New Orleans, LA – Tonight our supper came out of Styrofoam boxes from several recent restaurant visits. We’ve been trying to sample as much of the local cuisine as possible – gumbo, jambalaya, po’boys, Andouille, grits, boiled crawfish – and then there are the desserts, such as pecan pie, hot bread pudding and key lime pie! A tough job but somebody has to do it!
For the second time, our direction today was westward, away from the big city, to visit two more plantations in the area. Oak Alley is a five minute drive from the Laura Plantation that we saw yesterday, but looks completely different. It’s the plantation everyone thinks of – the grand white pillared mansion and the straight road leading up to it, flanked on either side by huge live oak trees that form a canopy overhead. You can just picture guests riding up in their carriages for a grand ball, hosted by Scarlett O’Hara’s family, although Gone with the Wind was not filmed here. Dozens of movies, TV shows and commercials have been filmed on the grounds.
Val and I sampled mint juleps, served on the ground floor verandah, before going in for our tour. Val’s was the real deal, complete with bourbon, while I had mine minus the booze. Very refreshing! Our guide, dressed in a fancy hoop-skirted dress, showed us through the restored rooms, complete with period furniture, paintings and personal items that might have been used in the old days.
One of the other plantation buildings was repurposed as a restaurant, where we went for lunch. Since this was likely our last chance, we ordered alligator bites for an appetizer. The deep-fried crunchy nuggets really did resemble chicken, if slightly rubbery! Don’t think we’ll order it again, but we tried it!
After a stroll through the lovely gardens and down that oak-lined alley, we headed on to the San Francisco Plantation on the north side of the Mississippi, somewhat closer to New Orleans. The effect of this location was tempered somewhat by the presence of a lot of industrial buildings with chutes and cranes connected to ocean-going ships on the river. We couldn’t see the ships because of the high levees; these would have been much lower in earlier years.
Not only that, but once we got to the plantation grounds, we encountered a huge collection of tented concession stands all over the lawns in preparation for a big arts and crafts fair on the weekend. The ticket lady told us they were expecting thousands of people at this annual event, so we were glad we came when we did. We actually had a personal tour – probably no one else thought the building was accessible today with all the hustle and bustle outside it.
The homestead was the most opulent one we’d seen, with frescoed ceilings and beautiful draperies in the ornately decorated rooms. The structure had two towers on either side that were cisterns for rain, gathered from the roof and piped into the house. There was even refrigeration from ice imported from the north that was stored in earthenware jars buried in the ground. It was interesting to hear the family stories that were so closely linked to these remarkable homes.
No comments:
Post a Comment