On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:22:23 +0000, Lazarus Cooke
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

s.

presumably the same influence - French - but in their case spreading
eastwards, rather than westwards?

I think the primary New Orleans influences are European and African, but
IAC, I think the Viet use of Creole-style coffee is more a simple matter
of taste preference. Chicory coffee (Creole-style) is common down here
and many cultures drink it, so the fact that they found it is hardly
special. What I find interesting is that they took to it almost
completely - in fact, I've never had iced coffee in a Viet establishment
or home anywhere from Texas to Florida that wasn't made with
Creole-style chicory coffee, yet Viet coffee (IOW, coffee from and/or
sold in Viet Nam) isn't really blended with chicory or much like the
Creole coffee.


Hmm, I' m afraid you're almost certainly right.

But I did like the notion of French coffee, mixed with chicory,
spreading westwards through Senagal and the slave states and then
across the Atlantic, and also spreading eastwards, with the foreign
legion to Indo-china, and finally meeting itself in the opposite
direction, right around the globe, through a series of bizarre
accidents, in New Orleans.........

Well, if it makes you feel better (and restores your sense of romantic
Kiplingesque culinary adventures), they did bring their interpretation
of "French bread" with them, and it is remarkably similar to New
Orleans-style "French bread" - a _really_ airy, lightweight (a 3-foot/1
meter loaf is about 8 oz.), crispy-crust baguette-shaped type of thing.
TC,
R

Hey ho

Lazarus