cuisine

Dinner with Ducks

Nothing false about the culinary traditions here.
Story and photos by James Fox-Smith
At Morel’s, Louisiana regional cuisine comes in many colors and flavors. On the menu,
dishes such as this shrimp and eggplant
Napoleon join traditional favorites like fried
seafood platters and grilled ribeyes, all
prepared under the watchful eyes of Georgia and Major Morel and “Miss” Bettie Nelson.
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.

Morel’s lunch and dinner menus have lots to offer lovers of Louisiana regional cuisine. Appetizers list popular mainstays such as fried jumbo stuffed shrimp, marinated crab fingers, or mile-high fried onion rings. Things get more adventurous in dishes such as fried shrimp or oyster remoulade over fried eggplant, which arrives topped with Bettie’s special remoulade sauce. Salads extend to an enormous grilled chicken mandarin salad that incorporates chicken tenders with sliced mandarins, roasted pecans and crumbled blue cheese atop romaine lettuce. Entrées celebrate Louisiana seafood in dishes such as shrimp and eggplant Napoleon; grilled red fish filet topped with blackened shrimp and lemon butter herb sauce; and jumbo lump crab cakes finished with crawfish and mushrooms in a spicy cream sauce. There are several chicken dishes, filet mignon topped with fried oysters, and twelve-ounce grilled ribeyes, too. Flip the menu to find more casual fare that ranges from familiar fried seafood entrées—shrimp, catfish, oysters—to torpedo-sized poboys brimming with fresh fried seafood or roast beef or sirloin and Swiss or grilled chicken. Both lunch and dinner menus arrive accompanied by a solid list of daily specials that plumb the possibilities of fresh seasonal seafood and regional specialties still further (grilled mahi mahi, pecan crusted red fish, and smoked boudin with tangy dipping marmalade were all on the daily specials menu during a recent visit.)
These days, many of Morel’s more contemporary dishes bear the stamp of the Morels’ son, Major, who has been part of the restaurant since 1998 and oversees the kitchen today. But you don’t need to go far to find a few of Miss Bettie’s specialties, either. Dishes like a shrimp and crab-stuffed eggplant, shrimp and artichoke fettuccini, the restaurant’s homemade remoulade, bread pudding and all sorts of other desserts are her doing. She is deservedly famous for “Bettie’s Crawfish Bisque,” a richly flavored, pleasantly sharp soup that offers a welcome flash of spice and arrives accompanied by steamed rice and crusty French bread. A little exploration revealed several generously stuffed crawfish heads lurking in the soup that required abandoning the spoon in favor of fingers to really do them justice. Next came that shrimp and eggplant Napoleon – an artfully arranged sandwich sort of thing, with wheels of crispy fried eggplant serving as the “bread,” containing layers of grilled shrimp, onions, Swiss cheese and bacon within. Dessert? Bettie’s Secret Recipe Homemade Bread Pudding with homemade custard sauce seems like the right thing to do. I was not disappointed.

With well-presented, flavorsome preparations of classic dishes, menus updated with contemporary flourishes, and an attractive dining room with that knockout lakeside dining location, Morel’s does regional Louisiana cuisine proud. And with the steady hands of the Morels and Bettie Nelson guiding things in the kitchen, that seems in no danger of changing anytime soon.

DETAILS • details • DETAILS

Morel’s
221 West Main Street (LA Highway 1)
New Roads LA
(225) 638-3057
www.morelsrestaurant.net