ATaste of home

‘It happens every night, and it is remarkable,” says Michael J. Acaldo, CEO of the Baton Rouge Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Hovering over their own stoves and working from common recipes, a handful of volunteers around town prepare supper for the 90 men, women and children residing in St. Vincent de Paul’s three Bishop Ott homeless shelters. When the cooking concludes, they carefully wrap and deliver their wares. But once they’ve served the waiting residents, they don’t leave. They join them for dinner.

“This started 19 years ago,” recalls Acaldo. “A volunteer who wanted to do something said, ‘I don’t have any money, but I can cook.’”

So could a lot of other Baton Rougeans, and soon, a movement of home cooks who felt a rush from cooking for others put their favorite pastime to work. Teams of so-called Manna Givers began preparing a three-course meal every night, rain or shine, for Baton Rouge’s homeless. It continues today.

This intersection between food and generosity is at the heart of the Baton Rouge Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s latest project, a new cookbook called Taste & See: Food for the Body and Soul, released this month. The collection features South Louisiana recipes provided by volunteers, clergy and well-known food personalities Holly Clegg and John Folse.

The two-year book project weaves inspirational stories into the committee-tested recipes. St. Vincent de Paul runs several programs for the community’s poorest residents, including a free and reduced-cost pharmacy and a shelter devoted exclusively to women and children.

Hurricane Gustav ramped up the importance of Taste & See, says Acaldo, since one of the organization’s go-to revenue streams took a beating during the September storm.

“The timing of this book’s release is spectacular,” he says. “We sustained $80,000 to $100,000 in damage at one of our thrift stores that insurance will not cover.”

Longtime Manna Giver and cookbook committee member Kathy Bishop says her team wanted to create a well-executed collection that had the potential to both make money for the nonprofit and produce satisfying results for readers. For help, they turned to the Junior League of Baton Rouge and Folse, a longtime supporter of the organization.

Folse provided an entire chapter of Cajun and Creole specialties, including pan sautéed trout in crabmeat garlic beurre blanc, Natchitoches meat pies, barbecued shrimp Longman, medallions of venison in kumquat glaze and Creole cream cheese strawberry shortcake, which draws on the indigenous soft cheese Folse helped bring back five years ago through his Bittersweet Plantation Dairy.

Other chapters include Kahlua grapes, Apache cheese bread, and zucchini squares. Anecdotes are sprinkled throughout, says Bishop, like the time a shelter resident, alone and broke, thanked a volunteer with tears in his eyes because the banana pudding she’d brought reminded him of his mother’s.

The cookbook retails for $21.95. For more information, please call (225) 383-7837 or visit svdpbr.org.