Netflix's Street Food: USA Profiles A Secret New Orleans Dish
If you've ever had the pleasure of visiting the richly historical city of New Orleans, Louisiana, then you know that the local cuisine is one of the old port's most enticing offerings. The city is known primarily for Cajun and Creole dishes such as flavorful seafood gumbo and hearty shrimp etouffee, both coming from melting-pot cuisines that are defined, broadly, as a combination of French and Southern food (in the case of Cajun) and a mix of European, African, and Native American flavors (in the case of Creole) (via NewOrleans.com).
Given its long history of overlapping visitors and residents creating unique local flavors, it comes as no surprise that New Orleans fusion food doesn't stop at Cajun and Creole, with other unique local dishes including bruccoloni, a sort of Sicilian-Southern marriage of Creole-seasoned beef rolls baked in tomato sauce that is said to be a legacy an influx of Sicilian immigrants to the area in the late 1800s (via Creole Cajun Chef).
Another beloved New Orleans fusion dish that you'll want to get to know? Yakamein, a classic hangover food typically served up from street carts at second line parades and festivals, and even in corner stores (via Louisiana Cookin'). In its new season of "Street Food," which in the past has visited countries in Asia and Latin America, Netflix will this time focus on United States gems, profiling street food favorites in six U.S. cities, and in its New Orleans episode will focus on this NOLA dish.
Yakamein is a beef noodle soup with Asian influences
Premiering tomorrow, Netflix's "Street Food: USA," takes a deep dive on yakamein, a New Orleans dish with mysterious origins. Beef noodle soup typically including spaghetti, chopped beef, boiled eggs, and green onions in a soy-accented spicy broth, yakamein is said to have been created by Black American soldiers returning home after either World War II or the Korean War, craving Asian flavors and using what was available in the American South to stir together the soup (via Louisiana Cookin'). Another theory states that yakamein came into being as early as the 1800s, when Chinese workers came to New Orleans to build the railroads.
However the dish came to be, today it's served at various stalls and sit-down restaurants around New Orleans (via Lousiana Cookin'). But there's one version residents say shines above the rest, and that's Linda Green's. Known as The Yakamein Lady, Green learned the recipe from her mother Shirley, who learned it from her mother, making it a third-generation recipe (via The American South). Green's soup, served in foam cups at parades and festivals, has garnered praise from some of the city's top chefs, such as Compère Lapin's Nina Compton, who told The American South Green's creation is "like a bowl of love."
According to the show's official trailer, other dishes profiled this season include New York City pizza, Los Angeles carnitas tacos, and Miami pastelitos, aka sweet Cuban pastries (via Eater).