Who’s That Guy With the Lobster on His Head?

Joe Cahn was recently named the 1991 Restaurateur of the Year by the Louisiana Restaurant Association--quite an honor for someone who doesn’t own a restaurant.

He has never had formal training. Nor did this New Orleans native absorb any rich culinary heritage from his mother. She specialized in frozen fish sticks and a hot fruited soup, which he says was nothing more than Jell-O mixed with fruit cocktail, served hot rather than jelled.

For most of his life, Cahn knew virtually nothing about cooking. “It was terrible,” he recalls. “I loved to eat, but always had to rely on others to cook for me.”

But that dependency, and a passion for the cuisine of southern Louisiana, led to Cahn’s success. In 1980, figuring he could learn to cook as he helped others learn, he opened the New Orleans School of Cooking and Louisiana General Store--a combination of a school specializing in Cajun and Creole cookery and a business selling ingredients, books and utensils needed to prepare the cuisine.

Today, he proudly calls himself the “keeper of the pots” at the one-cuisine cooking school that paved the way for others to open regional cooking schools across the country. His wife Karen--one of his first students--is “keeper of the books.”

His teaching attire is not the kitchen whites with stovepipe chef’s hat you’d expect of a noted cooking school owner. Instead, Cahn wears a T-shirt promoting his New Orleans School of Cooking and slips on a silly red lobster-shaped hat. As he does so, he tells his audience, “I’m a serious cook and I need to be taken seriously.”

As he shows students how to prepare foods like jambalaya, pralines and bananas Foster, he keeps them attentive with a non-stop comedy monologue about his wonderful but hardly-a-cook mother, his unorthodox cooking techniques and his region’s attitude toward eating.

“Cajun-Creole cooking is about obsession,” he says. “When eating in southern Louisiana, the mouth rules, not the stomach. We sever the ‘Stop, I’m full’ nerve at birth.” He claims people should enjoy seven to nine full meals a day, rather than three.

But what about today’s concerns with diet and nutrition? “I believe in it,” he says, “but think we take it a little too far. To those who say, ‘My body is a temple,’ I say, ‘My body is an amusement park.’ ”

He admits to gaining about 70 pounds since opening his school, but doesn’t mind. “When you’re thin, no one trusts you in the kitchen,” he says. “That’s why Paul Prudhomme is the successful man he is today. He looks like he cooks. And, he looks like he eats . . . not just his food, but everyone else’s.”

But seriously, Cahn recommends that his recipes be adapted for the diet-conscious. Flexibility, he says, is the key to good cooking. Don’t be afraid to improvise, whether it’s because you must alter a dish for a diet or because you don’t have all the ingredients called for in a recipe. Most recipes, he says, are simply modified versions of other recipes--the reason he has not yet written a cookbook.

“I want recipes that anyone can do--things that are simple and can be embellished on,” says Cahn, a believer in the “2-2-2” school of cooking: don’t make anything that takes too long, is too difficult or takes more than two pots.

During a typical three-hour cooking course, Cahn teaches students to make four one-pot dishes, on the principle that a good cook need only learn to make three or four things well. “If a dish doesn’t work out, change the name,” says Cahn, believing cooks shouldn’t take themselves too seriously. If you’ve poured your pralines too thin, break them up and sprinkle them over ice cream. It’s not how you cook but what you call it. Be creative if you make a mistake.”

For Cahn, Cajun cooking is as much a way of life as it is a means to a dish. “It doesn’t always matter how food tastes. You can have the best food, but if it’s cooked with arrogance and served without pleasure, you probably won’t enjoy it,” he says. “I believe conversation and laughter at the dinner table are as important to a good meal as the food is.”

JAMBALAYA

1/4 cup oil, lard or bacon drippings

1 chicken, cut up or boned

Salt, pepper

1 1/2 pounds sausage

4 cups chopped onions

2 cups chopped celery

2 cups chopped green peppers

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

5 cups stock or flavored water

Cayenne pepper

4 cups long-grain rice

2 cups chopped green onions, optional

2 cups chopped tomatoes, optional

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Season chicken to taste with salt and pepper, then brown in oil. Add sausage and saute with chicken. Remove sausage and chicken from pot.

Reheat drippings and saute onions, celery, green peppers and garlic to desired tenderness. Return chicken and sausage to pot. Add stock, 2 heaping teaspoons salt, cayenne (and other desired seasonings) and bring to boil.

Add rice and return to boil. Cover and simmer 10 minutes. Remove cover and quickly and thoroughly stir rice. Add green onions and chopped tomatoes. Cover and cook 20 minutes more. Makes about 12 servings.

Note: For brown Jambalaya, either add 1 heaping tablespoon brown sugar to hot oil, caramelize and make roux. Or use 1 to 2 tablespoons Kitchen Bouquet liquid seasoning. For red Jambalaya, add approximately 1/4 cup paprika, and if desired substitute tomato juice or vegetable cocktail juice for half of stock or flavored water.

BANANAS FOSTER

1 (10-ounce) loaf stale French bread, crumbled (or 6 to 8 cups any type bread)

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 cup banana liqueur

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted

4 eggs

2 tablespoons vanilla

5 bananas, cut-up

1 cup chopped pecans

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Bananas Foster Sauce

Combine bread, milk, whipping cream, banana liqueur, sugar, melted butter, eggs, vanilla, bananas, pecans and cinnamon. Mix well (mixture should be very moist but not soupy).

Turn into buttered 12x9-inch baking dish. Place in cool oven and bake at 350 degrees until top is golden brown, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Serve warm with Bananas Foster Sauce.

Bananas Foster Sauce

1/2 cup butter

2 cups dark brown sugar

1/2 cup banana liqueur

1/2 cup dark rum

Ground cinnamon

Melt butter in skillet. Stir in brown sugar to form creamy paste. Caramelize over medium heat 5 minutes. Stir in banana liqueur and rum. Heat and ignite. Agitate to keep flame burning and add few dashes cinnamon to flame. Let flames die and serve warm over warm bread pudding. Makes 16 to 20 servings. Sauce can be served over bread pudding or ice cream.

PRALINES

1 1/2 cups sugar

3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

6 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups pecans (roasted, if desired)

Combine sugar, brown sugar, milk, vanilla, butter and pecans in saucepan and bring to soft-ball stage, 238 to 240 degrees, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

Stir until mixture thickens, becomes creamy and cloudy and pecans stay suspended in mixture. Spoon onto buttered wax paper, foil or parchment paper. Makes 1 to 50 pralines, depending on size. When using wax paper, be sure to buffer with newspapers underneath, as hot wax will transfer to whatever is beneath it.

Note: To roast pecans, bake on sheet pan at 275 degrees 20 to 25 minutes, until slightly browned and smell permeates. Do not attempt to double recipe.