Café du Monde
Any Road Trips Foodie in New Orleans, Louisiana for Mardi Gras (or any other time of the year) knows that it’s absolutely essential to make a stop at the Original Café Du Monde Coffee Stand 800 Decatur Street (in the French Quarter). Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week (except for Christmas Day and when “an occasional hurricane passes too close”), its specialties remain the same since it was opened in 1862: coffee and beignets.
It comes by its specialties as a result of history. Coffee first came to North America by way of New Orleans back in the mid-1700’s — the French brought coffee with them as they began to settle new colonies along the Mississippi River. Acadians from Nova Scotia brought the taste for chicory (which added body and flavor to coffee) to Louisiana. (By the way: chicory is the root of endive plant, a species of lettuce. The root, roasted and ground, is added to coffee to soften what some consider the bitter edge of dark roasted coffee.) The Café Du Monde Coffee and Chicory is traditionally served Au Lait, mixed half and half with hot milk.
Beignets were also brought to Louisiana by the Acadians. Today’s version is a square piece of dough, fried and dusted with powdered sugar. So, go with tradition: sit down at one of the café tables and order a “coffee and chicory au lait” along with a plate of beignets. At Café Du Monde, they are served in orders of three.
