Red Beans and Rice Fleur de Lis

2010

Fleur-de-lis is French for “flower of the lily.”

The fleur-de-lis is an important New Orleans symbol. It can be found in imagery across the city, including the city’s official flag and the logo for its football team, the New Orleans Saints. Framed by red kidney beans and filled with rice, Myesha Francis’s Red Beans and Rice Fleur de Lis is a nod to a New Orleans’s classic dish.

The main ingredients used to make the dish are not native to the United States. South American kidney beans were spread globally through colonization. Enslaved Africans brought and cultivated rice in the U.S. and other parts of the Americas. New Orleans food culture—from ingredients to cooking methods—is influenced by African, Native American, Spanish, and French cuisines.