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As was typical -- and we see this even today -- a total stranger to New Orleans could immediately fall in love with the place. Despite the many ills of the city, the allure and charms of New Orleans were overwhelming. For Lafcadio the main charm of the city was its food. Hearn stayed in New Orleans from 1877 to 1887.
Hearn did not specialize in writing about food but wrote on many cultural topics. Additionally, he wrote about, what we would call today, the paranormal. He was interested in ghost stories.
Some of Hearn's recipes are basic compared to more modern versions of dishes. For example, his "Jambalaya of Fowls and Rice" is essentially this: Stew a chicken, add rice and ham, and salt and pepper. Cook.
He sometimes adds comments to recipes, such as for the jambalaya, "Southern children are very fond of this..." But he adds, "... [it is] very wholesome as well as palatable; it can be made of many things."
Many of the recipes are suitable for cooking even today despite the changes in cooking technology, although some seem very antiquated and are more for historic value than anything else.
Hearn eventually moved to Japan and wrote about Japanese culture. He became wildly popular there, and there is even a memorial museum to him in Matsue, Japan. He took a Japanese wife and became a Japanese citizen. He is claimed by the Irish, the British, the Greeks, and the Japanese. But his real fame is in writing down all those great New Orleans recipes.
You can read more about him at www.cincinnatilibrary.org/main/hearn.html Hearn spent time writing for two Cincinnati newspapers, and that city claims him as well.
(In the photos we see a copy of La Cuisine Creole from the Cincinnati Library website, and a photo of Hearn himself from the same site. Also see Pelican Publishing's 1967 version of La Cuisine Creole with an introduction by Hodding Carter. Tulane University's library also has good material on Hearn in its special collections section.)
-- Adrian