TulaneLSU’s 10 pictures of the NOLA Metro Cheesesteak Poorboy

Dear Friends,

I require three things from food. First, it must sustain me. Second, it must taste good. Third, and perhaps most important, it must tell a good story. This triune posture makes dining a fully immersive event -- food should feed the body, the spirit, and the mind. Today, I share with the the TulaneLSU NOLA Metro Cheesesteak Poorboy, a name I am working to trademark with my bartering barrister, buttocksinclarse.

First, we start with the base of all poorboys: New Orleans French bread. Perhaps as challenging as the age old question of Strawberry rhubarb or blackberry confiture jelly at La Madeleine’s, toasted or cold muffuletta, or Augustine or Thomas is Leidenheimer or Reising’s? Now I am aware that Leidenheimer bought out Reising’s Sunrise. But even under its new ownership, Reising’s tastes different from Leidenheimer. It’s chew can be almost gum like at times, and on a full length poorboy can quickly cause the experience to go from pleasurable to painful, as the jaw and teeth struggle to tear through the flour which is very high in gluten and extremely low in fat. I always considered Reising’s to be Leidenheimer minus any fat.



Just like I always do at La Madeleine’s, I decided on getting both to experiment. In this step, we remember the German and French influence on New Orleans. The French first brought French bread to this colony in the 1700s. The Germans mastered the New Orleans French bread in the late 1800s.

The next step is choosing the right beef. I’ve heard it said that a cheesesteak is not a cheesesteak unless it’s made from ribeye. That’s a lie. It doesn’t matter what steak you use, so long as it is beef. You can’t put a tuna steak on bread with cheese and call it a cheesesteak. Not in my world, at least. One of our family’s friends, Wolfgang Puck, told me something like this: “TulaneLSU, if you ever want to make good beef, use Snake River Farms American Wagyu. It has the marbling of Japanese Wagyu and the rich flavor of American beef.”



The steak recalls the Metro area’s once thriving beef industry. As coastal erosion and urban sprawl increased, the pasturelands disappeared. My grandfather once told me of a childhood memory of chasing turkeys on a family friend’s farm. We were fishing The Pen down in Lafitte at the time. Grandfather said, “TulaneLSU, right on this very spot in my lifetime was solid ground. Cows grazed here; now otters (his vision had gone -- they were nutria) play and trout swarm. Don’t take anything in this life for granted. The very ground you walk on is not promised. But as for the love and faithfulness of our God, those things are forever.”





New Orleans does not have a significant cheese history. Creole cream cheese, of which I am not very fond, has a mildly interesting history. It never became very popular, though, because it simply doesn’t taste that good. Of all the cheeses available to us, it is far down the list. I would never put Creole cream cheese on a cheesesteak poorboy. But if I did, I would get the Gold Seal Creamery version of it at Dorignac’s.

Here I have freshly shredded Tillamook pepperjack. Although it is derived from Monterey Jack, a discovery or invention, depending on your worldview, of the Franciscans of Monterey, California 300 years ago, it makes me think of County Kerry, Ireland. Tillamook Creamery was founded by a Scotsman, Peter Duncan McIntosh, so there’s no real connection, other than the one that floats in my mind, with the New Orleans Irish who came in droves in the mid to late 1800s and were used to build the city. Proud Orleans Irish are quick to tell you, sometimes ad nauseum, about how their great great grandfather helped dig the New Basin Canal. They’ll tell you how the Irish had it worse than enslaved Africans before them, to which I always roll my eyes.

As one American philosopher has said, “When America opened the floodgates and let all of us Irish in, what do you think they were doing that for? Because they were trying to save us from poverty? No, they did it because they needed us. They needed us to build their cities, dig their subways and it made them richer. The Carnegies, the Rockefellers: they needed the worker bees. Then there we were. But some all us didn't want to swarm around the hive and lose who we were. We wanted to stay Irish and preserve the things that meant something to us: honor and family, and loyalty.”

I also purchased some beautiful provolone from Sam’s. Provolone is the superior cheese for cheesesteaks, in my opinion. It reminds us of the beautiful Italians who have had perhaps the greatest influence of all new immigrants to the city. The Italians changed the landscape of New Orleans food, introducing pasta, pizza, muffulettas, and St. Joseph’s Day altars. Creole Italian food is arguably the greatest American contribution to the world’s menu, although it currently is wildly underappreciated.