A Sweetbreads Po-Boy
[The Amateur Gourmet is on vacation and, while he’s gone, he’s asked his friends to cover for him. While he hasn’t actually met Scott Gold, The Shameless Carnivore (check out his book!), he is connected to Scott through Scott’s friend Brandon who is the brother of Rena, Craig’s childhood friend who you’ve met many times on this blog. Therefore, Adam is friends with Scott and deeply honored that Scott made a sweetbreads po-boy for his blog. Let the thymus frying begin!]
A story: When I was in college in St. Louis, I decided to have a hamburger in the mall’s food court at a place called — I kid you not — Flamers (apparently, the proprietors were oblivious to the hilarious connotation there). The menu was pretty basic: hamburger, cheeseburger, bacon cheddar burger, etc.. Then I spied something called a “cajun burger.” Being a New Orleans native, I couldn’t help but wonder what a St. Louis fast food joint in a shopping mall would consider “Cajun.” So I asked the girl working the register what it was all about. “It’s like a reg’lar hamburger,” she told me, indifferently smacking away at a gob of chewing gum, “but it, uh…it have Cajun on it.”
It have Cajun on it.
I’ve never heard a single sentence that more accurately and efficiently sums up the way most folks above the Mason Dixon consider Louisiana cuisine: anything with a bunch of red pepper on it, usually fried and/or drenched in butter. For shame.
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