MARCHING AND EATING IN NEW ORLEANS

The three things New Orleanians like to do best are listen to music, eat, and eat. So it seems only natural that the city’s second most-famous festival is a jubilee of those pleasures.

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which I attended last year, may count as that city’s second celebration, but it is surely one of the world’s greatest festivals. Grandmothers, children, professionals, punks, lovers, music lovers, locals and tourists display wide smiles at all that jazz and all that food. It’s a jeans and T-shirt event during the loveliest weather New Orleans has to offer, where people sit on the grass and eat from paper plates, sway with the music, march with the parade, get up and dance, and have a wonderful time.

What began 18 years ago with 300 musicians and about 150 spectators has grown into an extravaganza featuring 3,000 musicians playing for a quarter of a million people during the course of a sybaritic 10-day stretch. (This year, it begins Friday and runs through May 3.)

A fabulous variety of music pumps from 10 stages constructed for the festival at the Fair Grounds, the centerfield of the city’s race track. Food booths dotting the area offer 90 indigenous dishes. In addition to jambalaya, crawfish pie and file gumbo, there is also an outrageous selection featuring alligator sausage, oyster “po-boys,” sweet potato pone, navy bean pie and pecan praline frozen yogurt.

Through the 17 years of the festival’s growth, any food concessionaire has been allowed to return as long as there have been no complaints about his food. If he doesn’t care to return, or wants to change his offering, the festival committee samples proposed replacements; this is serious business. Foods must have some connection with the culinary heritage of the area.

Overwhelmed by the range of delicious choices to sample, one strategy is to consult the locals. Judging from the gang of people in line for Crawfish Monica, I followed suit. No wonder. This is the booth run by the New Orleans Chefs Assn. Their creation is prepared only for the Jazz Festival, and locals wait all year for the combination of homemade fusilli (corkscrew pasta), succulent crawfish and bits of green onion served in a sauce of reduced cream, crawfish “butter,” onions and spices. The result is hot, delicate and utterly delicious.

The Chefs Assn.’s other offering, Turtle Stew Picante, was nearly as worthy although not nearly as popular. The recipe includes fresh meat from local turtles, a light roux made from veal and chicken stock, ground egg, whole lemons, sherry, red peppers, cayenne and Tabasco.

At this festival, it makes sense to match the food to the music. Because Crawfish Monica is prepared in the spirit of New Orleans, you might choose to eat it while following the Dixieland jazz parade. Alligator sausage, on the other hand, goes best with the bayou sounds of zydeco. The reigning king is Clifton Chenier, whose accordion blends with guitars, a trumpet, washboard, triangle and organ. Alligator sausage is also a blend; made of 60% ‘gator meat mixed with pork, it tastes like spicy Italian sausage, and is served in a celery-thyme flavored tomato sauce on a “po-boy” roll.

The festival’s offering of sweet potato pone is a good choice to take to the gospel tent. It will rest easily on your lap while you clap your hands. The taste is a celestial version of our local carrot cake. Light and crumbly, it is topped with a sticky streusel of sweet potato chunks, raisins and coconut.

Another delicious highlight is merliton (pronounced MEL-a-tahn), a chayote squash cut lengthwise and stuffed with a flavorful combination of ham, shrimp and toasted bread crumbs. Stewed rabbit in a Creole sauce of onion, celery, sherry, and green pepper, black pepper and cayenne is commendable. It is served on local rice or “swamp seed.”

Calas (cah-LAHS) is a kind of local doughnut made with leftover rice and lots of vanilla. Gumbo and jambalaya, predictably well-represented, are also dishes born of leftovers. The line was so long for the Bethel Baptist Church’s fried chicken that I never got to taste it.

Crawfish tamales may sound like nouvelle cuisine , but the taste is pure down-home second helping. The tamales, which have the diameter of a nickel, are made from ground dry corn and a stuffing of crawfish, Tabasco and spices, all welcome to a Southern California palate. The Cajun popcorn (fried crawfish tails), picked by the local press as one of the best food offerings at the fest, was not so impressive; you’ve probably had some just as good at a Los Angeles happy hour. Smoked shrimp, grilled on a skewer over mesquite was, another press favorite, but mesquite-jaded Angelenos can save room for something else.

Like Omar’s pies, for instance. Omar began peddling pies from a basket on a bicycle. New Orleanians took him and his products into their hearts and he now has three locations selling sweet potato, pecan, coconut, apple, lemon, peach, and banana nut pies. But there were no bean pies at the festival, and one patron seemed truly upset. These are made of navy beans, mashed and sweetened like sweet potato pie, in Omar’s justly famous incredibly flaky crust.

The disappointed customer may have been the only unhappy soul at the festival.