Uncle Frank’s Oyster Dressing

ABOUT THE DISH

“You cannot think about Louisiana without thinking about food!” For cookbook author, cooking teacher, and former chef Chiqui Collier, a meal isn’t just food on a plate. It’s a window into her family’s history and the history of Louisiana.

Born in the Lakeview area and raised in Gentilly Woods, Chiqui, the daughter of an Italian father and Spanish-Guatemalan mother, now lives in Mandeville. “In our household, ‘just some’ is not enough. You want to be able to go back for seconds!” In Chiqui’s recipes, rich flavors, a generosity of spirit (and portions), and family memories abound. As Chiqui tells it, “Our house growing up was an open house. Anyone and everyone was welcome”—and there was always enough food

Following her mother’s death, Chiqui wanted to create a way to pass on her family’s history. “At the time of her death,” Chiqui says, “my mother only had three grandchildren. As the years went by and there were more and more, I wanted my children to know my mother.” Chiqui’s mother was a painter, but she was best known for her cooking. And so Chiqui wrote a cookbook, Cookery N’Orleans Style.

Uncle Frank’s Oyster Dressing is a family favorite. Uncle Frank was, in fact, Chiqui’s father’s brother-in-law, whose own father first came to Louisiana in the 1840s from Duba, a small fishing village on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. Originally settling in Plaquemines Parish, the Croatians are known for having started the commercial oyster fishing industry in Louisiana, and Uncle Frank inherited the recipe.

Uncle Frank’s Oyster Dressing has become a Collier family staple. As Chiqui’s nephew Jacques Hebert tells it, “I remember many a Christmas morning walking into the kitchen, inhaling the aromatic fragrance of onions and seasonings and knowing I could sneak a few raw oysters before they were put into the dressing. These are the tastes and smells of home in south Louisiana during the holidays.”

Lucky for us, the dressing is anything but a family secret. “In New Orleans, the greatest compliment you can give anyone is to ask for the recipe,” and, Chiqui says, New Orleanians are unique in not holding back on ingredients! She explains, “You don’t have to wonder, ‘why doesn’t mine taste like hers?’”

Not only does Chiqui joyfully share Uncle Frank’s recipe, but she’s keen to point out that “Louisiana oysters are just the best. We prefer to buy them from local oyster companies and specify they are unwashed.” This, she says, is key. “The brininess they give off is crucial to it being a great dish.”

Reflecting on Louisiana’s coast, Chiqui remembers that, after Katrina hit, many worried not only about the oysters—”You can’t have Thanksgiving without oyster dressing!”—but about the whole of the fishing industry. “You just grow up fishing and hunting. It’s big business, it’s people’s livelihoods. It affects everybody here.”