May 2008. Nothing false about the culinary traditions here.

Related recipes: Ham, Asparagus and Swiss Cheese Soup; Shrimp and Crabmeat-Stuffed Eggplant

On a breezy day, when the wind blowing across False River is kicking up a bit of chop, you can just about feel the floor of Morel’s gently moving if you sit still enough. That’s because this restaurant built on the bank of Pointe Coupee parish’s largest oxbow lake stands on pilings that jut out into the water, that rock slightly with the slop and the slap of the waves. “Some days it almost feels like you’re on a ship,” remarked owner Georgia Morel, “It’s kind of calming.” A lot of folks have gotten their sea legs at Morel’s Restaurant since 1983, the year that Buddy and Georgia Morel started selling sandwiches to fishermen out of a bait stand that they were running on the water’s edge. Since then the building has burned to the water once and been flooded four times when False River has risen beyond the height of the pilings. You can’t buy bait at Morel’s anymore, either. These days diners line up for dishes like crawfish bisque, chicken and crabmeat ravigote, or grilled catfish Bergeron. They enjoy them over white table linens, often with a bottle of wine from the restaurant’s reasonably priced list. Indeed, these days Morel’s welcomes diners with a firmly upscale-casual environment. But some things don’t change. Floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides of Morel’s still overlook the wide expanse of False River; boats still pull right up and moor at the restaurant during the warm months, and you can still feed the ducks that hang out hopefully on the restaurant’s wraparound deck. But maybe most important to the folks who have been coming to Morel’s for dinner for decades, Miss Bettie is still in the kitchen.

Bettie Nelson isn’t the only one working magic in Morel’s kitchen. Georgia Morel and son, Major, also don chefs’ whites for lunch and dinner service. But both credit Bettie Nelson as a major creative force behind Morel’s popular menu. A lifelong cook, Miss Bettie credits coming from, and cooking for, a large New Roads family as the experience that instilled her with culinary intuition. “My family didn’t measure anything, so I didn’t learn by measuring anything,” said Nelson. “Sometimes I’ll look in a cookbook but mostly, I’m just looking to cook something different from the day before.” Betty Nelson and Georgia Morel have been working together for forty-five years, since both waitressed at Morel’s Hotel & Café, an establishment once operated by Buddy’s parents (it no longer exists.) When the bait stand started making the transition to a restaurant Miss Bettie came to join the Morels on the banks of False River, and sped the transition on its way. “First the fishermen wanted sandwiches,” recalled Georgia. “Then the town said, “We like your sandwiches, but can’t you do something hot? So it became soup and sandwiches.”

That’s a good thing, because Miss Bettie is great at soups. “Crab and corn soup; ham, asparagus and Swiss cheese soup; gumbos, crawfish bisque … she must have fifty soups in her head,” said Georgia. Nelson starts with a stock, then builds her soups using whatever fresh ingredients seem to best complement it. But her repertoire also extends to casseroles, pastas, stews and desserts, lots of which have become the old favorites that keep folks coming back to Morel’s, year after year. “People will come in and say, ‘I remember those beef-stuffed bell peppers from the old Morel’s. Can we still get them?’ ” said Georgia. “And Miss Bettie will do it.”

Miss Bettie nodded gently. “Just like home cooking to me,” she said.

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