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Olivier’s Creole Restaurant “If it tastes good, it’s good gumbo. I don’t care what you put in it or whose recipe it was or nothing and what don’t go in gumbo and what does go in gumbo. They’re going to be arguing over that when I’m dead. So my criteria is if it tastes good, it’s good gumbo.” – Armand Olivier Jr. "Every family had a different style of gumbo. When I went to my Grandmother Audrey’s house, there would always be shredded chicken in hers. When I went to Eva’s house, my father’s mother’s house, there would always be cracked crabs. So every family and even by neighborhood there was different traditions in what to do.” – Armand Olivier III Five generations of Creole family recipes and tradition inspired Olivier’s Creole Restaurant. Armand Olivier Jr., his wife Cheryl, and their son Armand III began their restaurant in 1979 in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood. There, Cheryl Olivier created a menu of Creole favorites, including a filé gumbo. Regulars began to request an okra gumbo, so Cheryl debuted another family recipe. When Olivier’s Restaurant moved to the French Quarter, Armand III created a gumbo of his own. Armand III’s roux-based Creole gumbo is now the restaurant’s house gumbo. But family tradition and customer’s tastes demand that all three gumbos appear on the menu. The compromise is the Gumbo Sampler, available year-round. NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here. Subject: Armand Olivier Jr.
& Armand Olivier III --- Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans on Friday, August 4th, 2006 for the Southern Foodways Alliance. I’m in New Orleans, Louisiana, at Olivier’s Restaurant on Decatur Street, and I am sitting in the dining room with Armand Olivier, Jr. and Armand Olivier III. And if I could ask you each to introduce yourselves for the record and also state your birth dates, if you don’t mind. Armand Olivier III [son]: Armand Olivier III. April 17th, 1958. Armand Olivier, Jr. [father]: Armand Olivier, Jr. March 14th, 1937. And Olivier’s Restaurant has been in existence for some thirty years, is that correct? AO-Jr: We started in the restaurant business proper in 1979; however, we started at that time using recipes going back on Armand III’s mom’s side of the family at least two generations that I know of. So the—the recipes prior to Olivier’s Restaurant being opened, those were strictly [written] recipes or were you—was your family selling gumbo and shrimp Creole and things as well? AO-III: No, my family did not market them. They were produced generation to generation, and that’s what we drew upon to construct the original menu and to construct each prior menu. And from the history that’s on your menu and on your website…the recipes are all from the—the female lineage in your family and now the—the two of you gentlemen are now heading the restaurant. Can you speak to that a little bit? AO-Jr: Well I’ll say that the—all of the newer recipes on our menu are Armand’s creation—Armand, III. So that’s another thing that you all talk about on the menu is that you’re combining traditional Creole with an innovative Creole cuisine, which is your specialty, Armand [III]? AO-III: Well I don’t know how innovative it is, but it’s mine. Call it present generation Creole. But how that came about is [that] the entire lineage of the recipes—other than myself—were attributed to females in my family. In my generation there were three boys; there were no girls. I was the oldest boy and someone had to get stuck with all the knowledge to be retained and passed on and being the oldest boy, it fell on me. I was the one that they taught to cook. So did your mother teach you how to cook? AO-III: Yes. [Cheryl Gaudet Olivier.] --- And so all five generations that go as far back as your great-great-grandmother are native New Orleanians? AO-III: Yes. And then past that, do you know the family heritage? AO-III: No, the history becomes sketchy beyond that to me because there are no recorded birth records. It’s difficult to research. Once you get back to that time slavery existed. But I’ve been able to trace back on my father’s side five generations from New Orleans and on my mother’s side, well you already have the history on that. So that’s as far as I’ve been able to go back. Being a Creole family in New Orleans, can you talk about what that means? AO-III: Well there’s many different aspects to describe it. Depending on where you’re from, you have no idea what Creole means. My understanding of the origin of it—it was initially a Spanish word Creollio, and while everyone was vying for their little piece of the New World empire, Spain had its stake, England had its stake, France had its stake, the Dutch had their stake. The Spanish, when they had a Spaniard that was born in the New World, they called him a Creollio—that he still retained Spanish citizenship but was not born in Spain. That word translated over to the French and initially it was used the same way—a French citizen—Creole born in the New World. And it transmuted over time to the usage that is common now, a person that is part French or part Spanish, part black, and part American Indian—a blend. And that’s its common usage now. So that’s what I am. So regarding food, how would you say that word [Creole] applies to food in New Orleans? AO-III: Well the word Creole food pretty much applies only to New Orleans. Louisiana is famous for two types of food: Cajun and Creole. Cajun food—well the Cajuns after the French and Indian War, which the victor was not named in it—Britain, took over Canada; the Acadians, the settlers—the French settlers there had to flee. So they followed the Mississippi River down, and when it ended they were in Louisiana. And since they were hunters, trappers, you know, furriers, they did not settle in a major city; they settled outside. They settled in southern coastal Louisiana or northern Louisiana, and they became known as Cajuns. And because they were so removed for so many generations, a different language developed; Creole French was what was spoken in New Orleans and Cajun French is what was spoken in the rural parts, and they cannot understand each other. You know they’ve derived completely different languages. So Cajun food was rural; it was—if you can hunt it, trap it, fish it, grow it, or trade with your neighbor, you can have it. If not, you can't have it. And in New Orleans, a major port city, oh, I feel like having a duck today. You stroll down to the market and you purchase a duck. So the cuisines developed completely different. And by [New Orleans] being a port city with accesses to spices from all over the world—and it’s more classical cuisine than the rural cuisine of Cajun. --- Do you remember the first time that you cooked a meal? How about your first gumbo? AO-III: My first Gumbo [short pause] actually, the first gumbo I ever cooked was a trial in one of my family’s recipes—restaurants. In the original restaurant on Dreux Street we cooked the filé gumbo six days a week, and on one day a week okra gumbo was served. And always there was someone [who would say], “Oh, why can't I have okra [gumbo] today?” “No, that’s only on this day.” I don’t remember what day of the week it was; let’s say it’s Monday. “No, that’s only on Monday.” And that represented—my father made the filé gumbo, and my mother made okra gumbo. And I said, “Well we can do this. We can just have one that’s available every day.” So that was my attempt—to just come up with one that would be served every day and you could have this alternative gumbo, you know, a special one in addition to that on your various days. So that was my first experiment at gumbo. And they didn’t like it. Was that first experiment a roux-based gumbo—the Creole gumbo that you make [now]? AO-III: Yes. There was a learning curve in it, so I will admit perhaps my first attempt was not stellar; but they rejected it, and that was my first try at gumbo. Prior to that first attempt, what had you kind of soaked up regarding a knowledge of gumbo and what it is and what it is supposed to be as a dish? AO-III: Because it evolved over such a long period of time just as though everyone that originally inhabited New Orleans was French. Over the 300 years it evolved to where a person that spoke Parisian French could not understand Creole French and vice versa. So with that amount of time every family had a different style of gumbo. When I went to my Grandmother Audrey’s house there would always be shredded chicken in hers. When I went to Eva’s house, my father’s mother’s house, there would always be cracked crabs. So every family and even by neighborhood there was different traditions in what to do. So there is no steadfast rule, only the famous one: begin with a roux. So how is it would you say, then, that your father had the recipe for the filé [gumbo] and your mother the recipe for the okra [gumbo]? Personal preferences or are those part of the lineage of recipes that have been passed down? AO-III: I will allow [my father] to answer that question. AO-Jr: We were assigned to the different gumbos…When we started the restaurant in—the neighborhood restaurant in Gentilly [a neighborhood of New Orleans] in [nineteen] seventy-nine, the full burden of the actual cooking was on Armand’s mother, Cheryl. And I could not boil water without burning it. And I was willing to hand her anything she needed but [Laughs] as far as executing the recipes, that was not my forte. Armand [III] was—was busy doing other things; he was the manager, he was the—he—he wrote the menu, he took care of the liquors and the wines—bartender and everything else, so after—after a while, I was informed that I would have to participate in the actual cooking. We—we were—we were selling a lot of gumbo—gumbos because she was doing the okra gumbo as a special two nights a week and the filé gumbo, her filé gumbo was the—on the regular menu. So when I asked her what should I learn first, her answer was the filé gumbo. So I said, “Well write it down for me.” She said, “Nope, I can't.” [Laughs] And—and she actually couldn’t because the way she cooked—it was amazing that it came out the same—tasting the same, looking the same every time, but she would just…she would just grab stuff and cut it up, chop it up, whip it up and throw it in the pot. [Laughs] And she—she couldn’t give me measurements or increments, anything like that, so I had to stand there and watch her and write over and over and over. [Laughs] And then I—I proceeded to try my—my own filé gumbo. And when I got it to where I thought she would agree with—with it, she tasted it…And anyhow that’s how the filé gumbo got to be my recipe. The okra [gumbo] remained her recipe, and later on Armand III created the Creole gumbo, which was our third gumbo. And that’s the—that’s the gumbo story. And I’m sticking to it. --- So even though you say that you couldn’t boil water before you made filé gumbo— AO-Jr: I watched and I learned, you know. I mean I’m not a slow learner, and I just didn’t—never had the necessity to cook. I’ve only had to sit down. My mom cooked for me, and then my wife cooked for me, you know. And both of them wouldn’t let me in the kitchen, even though I didn’t want to be in there. [Laughs] I’d rather sit there and eat than participate. But when I had to do it, I did it, you know. I did it the best I could. And so you took ownership of the filé gumbo in the Olivier family? AO-Jr: That’s correct; this is mine. And why was the filé gumbo sold throughout the week and the okra gumbo just one or two days a week? AO-Jr: [My wife, Cheryl] brought that okra gumbo in by request. You see, the—the culture that we came up in, the—the neighborhoods, the Creole neighborhoods that we came up in, those two gumbos were predominant and they were—if you went to one house and ate it, and you went to another house and ate it, it would be basically the same even though these people didn’t even know each other, you know. In the homes was it seasonal? Was it literally that the okra would be in the summer and filé in the winter or—? AO-Jr: I have no idea. I was only into eating. [Laughs] I did not venture into origins or, you know, traditions or anything else. But that okra gumbo came later; we only started out with the filé gumbo. The okra gumbo came later because people were saying, “Oh, I sure wish this woman could—could—.” Her filé gumbo was so good that consistent that they all were requesting okra. And she just refused to do okra and filé and put it on the same—on the menu, so she did it like—she’d cook it one day and serve it two days. If it ran out the second day, we were out. --- So when you opened the restaurant business in the late [nineteen] seventies, was that kind of a time in the New Orleans community and Creole culture when people weren't cooking as much at home and so they would go out for traditional Creole dishes? AO-Jr: It was good times, economically, and once we—once we got a reputation for doing good gumbo, it was—it was all over, like they say. People would come and try it because most—most people are like me, they would not even eat gumbo in a restaurant, you know…And I’m still like that. [Laughs] I don’t venture out with gumbo; gumbo can be on the menu and I won't—I won't touch it, you know…And I’m not—I’m not a picky eater but, you know, it’s just so many—so many dos, don’ts and ideas about gumbos and a lot of them are—are malarkey, you know, because it—it’s always been my opinion that if you—if you have a gumbo that tastes good, it’s good gumbo. Don’t mess with a good thing, yeah. AO-Jr: That’s it. If it tastes good, it’s good gumbo. I don’t care what you put in it or who—whose recipe it was or nothing and what don’t go in gumbo and what does go in gumbo. That’s going to be—they’re going to be arguing over that when I’m dead, so my—my criteria is if it tastes good, it’s good gumbo, you know. So what did you and your wife think when your son, Armand III, came in and had this idea of doing a roux-based gumbo? AO-Jr: We—I—I welcomed anything that he did, really. He’s never done anything that wasn’t to perfection. And I had—I had all the confidence in the world that it would be as good—the fact is I didn’t realize it would be as good as it was. [Laughs] Was the roux gumbo something that was made in your family before? AO-Jr: No…We used roux in the filé gumbo, never used roux in the okra gumbo. The okra was the thickener and the filé was the thickener with the help of a little roux. And to have a roux-based gumbo was [Armand III’s] idea. We still serve it, and we serve it as the house gumbo [which is called the Creole Gumbo on the menu]. --- If someone was a regular here and came and often got the sampler, but they were partial to say, the filé gumbo, could they order a bowl of the filé gumbo? AO-Jr: Every now and then an old customer—I’ll do it, but we don’t cook enough of it to do it as the house gumbo. So, you know, we can't just let everybody have carte blanche with what they—otherwise, we’d run out, you know. --- So when you came to the [French] Quarter, did a lot of the customer base from the neighborhood restaurant days follow you? AO-Jr: Uh-hmm, they still—they still come in when they—when they learn about—that we’re still in business and we’re still here. I get—I get young people visiting town and they say, “I used to eat at your restaurant. My mom used to bring me in, my dad used to bring me in.” And sometimes we get the actual old people who used to eat with us come in and—and we have good times, good talks and all and yeah, yeah; it’s—it’s gratifying, you know. It’s really gratifying. --- Can you talk about [filé] flavoring gumbo and flavoring a roux gumbo, as in the filé gumbo here [at the restaurant]? You strictly use it for flavoring, not as the thickener? AO-III: It is a thickener, but as you had the Gumbo Sampler [which is on the menu] yesterday, that is the thinnest of all the gumbos. So it’s—it’s a thickening agent, it’s a coloring agent; it does add a flavor dimension to it but there’s very little, not terribly scorched peanut-butter-colored roux in the file [gumbo]. I cook my roux to like a milk chocolate color consistency for the Creole Gumbo and there’s more of it included; that’s the thickening agent there, and that’s the heartiest one of the three on the plate. So it—it starts from the structure of it, the filé being the lightest and the Creole being the most dense; so we’re back to start with the roux. Where would you say the okra [gumbo] falls in there? Well the only thickening agent in the okra is the diced okra itself. You dice up the okra, put just a little oil on the bottom of a pan and scorch the okra to get rid of—a lot of people don’t like okra because they claim it’s slimy; that’s the step where you get rid of the slime and the little hairs. And then that’s it; that’s the thickening agent for it. There’s no roux in that one at all and that’s, you know, my mother’s recipe. I’m sure there are people that make okra gumbo with roux—start with roux like everyone else—but that’s her recipe, and I think it’s great, so no change there. --- What does gumbo mean to you, I guess, personally and culturally? AO-III: Sunday dinner and holidays, that’s what it means to me. From my—that’s what I associate that word with. Holidays, birthdays, guests over, family gatherings—gumbo had to be present for a family gathering. --- To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
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