CREOLE RICE CALAS:  Fried rice cakes

From the book, Picayune Creole Cookbook, published by the Times-Picayune, New Orleans, in 1928.

“Belle Cala!  Tout Chaud!”  Under this cry was sold by the ancient Creole Negro women in the French Quarter of New Orleans a delicious rice cake, which was eaten with the morning cup of Cafe au Lait.  The Cala woman was always seen upon the streets, until the last few years.  She went the rounds in quaint bandana tignon, guinea blue dress and white apron, and carried on her head a covered bowl, in which were the dainty and hot Calas.  Her cry, “Belle Cala!  Tout Chaud!” would penetrate the morning air, and the Creole cooks would rush to the doors to get the first fresh, hot Calas to go with the early morning cup of coffee.  The Cala women have passed away, but the custom of making Calas still remains.  In many an ancient home, the good housewife tells her daughter just how “Tante Zizi” made the Calas in her day, and so are preserved these ancient traditional recipes.

From one of the last of the olden Cala women, one who walked the streets of the French Quarter for fifty years and more, we have procured the following genuine Creole recipe:
  
˝ cup of rice
3 cups water (boiling)
3 eggs
˝ cup of sugar
˝ cake of compressed yeast
˝ teaspoon of grated nutmeg
Powdered white sugar
Boiling lard

Put 3 cups of water in a saucepan and let it boil hard.  Wash half a cup of rice thoroughly and drain and put in the boiling water.  Let it boil until very soft and mushy.  Take it out and set it to cool.  When cold, mash well and mix with the yeast, which you will have dissolved in a half cup of hot water.  Set the rice to rise overnight.  In the morning, heat three eggs thoroughly and add to the rice, mixing and beating well.  Add a half cup of sugar and three tablespoons of flour, to make the rice adhere.  Mix well and heat thoroughly, bringing it to a thick batter.  Set to rise for fifteen minutes longer.  Then add about a half teaspoonful of grated nutmeg and mix well.  Have ready a frying pan in which there is boiling lard sufficient for the rice cakes to swim in.  Test by dropping in a small piece of bread.  If it becomes a golden brown, the lard is ready, but if it burns or browns instantly, it is too hot.  The golden brown color is the true test.  Take a large deep spoon and drop a spoonful at a time of the preparation into the boiling lard, remembering always that the cake must not touch the bottom of the pan.  Let fry to a nice brown.

The old Cala women used to take the Calas piping hot, wrap them in a clean towel, basket or bowl, and rush through the streets with the welcome cry, “Belle Cala!  Tout Chaud!” ringing on the morning air.  But in families, the cook simply takes the Calas out of the frying pan and drains off the lard by laying in a colander or on heated pieces of brown paper.  They are then placed in a hot dish, sprinkled over with powdered sugar and eaten hot with Café au Lait.