Book studies Sicilian flavor in Creole food

Creole Italian explores the influence Sicilian immigrants have had on New Orleans foodways. The book follows author Justin Nystrom’s  culinary journey of these immigrants from their first impressions on Louisiana food culture in the mid-1830s and along their path until the 1970s.

Each chapter touches on events that involved Sicilian immigrants and the relevancy of their lives and impact on New Orleans. Sicilian immigrants cut sugarcane, sold groceries, ran truck farms, operated bars and restaurants and manufactured pasta. Nystrom posits that the significance of Sicilian influence on New Orleans foodways has been undervalued and instead should be included, along with African, French and Spanish cuisine, in the broad definition of “creole.”

Creole Italian chronicles how the business of food, broadly conceived, dictated the reasoning, means and outcomes for a large portion of the nearly 40,000 Sicilian immigrants who entered America through the port of New Orleans.