From Pralines to Beignets to Creole gumbo and po’ boys, New Orleans and its people have held fast to culinary traditions for centuries, with each generation cherishing the dishes of the past and lovingly handing them along to the next. Creole cream cheese is one such delicacy, which had its origins in the earliest European settlements in New Orleans but quite nearly disappeared in the industrialization and commodification of the 20th century.
The first European settlers arrived in Louisiana to find that some of their favorite foods didn’t fare quite so well in the subtropical atmosphere. White flour was substituted with cornmeal, and for cheese, they began making a soft single-curd cheese that they’d hang in the shade of nearby oak trees. Creole cream cheese, as it came to be known, became beloved by the different cultures calling the city home. French-influenced folks would add sugar to the tangy, flan-like cheese, while Germans often served it with salt and pepper. Elizabeth M. Williams (founder of New Orleans’ Southern Food & Beverage Museum), for one, grew up with Creole cream cheese smeared on a piece of crusty, braided bread with honey or fresh figs in her Italian household.
As time passed, Creole cream cheese was the sort of product most families made at home. With the scores of German dairies in neighboring Carrollton (eventually annexed by New Orleans), home cooks had easy access to milk and rennet. With the advent of pasteurization and home refrigeration, Creole cream cheese was a common enough kitchen staple that it was available for daily delivery along with a household’s milk. But the industrialization of the process and the advent of chain supermarkets (paired with the consolidation and commodification of the local dairy industry) brought a precipitous decline in production and consumption of the time-honored product in the 1970s and ’80s.
At this point in the timeline, Creole cream cheese was all but extinct (with Dorignac’s in Metairie as one of the last producers). In 1998 or 1999, New Orleanian radio host and Slow Food activist Poppy Tooker spent many Saturdays teaching people how to make Creole cream cheese at the Crescent City Farmers Market. Henry Mauthe, a local dairy farmer who was looking for a way to revitalize his family’s business, observed one of those demos and quickly realized Creole cream cheese was just what he was searching for.
To say the Mauthes’ Creole cream cheese made a splash when it debuted at the Crescent City Farmers Market in July of 2001 would be a great understatement. The Mauthes sold through their 500 cartons of Creole cream cheese in 45 minutes to a crowd that stretched around the block. “Older people had tears in their eyes, saying this was bringing back their childhood,” Jamie Mauthe says. “This was what their mother had served them for breakfast every morning. It was just so moving.”
From there, the Mauthes expanded from the farmers’ market to a variety of local grocers, including Langenstein’s and Rouse’s, and eventually introduced a ready-to-eat cheesecake made with Creole cream cheese. Thanks to Poppy’s addition of the product to the Slow Food Ark of Taste, producers like the Mauthes, and local chefs who feature it, Creole cream cheese seems to have become reestablished in the food scene. For people who aren’t fortunate enough to live in the Mauthes’ distribution zone, it’s quite easy to produce your own at home. Louisiana Cookin’ features a bounty of recipes that use Creole cream cheese, but Elizabeth says, “To me, the thing is that you can substitute Creole cream cheese for things like ricotta or yogurt. And you know, make that yogurt dip with Creole cream cheese in it instead of that yogurt. It’s just so versatile.”
What’s the best way to preserve and enjoy Creole cream cheese? “Eat it! Period,” Poppy says. “I’ll put a spoonful on toasted poor boy bread, sprinkle it with a little salt and pepper, or put a little Louisiana choupique caviar on it as an hors d’oeuvre.”
