FOOD FOR THOUGHT
A taste of Mardi Gras right here in Honolulu

By Wanda A. Adams
Food Editor

A taste of Mardi Gras right here in Honolulu Mardi Gras. "Fat Tuesday."

It is the day for Roman Catholics to use up all those luxurious fats before the fasting and self-denial of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. In New Orleans, Mardi Gras is, of course, the celebration of the year — whether you're Catholic or not.

It is always celebrated 46 days before Easter. This year, that's next Tuesday.

But chef David Luna, a New Orleans transplant who oversees the menu at Honolulu's Brew Moon Restaurant & Microbrewery, can't wait. He's already begun serving Mardi Gras specials (available through Tuesday) and plans a Mardi Gras buffet tomorrow night. Actually, this is in keeping with the tradition in the Big Easy, where Mardi Gras is celebrated with two weeks of parades, parties and, of course, food — all manner of Cajun and Creole favorites, plus the ubiquitous King Cake.

Luna describes this as a sort of giant Danish, a sweet yeast dough shaped into a ring and filled with pineapple, cream cheese, cinnamon or other flavorings. At one time, the cakes were a Christmas tradition served to royalty, and a gold ring would be baked into the cake, to be found by some lucky noble. Today, a little plastic baby is secreted in the cake (after it's baked) and, Luna said, "you don't want to be the one in the office who gets the baby," because then you have to buy King Cakes for everybody."

Everyone who watches Emeril knows the Cajun/Creole story:

Cajuns are descendants of French immigrants forced out of Nova Scotia by the British. They settled in western Louisiana's bayou country and intermarried with their Indian, African American and Spanish neighbors. Theirs is rugged one-pot cooking, with lots of spices (partly to mask the flavor of muddy fish and gamey meats), a cost-conscious style of eating perfectly suited to cast-iron pots and wood stoves.

Creoles — the word is from the Spanish criollo, person native to a locality, or possibly the Latin creare, to create — are descendants of aristocratic French and Spanish settlers who also intermarried with Germans, Italians, Africans and Native Americans in the city at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Their cooking is more refined, based on the classical sauces and techniques of France and Spain, but using the ingredients they found in their rustic new home.

Luna says intermarriage of traditions was the heart of Cajun and Creole cooking, and the same spirit prevails today.

"A recipe that used to be a soup or stew you find altered to make a sauce now — a sauteed fillet of fish with an étouffée sauce," he said. (Classic étouffée is a Cajun stew.) Or you might have Cajun andouille sausage chopped up and tossed with herbed bread crumbs to prepare crusted diver scallops.

"That's how things have collided, and it's made for a very interesting and difficult-to-define style of cooking," said Luna. "It's layers and layers."

Call 593-0088 for Mardi Gras buffet reservations at Brew Moon.