few people know the true history of it and how it was important in changing the slave trade, due to slave women being able to sell coffee to parishioners after church on Sunday and earn enough money for their own freedom and for their children. No one ever thinks of coffee as an equalizer!
The author does a great job in showing how coffee in America has gone through three waves so far, and New Orleans has been at the forefront of the first two of those, and is making great steps in the third wave. You can't come to New Orleans and not have an amazing breakfast or coffee and a snack at one of our many coffee shops throughout the city. With multiple franchises abounding it's actually a surprise to see how many private pop-up coffee shops make it. The author talks about many of these in the book and it's great to see the history of them.
So why include this book in back to school? Because let's be honest you're not getting through the school run without your coffee! So why not learn how it came to be so prevalent in American culture, thanks to you it's New Orleans roots?
If you're in Louisiana, this might be the most unique host gift you can give during the upcoming holiday season! So give it a read and then you'll want to be sharing it too!
About the Author
Marielle Songy is a writer from New Orleans. Her previous book, The Absinthe Frappé, was published by LSU Press.
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