Opinion
From food vendors to city culinary traditions
S. Frederick Starr is a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. He also serves as the chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program that is affiliated with that university. Fluent in Turkish and Russian, Starr formerly served as an adviser to President George H.W. Bush at the time the Soviet Union imploded. He also has authored several books about New Orleans, and most recently wrote a forward to a book about the culinary traditions of that city titled “New Orleans Cuisine.”
In that work, Starr notes how New Orleans is now home to many Hispanics who have come in recent years to assist in the city’s rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, and that often they buy food sold from vehicles by fellow Hispanics parked at meal times in areas where they work. While some New Orleanians are upset about the presence of such vendors in their streets, Starr points out that in 1926 jazz cornetist Freddie Keppard wrote a song titled “Here Comes the Hot Tamale Man” in celebration of the food vendors from Mexico who traveled the streets of New Orleans at that time. Starr believes that some of the food being sold to those Hispanic laborers may in time find their way into the culinary traditions of New Orleans.
The professor also details how after Katrina’s devastation many members of the New Orleans Vietnamese community left the eastern part of that city to open restaurants and small grocery stores throughout the greater New Orleans area. Somewhat similar events have occurred in the Oklahoma City region, where Hispanics can be seen selling food from food stands, trucks and even from cars at places where Hispanics gather. Often loud music is played from the food stands and the patrons can be observed swaying to that music while they wait to order their food. During the summer, young men on bikes with small freezers attached to them can be seen selling ice cream to Hispanic children at those locations.
While the Asian District in Oklahoma City was at one time home to the majority of restaurants that serve Asian food in Oklahoma City, those establishments are now also located throughout the city and its suburbs. Vietnamese noodle shops are now in strip shopping centers from Norman through Edmond. And some convenience stores in the Oklahoma City area operated by Asian immigrants are now beginning to sell items such as egg rolls and fried rice as fast food items that can be purchased from drive-through windows
There is another group of immigrants, those from the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent, which also is having a culinary impact on Oklahoma City. Small restaurants, some with the word “kebab” in their names, that serve food and tea from Morocco and other Arab countries are developing a clientele in the area, as are bakeries that serve pita bread and other Arab foods. Small eateries that feature food from India and Pakistan can be found in neighborhoods in the metro area that are near colleges and universities.
One of the chapters in “New Orleans Cuisine” details how many Italian restaurants in that city were originally grocery stores that also sold sandwiches that could be eaten on the premises. As the demand for their prepared food increased their owners transformed them into restaurants. A similar development possibly could occur in Oklahoma City where several small Arab grocery stores now sell sandwiches and other foods that contain meat prepared in accordance with Muslim law.
WILLIAM F. O’BRIEN is an Oklahoma City attorney.
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