La Mediatrice or Peacemaker Sandwich

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MEDIATRICE + NEW ORLEANS--305 Google hits, 12 Google Groups hits
PEACEMAKER + NEW ORLEANS--85,400 Google hits, 421 Google Groups hits

More on the "la mediatrice" or "peacemaker" sandwich. OED doesn't have the sandwich under "mediatrice." Will it enter something for "peacemaker"?

I used to give a "peacemaker" to my ex-wife, Kirstie Alley. I think that's how the trouble started, actually.


(FACTIVA)
Spotlight
WACKY QUESTION, FEBRUARY 26

Mike Rudeen, Rocky Mountain News
329 words
26 February 2005
Rocky Mountain News
FINAL
9D
English
Copyright (c) 2005 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.

Where was the name for the po-boy sandwich coined, and by whom? - Leonard, Havana, Cuba
Although some say the New Orleans-born po-boy descended from the peacemaker sandwich, an oyster loaf so called because carousing 19th- century husbands brought them home to their wives as peace offerings, most sources attribute it to Martin Brothers restaurant.
In 1929, during a New Orleans streetcar-workers' strike, Clovis and Bennie Martin, former streetcar conductors themselves, provided free sandwiches from their restaurant to the "poor boys" on strike, according to a story in The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune.
This wasn't the first sandwich served in New Orleans on French bread, but a baking innovation about the same time helped the new version catch on. According to an earlier Times- Picayune story, a baker developed a french loaf without tapered ends, making it easier to slice the sandwich into equal sections, the way it's usually served.
It isn't known what fillings the Martin Brothers used, but newspaper accounts say roast beef, ham and cheese, and fried potato were popular.
Long before the restaurant closed in 1972, the new sandwich - and the name poor boy, soon shortened to po-boy - had caught on in a big way.


(FACTIVA)
LAGNIAPPE
Humble origins for the king of sandwiches

Brett Anderson Restaurant writer
457 words
30 May 2003
Times-Picayune
22
English
Copyright (c) 2003 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.

The po-boy is associated with blue-collar New Orleans as surely as trout meuniere is with Garden District elites.
While there are divergent theories about its origins -- one has it that the po-boy was an offshoot of the peacemaker sandwich, an oyster loaf named because 19th century husbands were said to bring one home to their wives as a peace offering after a night of carousing -- most people agree that the po-boy was birthed at Martin Brothers restaurant in 1929 in response to a street car workers' strike. The restaurant was opened in 1922 by Clovis and Bennie Martin, brothers from Raceland who had previously worked as streetcar conductors.
Michael Mizell-Nelson, an assistant professor of English at Delgado Community College, has studied the 1929 streetcar strike extensively. His documentary, "Streetcar Stories," includes a portion on the po-boy's origins.
The strike was particularly bitter, and Mizell-Nelson has a copy of a letter the Martins wrote professing their allegiance to their former colleagues. In a letter addressed to "the striking carmen, Division I94," the brothers wrote, "We are with you till hell freezes, and when it does, we will furnish blankets to keep you warm."
They provided free sandwichesto the carmen for the duration of the strike. Whenever a striker would come by, one of the brothers would announce the arrival of another "poor boy," hence the sandwich's name.
New Orleanians, or course, had eaten French bread sandwiches long before the Martins' coinage, but the strike coincided with other innovations that have endured.
Typically, French bread loaves are tapered at the ends. Cutting such a loaf into three or four parts to make sandwiches would result in mismatched slices.
According to a 1981 story in The Times-Picayune's Dixie magazine, around the time of the strike, "John Gendusa, a baker on Touro Street, solved the problem of equalizing the Martins' sandwiches. He developed an elongated tube-like French loaf of approximately 32 inches in length that was more or less straight from end to end. Used for sandwiches, Gendusa's crusty innovation was an immediate hit."
Exactly what kind of po-boys the strikers ate is hard to pin down. Newspaper articles from the 1940s indicate that roast beef, ham and cheese and fried potato were popular.
Martin Brothers sold its last po-boy at the corner of St. Claude Avenue and Touro Street in 1972. In its 50-year run, the restaurant served all varieties of sandwiches. Even the originators were not purists. Mizell-Nelson cites a mid-'40s newspaper article that tells of one Martins customer "who insisted he wanted sliced bananas with ketchup and mayonnaise."


(FACTIVA)
FOOD
Super Sandwiches

TOMMY C. SIMMONS
696 words
19 January 1989
The Baton Rouge State Times
1-F
English
The peacemaker, la mediatrice, was New Orleanians' equivalent to bringing home roses and chocolates. Husbands who spent too long with their friends, playing cards or whatever, would stop by their favorite oyster bars on the way home and pick up an oyster loaf or oyster po boy. Certainly, no good woman could stay mad at a man who brought her a hot loaf of French bread filled with crisply fried, succulent oysters.


(FACTIVA)
Shopping Basket
OYSTERS] AW, SHUCKS]

JOIE WARNER
Special to The Globe and Mail
1,048 words
30 September 1987
The Globe and Mail
C11; (ILLUS)
PEACEMAKER OYSTER PO BOY According to Jane and Michael Stern in their book Real American Food, the culinary legend of the oyster "po boy" is that it was once known as la mediatrice, because it was what dallying husbands brought back to assuage their wives.


(NEWSPAPERARCHIVE)

   Syracuse Herald Journal Thursday, February 06, 1986 Syracuse, New York
...French dishes as shrimp Creole and la MEDIATRICE. latter is an old New Orleans..


   The Daily Intelligencer Wednesday, March 12, 1986 Doylestown, Pennsylvania
...a prewarmed oven-proof casserole. LA MEDIATRICE 1 pint oysters 1 cup sliced..


(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)

>From Old New Orleans
The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Jan 12, 1947. p. S2 (1 page) :
"LA MEDIATRICE"
(For Four)
2 dozen oysters
2 egg yolks, beaten
Salt and pepper
Fat
1 loaf French bread
Flour

Dip oyster in flour. Brush them over with beaten egg yolk, which has been seasoned with salt and pepper. Now fry in hot fat for three or four minutes, until a delicate golden brown. Drain on absorbent paper. Have ready a loaf of French bread, having removed the top and the soft inside part, thus forming acase. Put a little oyster liquor into this case and set it in the oven to get thoroughly hot. Place the oysters in the loaf, garnish with a few slices of gherkins, cover with the lid, and serve hot.


FOR MEN ONLY!; Some Oyster Lore, Then the Creole Husband's Secret for Making Peace with His Irate Spouse
MORRISON WOOD. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Sep 9, 1949. p. A7 (1 page) :
One of the most delicious oyster concoctions I know of is oyster loaf. But I much prefer the Creole designation of this dish, which is la mediatrice, meaning peacemaker. It is really a gastronomical masterpiece--fried oysters served in a hollowed-out loaf of bread,

It apparently received its Creole name from two sources, as far as I can determine. WHen Louisiana parents came home from a party in the small hours, they expected their children to be worried and fretful. So they'd bring them a loaf of bread filled with fried oysters.

However, the version I prefer has it that the lord and master of the household, coming home at or near dawn with a load aboard, or as the English put it "high tiddley-eye-tie," would present his irate wife with la mediatrice, which he had somehow managed to pick up on the way home. I have never tried this as a pacifier, but it sounds like a good gag.

_Use Entire Loaf of Bread_

Cut off the top of the entire loaf of French bread and scoop out the inside to make a basket, leaving about 1/2 inch of crust all around. Then dip 2 dozen oysters in flour. In the meantime, beat the yolk of one egg, and season it with salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, and mix in a teaspoon of sherry. Now dip the floured oysters in the seasoned egg yolk, then in yellow corn meal. Fry them in hot fat until brown. Remove them from the fat, drain, and then place the drained fried oysters in the loaf of bread, which previously has been toasted. Lay thin slivers of dill pickles over the oysters, place the lid on the loaf, and pop it into the oven to become thoroly (sic) warm.


Old New Orleans Gives Us This Tasty Oyster Loaf
MORRISON WOOD. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Sep 19, 1958. p. B4 (1 page) :
Errant husbands, returning home in the wee hours [and perhaps with a guilty conscience] would stop for that same toothsome delicacy and present it as a peace offering to irate wives. It was aptly named "la mediatrice" [the Peacemaker].

"La mediatrice" of the Creoles is a refined version of an 18th century English recipe for oyster loaves and is a most savory concoction for late evening or early morning snacks. Cut off the top... (Same as above--ed.)