Anthony J. Stanonis's "New Orleans Pralines"

Anthony J. Stanonis is a New Orleans native and independent historian. He received his BA in history from Loyola University New Orleans and his MA and PhD in history from Vanderbilt University. His publications concentrate on tourism, foodways, and culture in the American South.

Stanonis applied the "Page 99 Test" to his new book, New Orleans Pralines: Plantation Sugar, Louisiana Pecans, and the Marketing of Southern Nostalgia, and reported the following:

From page 99:

…. These African American women “seemed, indeed, relics of the good old days before the war every one of them; for their quaint old-time courtesy, so different from the rude manners of the day, their neat old-time blue gingham dresses, with white kerchief and quaint bandana tignon, made up a typical picture that can nowhere be seen but in this dear old Crescent City.”

Any economic strivings by these African American women were buried beneath white nostalgia. The performance of racial supplication erased African American’ opposition to Jim Crow. When the praline “mammies” performed their street cries, one announced “in her broken English how she was a good cook in a fine old family before the war, but now she ‘got ole; no money, no more ole mistress. She got for ter make livin’, and so she go roun’ dem street for sell dose nice praline.” When she then burst forth with a tune in French, the guests “went fairly wild; they applauded and applauded.” Never mind that the local hardware merchants had arranged this racial performance to satisfy the expectations of their guests from around the nation. And never mind that the African American women explicitly voiced that her performance stemmed from financial need, not devotion to the white population. The act resonated.

The popularity of praline mammies convinced local white boosters to make their presence a staple of the promotional repertoire ….

Flipping to page 99 is a quick way of reaching a core argument of the book and works perfectly for achieving a succinct summation of the historical role of the praline and its sellers in New Orleans.

The praline embodied a conflicted meaning. The enslaved on Louisiana’s sugar plantations originated the flat patty formed from brown sugar and pecans. They carried the confection to New Orleans after the Civil War, where it became quickly popularized within the tourism industry.

For African American women, the praline offered economic opportunity and uplift out of enslavement. Black cooking skills converted locally foraged pecans with brown sugar, often acquired from a black market in edibles that thrived in New Orleans during the nineteenth into the early twentieth century. The confection fostered household income while powering bodies with affordable calories and nutrients.

Such street hustle by African Americans, however, threatened the beliefs of Jim Crow-era white New Orleanians ensconced in Lost Cause mythology. White writers and tourism boosters generally transformed the perception of the Black vendors by recasting them in mammy imagery, as seen on page 99. Their colorful headwear became quaint rather than a clever means of drawing customers’ attention. Their white aprons and other clothes conveyed submission to whites’ needs rather than a savvy means of heralding cleanliness.

While the Page 99 Test doesn’t explore the history and cultural meanings of brown sugar and pecans, both major aspects of the book that inform perceptions of the praline seller and the praline, the human roles reflected by cultural debates over the praline vendor and her wares appear in sharp focus on that page.

Visit Anthony J. Stanonis's website.

--Marshal Zeringue