There’s a moment at every good Gulf South table when someone reaches for the jar. It happens over a po-boy on a paper-lined tray, beside a Sunday pot of red beans, at the tailgate, at the reunion, at the kitchen counter at midnight. Around here, that’s called getting it dressed. And for 100 years, the jar has been Blue Plate.
Dressed: 100 Years of Blue Plate Mayo and the Foodways of the Gulf South marks our 100th anniversary, and it’s our way of saying thank you to the cooks who made that true. Written by James Beard Award-winning author Cheryl Slocum and photographed by Lafayette-based Denny Culbert, the book gathers more than 100 recipes from chefs and cooks across Louisiana, the Gulf Coast, and the broader Southeast, alongside favorites from Blue Plate’s own kitchen. It’s also a portrait of a place that has always understood that food isn’t the fuel for a good life. It’s where the good life happens.
Dressed celebrates the families, neighbors and cooks who know that even the simplest meal can mean something special. From everyday sandwiches to backyard cookouts, Sunday suppers and celebrations that bring everyone home, the collection reflects the traditions we share and the care we put into feeding one another.
New Orleans classics, Gulf Coast seafood and Southern comfort food fill its pages, alongside familiar favorites and a few surprises. Some dishes may remind you of someone who always made them best. Others may become your own tradition. These are recipes made to be passed around, savored and made again, carrying the flavors we love into new memories around the table.
The best part of making this book was the people. We asked chefs, restaurateurs, and home cooks we admire to share a dish that tastes like where they come from. The culinary creations our friends came back with are as varied as the Gulf South itself. Have a look at these highlights – to name just a few:
With more than 100 recipes, picking favorites feels a little like choosing a favorite cousin. A few we keep coming back to:
Flip through the book and you’ll find the moments that happen around the food: crowded kitchens, long tables, second helpings, and the people who keep showing up for each other. Vivid storytelling and food and lifestyle photography capture what Southern kitchens actually feel like, not just what comes out of them.
The book also traces Blue Plate’s own story, from our New Orleans beginnings 100 years ago to our place in pantries across the Southeast. But Blue Plate didn’t invent the po-boy, the gumbo with potato salad, or the Sunday supper. The real subject of this book is the people who brought us into their kitchens, their lives, and their traditions.
Blue Plate started in New Orleans in 1927 with a simple promise: a jar of mayonnaise should taste just like homemade. It took more than a thousand taste tests in real customers’ kitchens to get it right. The name and label borrowed from Blue Willow china, the pattern that dressed so many Southern tables, and the first jars reached shelves the old-fashioned way, with a handful of salesmen leaving them at neighborhood markets.
In 1943, in the middle of World War II, production moved into a gleaming new factory in the Gert Town neighborhood of New Orleans. That building still stands today as the Blue Plate Artist Lofts, home to local artists, with the original Blue Plate sign still standing on the roof.
There’s more where that came from, including why the po-boy question “Do you want that dressed?” became part of the local language, how Blue Plate became the Official Mayonnaise of Po-Boys, and a few vintage ads worth framing. You’ll find it all in the opening pages of Dressed.
Dressed is available for pre-order now, and it arrives on shelves October 15.
We’d love for you to pick it up at your neighborhood bookstore. Local shops are a lot like the kitchens in this book: they hold a community together. If they don’t have it on the shelf, ask them to order it (ISBN 9781971708041).
Pre-order now from:
Starting October 15, you’ll also find it at local retailers and bookstores.