Breakfast on Ursuline Street

Caption

Croissants

Credit: Croissants

TRANSCRIPT:

CHUCK REECE: At 617 Ursuline Street in New Orleans sits a traditional French bakery called Croissant d’Or Patisserie. It has operated under that name for more than 40 years.

But people have come to this address for sweet things to eat since 1921. That was when a first-generation Sicilian immigrant named Angelo Brocato moved what had been his tiny ice cream parlor nearby into a grander space. 

Brocato’s Ice Cream and Confectionary Parlor had two “salons” facing Ursulines, one for men and one for women. History tells us Mr. Brocato wanted, and I quote, to “protect single ladies from the incessant advances of admiring men.” Green and white square tiles—carefully pressed into mortar on the sidewalk over a century ago—spell out “Angelo Brocato. Ladies’ Entrance.” 

In 1983, another first-generation Immigrant, this one from Tours, France, bought 617 Ursuline from the Brocato family. Maurice Delechelle transformed the spot into the Croissant d’Or Patisserie but left the tiles in place to the Brocatos’ legacy.

On Monday morning, I ate a croissant filled with apples for breakfast there, and those tiles pushed me to learn the history of the place. It’s a deeply Southern story, one very much in keeping with how this unique city on the Mississippi River has always absorbed the cultures of the people who came to it. Some came by choice—and many, in the case of enslaved Africans, came by force. But New Orleans people have always created new pieces of the South’s culture. What we eat. What we dance to. What we read. 

For well over a millennium, what is now New Orleans was a vital hub for commerce among native Americans. Then the French colonists arrived, bringing thousands of enslaved Africans with them. Later, Spain took the colony from France and held it for four decades. They sold it back to Napoleon in 1800, then, three years later, we bought it. The Louisiana Purchase. 

After the Civil War and slavery’s abolition, new waves of immigrants have kept changing New Orleans and its culture, just as they change the whole South and its culture. 

The culture of the American South does not and has never belonged to a single tribe of people. With every person who comes here, our culture changes. The dark parts of our history and the sweet parts evolve into something ever richer, provided we choose to treat each other with the hospitality the world knows us for. 

On Monday morning on Ursuline Street, I could taste every bit of that in my breakfast. 

It was delicious. 

Please come visit us at SalvationSouth.com. We’re the Southern family you wish you had.

Salvation South editor Chuck Reece comments on Southern culture and values in a weekly segment that airs Wednesdays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on GPB Radio. Salvation South Deluxe is a series of longer Salvation South episodes which tell deeper stories of the Southern experience through the unique voices that live it. You can also find them here at GPB.org/Salvation-South and wherever you get your podcasts.