New Orleans Favorite Pickled Pigs Lips

From the folks at Farm Fresh Food Suppliers

I know what you're thinking.  You're wondering if this is a gag (in more ways than one).  The answer is no.  At any hour of the day or night, you can walk into your local New Orleans grocer and pick up a jar of pickled pigs lips.  People tell me they're delicious.  I haven't tried them, myself.

Let's back up a little bit:

100% authentic and world famous

I have no doubt that these pigs lips are authentic.  How famous they are, though, I'm unsure.  Locally famous?  Yes.  World famous?  I'm doubtful.  According to the Farm Fresh Food Suppliers website, you can buy them by the quart or by the gallon.  Let's repeat that last part:  You can buy them by the gallon.

Let's back up a bit further:

It's a tradition

On the Farm Fresh Food Suppliers homepage, there is this sentiment: "In Louisiana, great food is not only a meal...It's a tradition!"  That is certainly true.  People say this all the time.  They tell me the same thing, in one variation or another, several times a day.  It's not just the pigs lips, either.  It's everything that people eat in Louisiana and, believe me, they eat a lot of things in Louisiana that you don't eat where you're from.  The reverse if probably true.  I'm thinking about the lutefisk eaters in Minnesota.  Watch the video.  

Now, let's back up one last time.  Where is this pickled pigs lips ad located?

A New Orleans bus stop

The bus stop shelter at the corner of Esplanade Avenue and N. Broad Avenue is graced with a new advertisement for Pickled Pigs Lips.  It's a handsome and direct ad, don't you think?  It works.  I'm getting hungry just looking at it.

There are busses wrapped with pickled pigs lips ads.  They're really something to see.  The first time I passed one I drove my motor scooter up on the sidewalk.  

Frau Schmitt and I have known about pickled pigs lips since we moved to New Orleans.  If you're in our dining room and you look up on the shelf, you'll see a jar we've kept there since we opened the inn.  We don't open the jar but we do invite people to inspect it if they are interested.  We only bought a quart jar.  We don't see the need to have a gallon on hand.  Our jar is for conversational and educational purposes only.  

For conversational and educational purposes only

If you want to try pickled pigs lips while you are in New Orleans, you are welcome to buy yourself a jar (a quart or a gallon) but please, open it in the back garden to enjoy.  Better yet, take the jar to City Park with a nice bottle of white wine and have yourself a picnic.

As with boiled crawfish, we ask that you don't eat pickled pigs lips in the house.  Outside, however, we encourage you to smack your own lips with gusto as you go about your meal.

Bon apétit,
La Belle Esplanade
...the inn brimming with vim. TM