Among the many things Katrina's floodwaters destroyed in New Orleans,
hundreds of local caches of family recipes were lost or ruined.

An article in the NY Times describes one effort to gather together
recipes and rebuild collections lost in the flood.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/di...tml?ref=dining

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has published a collection of recipes
shared by survivors. The collection it titled "Cooking up a Storm"
and was edited by Judy Walker and Marcelle Bienvenu. I own a copy of
Bienvenu's perfectly titled "Who's Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and
Can You Make A Roux?" -- a cookbook she published a few years ago.

Info on the new collection can be found he
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/index/...ng-Up-a-Storm/

The book blurb says:

"After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, thousands of people
lost their keepsakes and family treasures forever. As residents
started to rebuild their lives, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans
became a post-hurricane swapping place for old recipes that were
washed away in the storm. The newspaper has compiled 250 of these
delicious, authentic recipes along with the stories about how they
came to be and who created them. Cooking Up a Storm includes the very
best of classic and contemporary New Orleans cuisine, from seafood and
meat to desserts and cocktails. But it also tells the story, recipe by
recipe, of one of the great food cities in the world, and the
determination of its citizens to preserve and safeguard their culinary
legacy."

New Orleans is famously a food city, but the cultural significance of
traditional dishes would be hard to overestimate in any culture.
--
modom

ambitious when it comes to fiddling with meat