"Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture"

Please join the Department of History, Geography, and Philosophy, in welcoming Dr. Justin Nystrom to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Nystrom will be discussing his latest book, "Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture," which explores the influence Sicilian immigrants have had on New Orleans foodways. The talk will take place in Griffin Hall, room 315, on UL Lafayette's campus. The event begins at 3:00 and will end at 4:00.

Dr. Nystrom is Associate Professor in the History Department at Loyola University New Orleans, where he also serves as director of the Center for the Study of New Orleans and the Loyola Documentary and Oral History Studio.

About the book: Nystrom's culinary journey follows these immigrants from their first impressions on Louisiana food culture in the mid-1830s and along their path until the 1970s. Each chapter touches on events that involved Sicilian immigrants and the relevancy of their lives and impact on New Orleans. Sicilian immigrants cut sugarcane, sold groceries, ran truck farms, operated bars and restaurants, and manufactured pasta. Citing these cultural confluences, Nystrom posits that the significance of Sicilian influence on New Orleans foodways traditionally has been undervalued and instead should be included, along with African, French, and Spanish cuisine, in the broad definition of “creole.”

"Creole Italian" chronicles how the business of food, broadly conceived, dictated the reasoning, means, and outcomes for a large portion of the nearly forty thousand Sicilian immigrants who entered America through the port of New Orleans in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and how their actions and those of their descendants helped shape the food town we know today.

We guarantee you'll leave smarter...and quite likely hungrier.

This event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Guilbeau Charitable Trust for Public History.

Griffin location and parking:

The presentation will take place in Griffin Hall, room 315. Convenient parking for the public is available in the Girard Park Circle Parking Tower. For more information on parking and a campus map, please click the following link: https://park.louisiana.edu/park/visitors.htm