Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published November 19, 2007 First Po-Boy Festival Fills Oak Street Greg Reggio called a couple of weeks ago to confirm that I'd be a judge at the Po-Boy Preservation Festival. "This is the first time we're doing it, and we don't know whether we got the word out," he said. "I hope enough people show up." He had nothing to worry about. The crowd was so enormous that Greg joked that, next year, they'd have to tear down the buildings on one side of Oak Street to make more room. For most of the afternoon, it took about as long to navigate the second block of the historic Oak Street commercial district as it would to travel the 300 block of Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras. Greg is one of three chefs called The Taste Buds. They operate the Zea and Semolina restaurants here, and their headquarters are at the end of that block of Oak Street, where Jed's Bar used to be. So he was involved in organizing the Po-Boy Festival, whose spearhead is Sandy Whann, the top guy at Leidenhemer's Bakery. Which makes most of the poor boy bread used in local poor boy shops around town. I question the need for a strong effort to preserve the poor boy sandwich. We seem to have more good practitioners of the art of making poor boys than we ever did. The next generations of local eaters seem to be fired up enough about the distinctive New Orleans lunch to take the baton from us aging Baby Boomers. Just in time: most of us can't finish an entire poor boy anymore. On the other hand, Sandy Whann made a point that was new and interesting. "If the poor boy shops would turn their attention to quality--I mean, cooking their own roast beef and buying the top ham from Chisesi and using other fresh, great ingredients--they wouldn't have a problem getting more money for their sandwiches. And they wouldn't have to worry about the national chains, who don't really have anything as good as a well-made poor boy." The day began with a moderated debate on an absurd topic before about seventy-five people at the Mockingbird Bakery.  Bunny Matthews (whose drawings of Vic 'n' Natly adorn Leidenheimer delivery trucks, and who operated a Vic 'n' Natly's poor boy stand in Covington until recently), Vance Vaucresson (whose family is a long-running maker of sausage, and famous for its hot sausage poor boys), and I argued about whther one should call the sandwich a "po-boy" or (as I insist it should, for reasons I've set out enough times that I don't have to repeat them here) "poor boy." Bunny and I got to attacking each other's credentials before settling down and agreeing that the only thing that really matters is that the sandwich is fresh, large, and delicious. (We did prove that controversy grows as the importance of the subject shrinks.) It was a couple of hours between the debate and the judging, and I needed every minute of it to check out the scene. There were plenty of purveyors of poor boys, and lots of variety. However, the names of the vendors were unexpected. Galatoire's? They were there making a very fine portobello mushroom poor boy. Pascal's Manale had its barbecue shrimp poor boy. But Mother's, Johnnie's, Domilese's, and most of the other famous names were absent--although Parkway Bakery, Liuzza's By The Track, Serio's, and Ye Olde College Inn were there. The talk of the festival was the namesake sandwich from Banh Mi Sao Mai, a Vietnamese shop in New Orleans East so obscure that they weren't on my Restaurants Open list. (I've fixed that.) The sandwich was made of roast pork and an herbal Vietnamese sausage, all on freshly-baked French bread made by Vietnamese bakers (who do it more like the French do than we do). It was made brilliant orange red with squirts of sriracha hot sauce, and dressed with carrots, cucumbers, and cilantro. That's a classic banh mi--or, as they've become known (accurately), Vietnamese poor boy. If I had been the sole judge, I would have named this the Best Of Show, even though the flavors are decidedly non-traditional. But the longest line by far was in front of Jacques-Imo's, where an outpost of Crabby Jack's (owned by the same guy, Jack Leonardi, at left) served its distinctive and wonderful roast duck poor boy. The judging split up seventeen sandwiches among the four judges (among whom were Chef Duke LoCicero, Eric Paulsen from Channel Four, and Ewell Smith from the Louisiana Seafood Marketing Board. Ewell and I assessed the seafood poor boys, of which the best were the soft-shell crab job from Saltwater Grill, the oyster peacemaker from the Parkway, and the fried green tomato and shrimp remoulade poor boy from the College Inn. (That one went on to win Best Of Show.) The roast beef section--which was much under-represented, I thought, by only three sandwiches--was won by the Acme Oyster House, of all places. But Chef Duke was so madly in love with both the muffuletta and the turkey and giardinera poor boys from DiMartino's that they won the meat category. The crowd spanned all the divides in local society, and was as net a bunch of people as ever gathered for something like this. The trash on the ground was minimal. Nobody got made because of the length of time it took to score a sandwich. Next year, they'll have to spread the booths out more, but the whole concept and location seem perfect for this to become another bright day on the food calendar. © 2007 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com