It was my first meal in New Orleans, if you dismiss the scavenged airline crackers I’d eaten for breakfast. Or the two microwave burritos I’d consumed the night before, in a haze of furious hunger only a series of delayed long haul flights from Sydney to New Orleans can bring. And you couldn’t count that cup of black stuff the hotel had poured me when I checked in- that wasn’t coffee, and it never would be.

My first meal wasn’t street food, it wasn’t fine dining, and it wasn’t café fare. If I wanted to eat here, I’d have to earn it. I had an appointment with the New Orleans School of Cooking. Luckily for my jetlag, all I have to do is sit pretty and watch.

The New Orleans School of Cooking is located behind a bustling shopfront specialising in Louisiana style foodie souvenirs- pralines and prepacked spice rubs, seasonings and stocks, ladles and aprons and hot sauce. It turns out the cooking school is more of a demonstration, with eight tables of eight or so people facing the elevated cooking platform at the front of the room, which has a titled mirror dangling from the ceiling so we can see what is going on.

While we sit and drink ice tea, the very bold cook- who tells us he takes great pride in being referred to as “the Surly chef” on Trip Advisor, begins to make a roux. A roux is made up of equal parts lard and flour, and forms the basis of the Crawfish Etouffee we’re building.

I call it building instead of cooking because that’s how the Surly Chef refers to it. “Food is a big part of what we do here. As we build the dishes, we build the culture. What we are eating today is really the only true American cuisine”.

While he talks, the Surly Chef never stops stirring the roux. According to him, the real history of the city isn’t about the French or Spanish or Catholic influence here. To him, the history of New Orleans is in the food: the African slaves who brought the okra, the Haitians who brought black beans, the Spanish who brought tomatoes.

An etouffee is a guttural French term meaning to smother, and the dish goes back to the African slaves who brought rice and okra seeds with them when they were brought to New Orleans. Rice was grown and crawfish would be fished from the flooded rice paddies as an agricultural crop.

He introduces us to the ‘Holy Trinity’ of New Orleans food: thinly diced onions, bell peppers and celery. As soon as they hit the dark brown roux, the steam explodes from the pan and sends a sizzling wasp of aromatic smoke around the room. Lunch is coming, and it smells good.

While the gravy boils away, we’re served paper bowls of creamy artichoke and shrimp soup, washed down with bottles of amber coloured beer. The soup is creamy, with smooth nodes of parsley, thyme and green onion balancing the strong shrimp and artichoke flavours. The large pot is placed by the demonstration platform, and we’re welcome to help ourselves to extra serves- in fact, the chef tells us he’ll be insulted if we don’t finish the pot.

But when ladles of the crawfish etouffee are served to us over rice, the whole room eats in silence. Straight from the pot, it burns my tongue and has me sucking air through my teeth to cool it. Delivered in thick gravy, the dish swims with the rich creole flavours of the holy trinity, a spicy blend of seafood and seasoning. Rich and heavy with flavours and thick with carbohydrate, it gives me that feeling few meals are able to bring: a feeling of comfort.

It’s my first meal in New Orleans, and it’s pretty darn tasty.

Doing it yourself: cooking demonstrations at the New Orleans School of Cooking are held daily starting from 10:30am and  cost $29USD and include beer, food and a copy of the recipes. See www.nosoc.com (be sure to reserve in advance)

Disclosure: The writer travelled with the assistance of the New Orleans Convention and Visitor Bureau