A.2 The first settlers and the Native peoples

In 1718 Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, a French Canadian, founded New Orleans on a bend of the Mississippi River. The site was a small, swampy patch of land. The French settlers soon found that wheat, their main food, would not grow in the wet, humid climate, and they sometimes waited up to two years for a shipment of flour.

The Native peoples kept them alive.

• They grew corn and made many kinds of bread from it.
• They grew squashes, including the chayote, called mirliton, and the cushaw, both still eaten in Louisiana.
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• They grew dried beans.
• Syrups made from persimmons and chokecherries sweetened their smoked meat.
• They thickened stews with powdered sassafras, known today as filé powder.