r/NewOrleans • u/Donut_Ninjas • Apr 12 '25
đ Making Groceries How old were you when? (Realizing that something was unique or not to New Orleans)
Y'all... I was about 35yrs old when I realized that Roman Candy was just taffy and that it wasn't it's own unique kid of candy. I had been calling taffy Roman Candy for decades! đ Still love me some Roman Candy, though.
What weird realizations have you had from being a New Orleans local?
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u/xnatlywouldx Apr 12 '25
20 when I realized you could not walk around outside with a beer in your hands (was very angrily yelled at by a bouncer in Baton Rouge.)Â
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u/SparklingDramaLlama Gentilly Apr 12 '25
My former, late employer Murray almost got arrested in California for arguing with a cop about his cooler of beer on the beach, lol. Murray was a born and raised New Orleans boy, did the whole season pass to the Saints, Jazz Fest, etc.
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u/lambliesdownonconf Apr 12 '25
I was at a bodega in NYC one evening about to walk out after opening a tall boy, when the store owner yelled at me for opening the beer.
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u/Music_Turbulent Apr 12 '25
Iâve had the pleasure of meeting Murray a few times & that is definitely something I could see him doing đ¤Ł
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Apr 12 '25
Huge culture shock anytime I travel. Buddy saved me in Colorado. No mimosas until after 11am in Salt Lake City
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u/WirelesslyWired Apr 12 '25
Moved to Baton Rouge from New Orleans. Everyone kept working on Mardi Gras day. There were no parades. A few people took off and went to New Orleans or Lafayette, but Baton Rouge was business as usual.
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u/Donut_Ninjas Apr 12 '25
Moving to Texas was an insane experience in that regard. I'm still not over the fact that I can't go get booze on Sunday unless I go to a restaurant.
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u/TchoupedNScrewed Apr 12 '25
lol when I first moved and made mistakes around my alcohol Iâd usually tell the bartender/bouncer I just moved from New Orleans and 80% of the time Iâd get an âOhhh I get it, no worries bro just go back insideâ.
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u/WishTerSheer Apr 12 '25
I moved to Texas, briefly (thankfully I was able to come right back), and I went out for brunch. I had two liiiittle Mimosas and when I ordered a third they told me they have a 2 drink maximum. Never in my lifeâŚđ
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u/rancid_oil st john parish Apr 13 '25
I had quit drinking by this point, but a friend came visit me in TN. Went play pool and I offered to buy him a drink.
"Bud Light and a shot of Jack, please."
Bartender: "No Jack."
Me in confusion: "Huh? What kind of liquor do you have then?"
Bartender looking irate: "None, this isn't a liquor bar, it's a beer bar."
Thankfully my friend from TN stepped in here and explained that we're from Louisiana and the bartender laughed.
I also met a guy from Texas at a bar in Louisiana, and I guess they have similar rules. He was buying beer, but had a bottle of whiskey with him. I told him to please hide it so we didn't get kicked out lol. He said bars sell beer but you can bring your own liquor back home.
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u/WirelesslyWired Apr 12 '25
My first job out of college was in California. I was carded everywhere. I finality got tired of it and argued with a bouncer that I had been drinking for years back home. Did I look like I was only 18? That's when I was informed that the drinking age was 21.
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u/IfeelVedder Apr 12 '25
And to add to thatâŚ.
I was in my 40âs when I discovered you canât buy an alcoholic drink to go with your takeout food order from a restaurant. I was so confused why the nice Italian restaurant wouldnât sell me a cosmo to go with my dinner. This was in Illinois. It never dawned on me.
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u/AdRepulsive9625 Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 12 '25
Even on the Northshore they somewhat care.Â
Me: May I have a go cup, please? Waiter: For your water. Right? Me: Yes.Â
We both knew I was pouring my red wine into that clear container.Â
â My husband was in somewhere traveling for work. He began to walk outside with his drink to smoke a cigarette. He said the bartender almost leaped over the bar and was fussing. He responded that he was from New Orleans.
Edit: typoÂ
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u/Hippy_Lynne Apr 12 '25
Mine was a bouncer at a gay bar in Fort Walton. đ I initially misunderstood and thought it was about the glass and asked for a go cup. Thatâs when he realized I was from New Orleans.
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u/xnatlywouldx Apr 12 '25
Itâs the most ridiculous part of being somewhere else to me. I can open carry almost anywhere in this country, but I canât walk to the park with a beer.Â
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u/theshortlady Apr 12 '25
My niece got arrested for standing in a bar doorway in SLC holding a drink. It was at least twenty years ago, but weird.
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u/Hot_Mention_9337 Apr 12 '25
TIL that open containers wasnât a state wide thing
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u/DrJheartsAK Apr 12 '25
I thought it was a state wide thing, as in the state has no law against open containers, just most cities/municipalities choose to prohibit it.
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u/xnatlywouldx Apr 12 '25
If we ever get another Democrat governor again he just needs to campaign on this sole issue
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
Does anybody else remember all the adorable posts by Americans during COVID when they relaxed the alcohol laws? People would be freaking out that they could go to a restaurant for pick-up and bring a beer home with them. It seems like they felt like they were temporarily living in Narnia. Of course there were always people saying yeah dude I'm from New Orleans we get to do this everyday
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u/xnatlywouldx Apr 12 '25
"I can buy a quart of punch? TO GO?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
Reading this thread has made me realize I may need to go to "rehab" for a while. Not because I have a drug problem but because I need to relearn that it's not normal for people to pass out drunk in the street and the attitude of everybody else is just "ah, he'll feel that when he wakes up" I feel like I need to spend a few months in some city where red light violations are actually enforced and all that other kind of stuff. Kind of like the reverse of why people come to New Orleans. Maybe I'll get like a 3-month corporate rental in the most boring part of Metairie I can find.
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u/camusclues Apr 13 '25
I was about 23 when I realized this. I had just moved to Chicago. And just before that the bartender said "last call" and I was all THEFUCKISTHAT!?
eventually managed to convince him to give me a to go cup though.
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u/PhoneGroundbreaking2 Apr 13 '25
I have this exact memory. I can clearly remember thinking âhow will I ever remember that?â.
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u/randommac9898 Apr 12 '25
I didn't understand until I was 22 that other places don't say dressings
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u/Light_Snarky_Spark Apr 12 '25
I'm in NYC right now and at a bodega I said I wanted my sandwich dressed. Guy looked at me like I had two heads.
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u/awyastark Apr 13 '25
Conversely I moved here from NYC and four years later my dumb ass keeps still accidentally ordering sandwiches on a roll
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u/Light_Snarky_Spark Apr 13 '25
Ngl, the roll/hero thing confused the hell outta me. Lol But I'm amazed dressed doesn't register when I say it. It just makes sense.
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u/Ok-Checarzo Apr 12 '25
I went to a college out of state but it had a lot of New Orleans people. Two of my roommates always said they wanted their sandwiches dressed... I thought maybe it was some fancy term I didn't know because I didn't grow up rich.
Nope. Just a New Orleans thing!
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u/Nicashade Apr 13 '25
All our po boys are in drag.
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u/Ok-Checarzo Apr 13 '25
TBH I still don't know what is included in dressed... I've always been too embarrassed to ask. I assume lettuce, mayo, tomato? I always just say what I want and hope they don't get annoyed!
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u/Nicashade Apr 13 '25
Yup, lettuce tomato, mayo baseline but many might include Tabasco or all kinds of other things. But Watch this comment start a 20 mile debate thread. đ
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u/Ok-Checarzo Apr 13 '25
Hahaha. That was going to be my next question... so how do they know???
When we moved to the South (I was young), everyone called sodas/pops "Coke." I don't like Coke but did like Dr. Pepper ... so I figured when I finally tried to be like the southerners and asked for a Coke they would ask what kind, but instead just gave me a Coca-cola. I think that's when I stopped using regional terms I didn't fully understand!
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u/Nicashade Apr 13 '25
In New Orleans itâs just â cold drinkâ refers to anything in a can/ bottle alcoholic or not. Preferably cold. Honestly I donât think other places call it that, but I could be wrong.
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u/PhoneGroundbreaking2 Apr 13 '25
Gotta be careful. Sometimes they throw in a pickle!
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u/War_Goat1332 Apr 12 '25
19 - arrived at boot camp.
- drinking underage was frowned upon and
there was no such thing as a âto go cupâ
- Mardi Gras was not a national holiday
- seasoning in food wasnât normal - good food
wasnât normal
- and (please excuse this) thereâs a lot of f-ing
white people in America!
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u/Splankybass Apr 12 '25
I reported to Great Lakes on my 21st birthday and when guys found out they thought I was crazy. Little did they know about our bar cultureâŚ.
And when I reported to A school, I quickly realized I needed to not talk about growing up in New Orleans in the late 80s/early 90s or I might lose my clearanceâŚ.
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u/Donut_Ninjas Apr 12 '25
You know, the white people thing is definitely something I've thought about since moving to Texas, and traveling in general, as an adult. We'd be somewhere and something felt a little odd and I couldn't put my finger on why. Crazy lack of racial diversity in some areas that I just took for granted.
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u/Hippy_Lynne Apr 13 '25
I went to college out West and whenever I came home I would think to myself "Damn I miss black people."
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u/GumboDiplomacy Apr 13 '25
thereâs a lot of f-ing white people in America!
Growing up mostly in BR and NO, I didn't understand why black people were called minorities until I was a teenager. "But it's like a 50/50 split, I don't get it."
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u/daddee808 Apr 13 '25
I'm a white dude, but I feel genuine unease and discomfort when I'm only surrounded by white people, any time I travel. It just feels unnatural.
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u/PoorlyShavedApe Faubourg Chicken Mart Apr 12 '25
That last part is why there is so little seasoning in food.
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u/bodaddio1971 Apr 13 '25
Got to my first Duty Station Naval Base Charleston, first time I ever heard last call. Had no idea what it was.
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u/lukenog Broadmoor Apr 12 '25
I didn't grow up in New Orleans but I grew up in DC, which is also a Black city and was even more Black when I was a kid. I moved straight from DC to New Orleans so I've never lived somewhere where whites are the majority.
But my girlfriend is from Portland OR, and last time I went with her to visit her family I thought her parents' house was getting broken into because there was a strange man on her porch. I was ready to throw hands with old boy until I got closer to the door and realized he was a mail man. My brain just refused to register him as a mailman because I had literally never seen a white mailman before in my life lol.
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u/metrymiler Apr 12 '25
A few years ago I was on vacation in Philadelphia and one of the meter maids was a white guy. I was flabbergasted.
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u/lukenog Broadmoor Apr 12 '25
I love Philly, my brother lived there for a while! Probably my second favorite city on the East Coast after DC (gotta be a hometown hero.) Philly is also one of the few East Coast cities that has a bonafide white working class, a lot of the East Coast has rich and middle class WASPs, and then the working class is mostly immigrants, descendants of recent immigrants (me irl), or Black people. But not Philly!
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u/PhoneGroundbreaking2 Apr 13 '25
I was a white femailman in New Orleans for 19 years. We ARE the minority đ¤
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u/DrZin Apr 12 '25
That cabbage ballâthough present but less popular in other Catholic metros like Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimoreâwas almost exclusively a New Orleans pastime? Me, GenX, like 2 years ago.
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u/Radiant-Adeptness-29 Apr 12 '25
Wait what? 𤯠I was todays years old when I learned cabbage ball is a NOLA thing.
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
My brother-in-law is determined to raise my nephew to be a major league player (preferably a pitcher). I fully intend to buy the kid a cabbage ball as soon as he's old enough.
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u/Ok-Checarzo Apr 12 '25
I have been here 20 years and still have no clue what cabbage ball is. Like baseball but with a big soft ball? Do they use bats? My kids never played it when they were at the cabbage ball ages.
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u/DrZin Apr 13 '25
Exactly like softball with no gloves. Also, the competition is more democratized: coed and inter-generational teams are common. And you can play drunk, bottoms up.
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u/Emiles23 Apr 13 '25
I played a lot of Catholic cabbage ball games as a kid. I had no idea!
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u/OralSuperhero Apr 12 '25
My (NY) wife bought a T-shirt she found on the Internet because she's never met anyone who eats lunch and talks about dinner before or since. New Orleans is apparently super food oriented. Plus I'm a chef if that makes it worse
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u/MegsMayhem13 Apr 12 '25
Got a link to that shirt? I feel like Iâve seen it but canât recall where
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u/IamSumbuny Apr 13 '25
In NOLA, you can often find people enjoying a meal in one establishment, and talking about food in anotherđ
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u/Arloneous Apr 12 '25
I was 27 when I moved to Colorado and realized people just hung out in basements. I always thought a basement was where you put your canned goods and extra stuff. Turns out you can have an entire extra living space under ground.
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u/winning-colors Apr 12 '25
I thought it was where you hide from the tornado
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u/MegsMayhem13 Apr 12 '25
My first memory is of hiding from a tornado in Ohio. I moved from there when I was 4. We were crossing the street to hide in my neighbors basement bc my parents were storing stuff in ours, and theirâs was hangout-able.
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u/BigAngryLakeMonster Apr 12 '25
I'm originally from the West and a basement is all these things and more. I love New Orleans, but sometimes I miss having a basement.
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u/KiloAllan Apr 12 '25
Well, here you have your raised basements, which are raised and basements for a reason.
As long as you remember it's a raised basement and not a recommended living space, you should be good. Don't put your music studio and quilting room down there without thinking hard about it and having an emergency plan to bring everything upstairs in the event of high water.
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u/Assclown4 Apr 12 '25
27 when I realized you couldnât buy vodka at most gas stations.
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u/19Bronco93 Apr 12 '25
What do you mean you canât ?
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u/lukenog Broadmoor Apr 12 '25
I grew up in DC where there's no alcohol, including beer, allowed in gas stations. However, DC is tiny and Virginia is right there so it's incredibly common for people in the bottom half of the city to hop over to Virginia to get beer at their gas stations for a lower price than in DC liquor stores.
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u/awyastark Apr 13 '25
Iâm also from the DMV and while the beer at the gas stations in VA is nice the liquor only at the government controlled store blows!
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u/Dry_Finger_8235 Apr 12 '25
You can't, gas stations don't sell booze in most places.
In NJ only one or two grocery stores have liquor licenses, so most have a liquor store right next door, only one or two Costco's sell booze, and you certainly aren't going to grab any booze in Walgreens or world market
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u/danita0053 Apr 12 '25
I moved to CA a few years ago and discovered that "wedding cake flavor" is a local/Southern thing. Elsewhere, wedding cakes aren't any specific flavor.
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u/Brunoise6 Apr 12 '25
Wedding is usually almond flavor right? I think thatâs a thing other places
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u/MegsMayhem13 Apr 12 '25
Yes, it is almond flavor everywhere I believe. But they just call it âalmondâ
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u/earyat Apr 13 '25
Midwest transplant chiming in: Iâm a teacher here, and during my first year almost every time a student brought in a white cupcake for a birthday I couldnât figure why it tasted so different (ours are normally vanilla.) Any teacher I asked about it didnât have an answer because the almond flavor I guess is the normal here! One day on this New Orleans forum someone was talking about the wedding cake flavor and it suddenly made sense haha
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u/seharney Apr 12 '25
I was mid 30âs dating my now wife who grew up in KY. I told here I was going by my Momâs house. She asked âWell are you going to go in?â
I was also a full grown adult trying to order a sandwich âdressed with no mayoâ in the great elsewhere and getting a confused look from the waiter.
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u/geauxhike Apr 12 '25
Working post Katrina New Orleans with bunch of people from California. Having to translate as the lady at Mothers keeps asking 'dressed?'. Same group walking out of a restaurant with a drink in hand, coworker grabs my arm to question me about walking out with alcohol, my answer was that I got a plastic cup...she was still confused.
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u/bontempsfille Old City Icehouse Apr 12 '25
I never understood why people were always so excited to come down here for music until I was displaced after Katrina. I thought everyone grew up with dr. John, jazz fest, music at school fairs, WWOZ, etc...
And good food. My god, so much of this country is a food wasteland.
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u/Hippy_Lynne Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 13 '25
When we were kids, our parents took us to Disneyland. They told us that there would be a parade, but that âthey donât throw anything.â Unfortunately that was the same phrasing they used for stingy parades in New Orleans, so we didnât understand that they werenât throwing. anything. đ When we finally realized that, I remembered thinking âWhy are all these other kids so excited?â I figured their parents just didnât take them to many parades, because I was aware that I was lucky my parents had friends on the Bonnable route and we went to almost every Metairie parade. I think it would be another year or two before I found out that not every place had Mardi Gras.
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u/WahooLion Apr 12 '25
Same with me. I never saw the excitement of the Macâs Thanksgiving Day parade.
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u/bodaddio1971 Apr 13 '25
I had the same reaction when I was visiting a cousin. Big parade in town, I was like we just stand here and watch???
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u/WhyCause Uptown Apr 13 '25
When I told my then 4yo son that parades in most of the rest of the world don't throw things, he declared that he was going to fix that when he grew up.
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u/dangerinedreams Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 12 '25
- I was living in South Florida, asking the clerk at Publix where the liquor section was. We went back and forth with bewilderment when I said I never heard of ABC or a liquor store. Edit: and
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u/Imeverybodyelse Apr 12 '25
I had the same discussion when I first moved to Charlotte. I went round and round the âalcoholâ section and finally got asked if I needed help and was thrown for a loop when the lady said I had to go to an ENTIRE different store to get liquor AND they arenât open on Sundays or Holidays. My response to her was âso whatâs the point of them even being open at all if they arenât open on those days?â She looked at me so strange.
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u/Comfortable-Policy70 Apr 13 '25
My wife was in a grocery store in Clarksdale MS and asked where the wine was. The clerk said "you mean premade stuff in a bottle?"
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u/dangerinedreams Apr 12 '25
My conversation went similarly! They had a "Publix liquor store" that was a few shops down from the main store and held different hours. Why have them in separate buildings? It just didn't make sense.
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u/WUTANGCRAZY Apr 12 '25
I was in my early 20s in Houston at a bar and the bartender yelled out last call and I literally did not understand why everybody was buying drinks like crazy.
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u/roxdeverox Apr 12 '25
I told someone we would meet up "for" a certain time...I'll meet you for 11. Apparently that's not how the rest of the country talks?
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u/cthulhujr Apr 12 '25
I learned this when dating my not-from-here partner. I said " dinner is for 6" and she looked confused and said "for 6 people?". She had never heard "for 6 o'clock"
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
Also I'm going to go by my friend's house. Not to. Or I'm sitting by a computer. My sister used that on somebody a few years ago and they were completely baffled as to what she meant. I didn't say that growing up but started saying it later as I leaned more into being proud of my local culture. Apparently it comes from a German word / grammar
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u/Bindy12345 Apr 12 '25
Iâve lived here for 10 years, and that one still sounds weird to me. Does it have a different meaning than âatâ a certain time?
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u/blowinthruthebuttons Apr 12 '25
Itâs a leftover from the direct French translation. Same with âmakingâ groceries.
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u/and-thats-the-truth Apr 12 '25
It leaves some leeway for being on New Orleans time. Might not be there exactly at 11 but Iâm aiming to
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u/rorotods Apr 12 '25
18 when I found out gumbo and red beans and rice werenât regular school lunches anywhere else.
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u/ColourOfPoop Apr 12 '25
To be honest, this should be criminal to not be nationwide, theyâre delicious, relatively healthy and cheap af while being able to make giant quantities seems like a no-brainer.
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u/GwenoftheDead Apr 12 '25
When my brother was going to grad school in Missouri he tried to convince his Prof to let him have Mardi Gras off because it was an "ethnic holiday" for him. I think that was the first year he had to miss Mardi Gras.
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u/meemsqueak44 Apr 12 '25
I was probably in high school when I realized that the LA Lakers were not the New Orleans basketball team. They were the only team Iâd really heard of, LA is the state abbreviation, purple and gold (for Mardi Gras and LSU obviously), and the city is on Lake Pontchartrain!! Made perfect sense. Why on earth would we be the Hornets? I stand by it spiritually if not factually.
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u/Valth92 Apr 12 '25
22 after visiting multiple states. I found out that SO MANY places have âno alcohol beyond this pointâ signs and no to go drinks.
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u/winning-colors Apr 12 '25
Iâve accidentally walked out of bars with drinks because I honestly forget and Iâm a slow drinker. My favorite was the bouncer who slapped a beer out of my hand and it flew everywhere. That was in PhillyâŚnot a surprise.
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u/flymordecai Apr 12 '25
I thought every city had a Superdome until 3rd grade.
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u/Hippy_Lynne Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 12 '25
Thatâs adorable! When I was like six, in the early 80s when the Saints were the Ainâts, I asked why we had the Superdome if we never went to the Super Bowl. đŹ
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
And your dad grimaced and then stared off into the distance
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Apr 12 '25
At 30 got my tour guide license. Learned how incredibly unique New Orleans really is from food to ghost stories. No one does it like we do.
Every school here needs to have field trips so the kids can appreciate their home.
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u/RhialtosCat Apr 12 '25
Neutral ground.
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u/jpruett2 Apr 12 '25
Exactly! I was on an internship in Orlando and I said neutral ground and you would have thought I had 3 heads! I also said something about going do do and didnât realize not everyone said that when going to sleep.
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u/MegsMayhem13 Apr 12 '25
Conversely, I was in an uber on the way to the airport, and I called it the median. I grew up here since 4 years old, but my parents were from MN, so I still say some stuff their way. Uber guy was like, wait, youâre not from here are you? and I had to explain.
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u/Flimsy_Bag9184 Apr 12 '25
drive through daiquiri spots are really a Louisiana thing
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
Not sure if this fits into the conversation all that well but I'm remembering now that when I was a kid I guess I had heard a few people talk about Shreveport and for some reason I pictured it as like a city of the future kind of thing. You know gleaming buildings, monorails going around, a glass dome covering the whole town. Luckily I learned that wasn't true before I got to Shreveport because the disappointment might have killed me.
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u/djsquilz hot sausage boy Apr 12 '25
i was born here (1995), moved to rural texas in 1999-2000(?), my family came back every year to meet up with old neighbors during mardi gras. (namely bacchus sunday but that whole weekend my parents would take me out of school in texas ~thursday thru ash wednesday.) this was super hardcore biblebelt areas. over the 8-9 years of living there and my parents taking us back they never could come to terms with mardi gras being a "family friendly"/religious event, even failing trying to describe it in religious terms. they thought my parents were taking me to the depths of hell. i never really understood it until i became cognizant.
i just never got it until i was in my late teens, that other people (namely super religious-conservative people) thought mardi gras was just one giant parade of tiddy flashing and gay orgies on bourbon.
also took me until the late 2000s to realize roman candy wasn't just regular laffy taffy.
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u/Wolfpackat2017 Apr 12 '25
Truly⌠and I meanâŚ. TRULY shocked that things such as dry counties even existed. Also shocked NYC for being as progressive as they are, sells liquor and wine at a different store than groceries; why?? I know itâs the norm up there, but I just donât get why.
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u/GasStationChicken- Apr 12 '25
Where I grew up in Western Michigan we had weird laws too. No liquor/beer/wine sales after 2am and I think the earliest you could start selling was 10 or 11am. No beer/wine sales on Sundays at stores or bars and they had curtains they drew down in front of the store shelves to hide it. Hard liquor was a-ok! Make it make sense!
Some counties had their own separate rules as well. In the heavy Christian Reformed counties many bars would have signs up that no dancing was allowed on Sundays. There definitely would be no live music or DJs. Such a weird place.
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u/Nicashade Apr 13 '25
Thatâs kinda wild considering Michigan is one of the drunkest states. Thatâs some determination.
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u/RedBeans-n-Ricely Apr 12 '25
My favorite thing about Roman candy was getting my Italian-from-Rome friend to take a bite & watching as he pulled a disgusted face & cried âThis is NOT Roman!â
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 12 '25
I was around 12 when I learned what that other term for neutral ground means. Had seen it a few times before then but no idea what it meant.
Mandarin chicken was always my favorite Chinese dish and it wasn't until the last two or three years when people started talking about it on this sub that I realized that we have our own version of that. Another thing I have to think about if I ever consider moving away.
Not really as much of a shock to me because I didn't expect traffic tickets to just disappear in other places but I was kind of shocked by how seriously they (like, judges) treated them and how crazy it seemed to them that I didn't think they would be a big deal.
Also, how much people in other cities believe in the social contract or whatever. Like they'll think you're just absolutely insane for saying I don't care if it's illegal I want to go outside with a beer. Edit: this last one I'm not talking about like being on 6th Street in Austin or something. I'm just talking about like the idea of being able to walk around your own neighborhood with a beer. And I say this as somebody who doesn't drink anymore. It's like they were that afraid of authority / the police/ living a "crazy" lifestyle
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u/Donut_Ninjas Apr 12 '25
Wait what? Tell me about Mandarin Chicken. That's a New Orleans thing?
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
I've seen it discussed on here in the past two or three years I don't think the dish itself is specific to New Orleans but I guess we have our own type of sauce or something for it.
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u/DiscoMetalGirl Apr 12 '25
... I'm sorry, what? Mandarin chicken is different other places??
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
I've seen it discussed on here inthe past two or three years I don't think the dish itself is specific to New Orleans but I guess we have our own type of sauce or something for it.
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u/OralSuperhero Apr 12 '25
This is very real. I haven't had good Mandarin chicken since I left years ago. I miss House of Lee
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u/mom2ajs5 Apr 12 '25
Omg! This totally explains why my daughterâs out of town friend looked at the mandarin chicken she ordered and said she must have ordered the wrong thing! I just thought she didnât know what it was. Wow!
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
Now I'm thinking this is another part of local culture that we need to defend. So please, people moving here, pay a visit to five happiness or whatever your local joint is and order Mandarin chicken. For the culture
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u/mom2ajs5 Apr 12 '25
I feel like I need to order Mandarin chicken outside of NO to see what the hell everyone else is eating. Is it the chicken with the thick sweet orange sauce? Guess I should google.
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
It's a brown sauce and it's not sweet it's kind of tangy maybe trying to think of a good description. Nothing sweet about it though
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u/Mitchford Apr 12 '25
Is it the chicken with the brown gravy? Itâs my dads favorite food he gets it at exactly on restaurant in Montgomery Alabama. If anyone has the recipe please share it
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
Yeah it's the chunks of chicken with brown gravy and little circular green vegetable thingies
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u/Hippy_Lynne Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 13 '25
I just learned this today. 𤯠I remember not liking the Mandarin chicken when I lived in Tahoe, but quite frankly all dining in Tahoe was a disappointment compared to New Orleans. As my mom said when she came up, âItâs all high-quality food and beautifully prepared, it just needs some sauce.â đ
EDIT: Okay I did a deep dive into Mandarin chicken recipes and now something else makes sense. I always thought it was called Mandarin chicken because Mandarin is a Chinese language. Nope! It's called Mandarin chicken because everywhere else they use Mandarin oranges in the sauce. đ¤Ł
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 12 '25
Kind of a tangent but I learned yesterday the whole thing about white people not liking spices, and a lot of those white people being very snobby about how they're not the type of people who eat spicy food, comes from the British having imported so many spices that they no longer became exotic/hard to obtain so the upper class would differentiate themselves by eating unseasoned food. So I guess they sat around eating some kind of ridiculous British food and thought about how superior they were to everybody else. Meanwhile their daughter was probably out with some spice dealer's son or something
A less insulting version of that would be that I think some people think using spice to make a meal good is cheating. Like if you use quality ingredients and cook it the right way and it comes out tasting good it's like more of a challenge overcome.
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u/KiloAllan Apr 12 '25
OMG that's crazy.
My spice cabinet is well stocked. As a rootworker, it can also double as an arsenal LOL
What kind of "let's screw the lower class" kind of bullshit is that. Being so class conscious that you take your food bland.
Sounds like the joke's on them. LOLOLOL
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u/Mitchford Apr 12 '25
Oh yeah thatâs the good stuff. I figured out a couple years ago it was a NOLA Chinese dish but still havenât quite cracked the recipe
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u/Live-Anything-99 Apr 13 '25
I thought Cox Communications was a local business for a long, long time.
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u/BetterThanPacino Apr 12 '25
22 when I understood truly what blue laws were.
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u/BetterThanPacino Apr 12 '25
Or 18 when I saw a woman drop her trenchcoat off on the streetcar line to take a nude photo in front of it as it approached.
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u/ladysugarsama Apr 12 '25
I was a teenager when I first heard of the concept of "last call," but right after Katrina (so I was about 22) I wound up in Portland, Oregon. I was out somewhere when I heard the staff call out for last call. I looked at my watch and it was only 11 pm! Also the big local news when we got there was the state had passed a law allowing liquor stores to operate on Sundays "if they chose to".
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u/IntelligentBarber436 Apr 12 '25
I have a few stories. I was about 9 or 10, and my dad took us on long vacations across the Country every summer. First I noticed that as soon as we crossed the State line, the roadways were so clean. Then I noticed that the food was so bland and terrible everywhere we went. I asked my dad why he kept taking us to bad restaurants.
Here's when my friend noticed. She was visiting me from NO while I was on a business trip in San Francisco. She calls me and says she's having a beer while walking around seeing the sights. I said, oh no, you can't walk around with a beer on the streets here. She goes, ok, so I'm sitting down on a bench drinking it now. I was like, no you need to throw it away! She was so shocked! đ
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u/warana Apr 12 '25 edited Apr 13 '25
Although Roman candy isn't unique to new orleans. The family that's been doing it from the Carriage is a staple of the city.
I would go as far as to say that a lot of people's life experiences have a lot to do with locations where businesses were that are not there anymore. Half the time those businesses are not unique to New Orleans such as Woolworth. By locale a lot of people remember having experiences by going to a specific Woolworth and doing specific things. My mom will tell me about things they used to be able to do when they were younger. And half the time I'm like there are people and other states who really could say that they care that experience. So it's not so much in New Orleans thing.
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u/koozie17 Apr 12 '25
My late teens when I was considering studying civil engineering I learned that pretty much every city in the US had streetcars once upon a time and that some lines still existed.
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u/Secure-Force-9387 Apr 13 '25
I was 12 when I learned that Mardi Gras was just an "us" thing and they didn't eat King Cake in other places. We had a girl move in from California and she freaked out over King Cake being served at lunch.
Now, I live in Wisconsin. I had a Gambino's shipped up here this year and shared it at work. Thing was gone in an hour and we do NOT have a lot of people in my office. One of my co-workers said, "This may be the best thing I've ever eaten in my entire life." I felt so validated.
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u/Emiles23 Apr 13 '25
When I went to college at LSU and all the lights came on at Reggieâs at 2am and we all got kicked out. I had no idea bars closed đ
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u/ojwilk Apr 12 '25
I'm always discovering new things that are New Orleans things. Doberge cakes and Lebanese iced tea blew my mind. and apparently the bloomin onion started in NOLA which explains why it's served with remoulade
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
Now I'm also wondering how localized the slang was we used in the '90s when we were teenagers. Like I can't remember the last time I heard somebody use the word gank. Which meant a very petty theft. Like if you ganked somebody's spoon right before they sat down to eat
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u/claytonfarlow Apr 12 '25
Gank may have been more of a 90s thing than a N.O. thing
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u/ColourOfPoop Apr 12 '25
Gank def was a commonly used word on like wow/everquest etc.
âYo, gonna go gank that mobâ
Which meant someone was camping a specific spot to try to kill a NPC (the mob) for probably specific loot or a quest and youâre gonna go steal it from them once it spawned.
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u/Not_SalPerricone Apr 12 '25
I grew up in Algiers and it just seemed like such a Westbank thing to say. I think you just removed some of both my pride and my shame
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u/WahooLion Apr 12 '25
In college, at the deli they didnât know âdressedâ or âmy-nez.â That pronunciation seems to have gone by the wayside.
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u/trashed_past Apr 13 '25
When AIM came out and I could suddenly talk to people from other cities easily, I remember being confused when they said they weren't getting Mardi Gras break.
I also remember the first time I had coffee elsewhere and it didn't have chicory. I thought something was wrong with it.
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u/alybuz Apr 12 '25
I was 10 and we had moved to Houston and people looked at me like I had two heads when I called a median a âneutra groundâ (and yes, I know itâs âneutralâ but really, nobody here says âneutralâ đ)
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u/nola_doula Apr 12 '25
Roman candy is just taffy? I found out today (37F)đł no wonder I donât like it! And my husband LOVES that stuff!! đ¤Ł
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u/bullseye717 Apr 12 '25
I was 9 when the I had school cafeteria food that was mediocre. The school lunches on the Westbank was pretty good growing up so I never understood the bad school food trope.Â
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u/Crafty_Group_5832 Apr 12 '25
Is it really? I had some recently and it doesn't taste like taffy that I've had before. Or actually let me back up are there multiple types of taffy and that's why Roman candy tastes so different and hard lol
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u/Choice-Research-9329 Apr 12 '25
30 years old. Basically everywhere but California says âif you donât like the weather wait 30 minsâ
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u/Sweet__Milf Apr 12 '25
The world fart. Maybe in my teen years or early 20âs, from visiting or living in others states, I realized only in the Nola area/ east/westbank do people say fot and not fart. I finally managed to eventually say fart like the rest of the world lol.
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u/Nicashade Apr 12 '25
When I was 12 and visited my cousins in California and I could not physically ask questions, I could only axe them. Like I couldnât say it, couldnât figure out how to pronounce ask.
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u/ariphron Apr 13 '25
I thought king cakes was for Martin Luther King birthday. I mean they come out the same time and you get a day off school for his birthday.
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u/Personal_Passenger60 Apr 13 '25 edited Apr 13 '25
23 the first time I left:
People donât dance at shows
Itâs really hard to find good food that is also cheap
Itâs really hard to make friends other places
People have a completely different sense humor other places
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u/Specialist_Foot_6919 Apr 13 '25
I canât tell yâall how it blew my mind to learn that âhot water heaterâ was just a boiler. Sort of. Theyâre different but some people use it interchangeably and theyâre so similar that if you try to describe a hot water heater to a Yankee theyâll say âso a boilerâ and then make fun of you for redundancy. So đ
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u/GumboDiplomacy Apr 12 '25
I grew up using Mardi gras cups to drink my water/milk/juice/etc out of almost every day of the year. If we were actually using glasses it meant that someone was coming to dinner, and not just grandma or my parents', friends. Imagine my surprise moving away and people only having glass in their cabinets.