Sweet Creole fritters with Old World roots are back

New Orleans » Just about every geographic region boasts its own version of deep-fried dough.

In Utah, people devour scones or fry bread with honey butter or jam. In parts of New Mexico and Texas, there is the sopapilla . And in the French Quarter of New Orleans, it is the beignet.

There's a little-known Creole cousin, called calas (pronounced cal-LAH), that should be added to the list.

These sweet doughnut balls are made with leftover rice, flour, sugar and eggs. They are deep fried and then sprinkled with powdered sugar, and serve as a good use for extra cooked rice, a staple in Creole cuisine.

"We eat so much rice in Louisiana,

we always have leftovers," said Poppy Tooker, a chef, culinary instructor and native of New Orleans.

The sweet rice fritters can be traced back to Ghana and Liberia where vendors sold them at open markets, said Tooker, who spoke to members of the Association of Food Journalists during a recent conference. The food made its way to America with the slave trade and was initially a staple among home cooks. In the early 1800s, the sweet treat become a popular New Orleans street food.

Under the French rules governing slave ownership, called the Code Noir or Black Code, if a slave saved enough money, they could buy their freedom, Tooker said. On Sundays, their only day off, many slaves would wander up and down the streets of the French Quarter with their hot, fresh morsels yelling "Calas, calas! Belles calas tout chaud!" "Proceeds from the sale of calas helped many of them pay for their freedom," Tooker said.

As New Orleans grew into a large urban city, the street vendors slowly disappeared and calas were rarely seen.

The popular beignets , which had been sold from stands or buildings, was the fried food that survived and thrived.

About 25 years ago, however,

Tooker made it her mission to save the classic Creole calas from extinction. It was a Creole gentlemen, who had attended one of her food demonstrations, convinced her that the effort was worth it.

"After he tasted a cala, he came up to me with tears in his eyes and said 'My mother used to make these," Tooker remembered. The New Orleans Slow Food chapter got behind Tooker's campaign and convinced restaurant chefs to add calas to their menus.

Over time, chefs have experimented with the recipe, omitting the sugar and adding savory items such as andouille sausage, ham, and even fresh shrimp and crab from the nearby Gulf of Mexico.

So far, the food has not made its way to any Utah eating establishments, although local diners seem not to have lost the taste for the deep-fried scones that are familiar here.

Home cooks can help preserve calas simply by making them for their families, Tooker told journalists. "My grandmother used to say, 'Poppy, you have to eat it to save it."

kathys@sltrib.com