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Lost Bread: Flavored with a Little Steen's Cane Syrup = Pain Perdu
A lifetime of memories of New Orleans written "pre-storm" have become a bittersweet treasure in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
215 pages, Paperback
5 people want to read
About the author
Ronnie Virgets
3 books1 followerRonnie Virgets was an American writer, commentator, and journalist. A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, he lived there for most of his life.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 17, 2023
I first came to Ronnie Vergets at an age well before one should have been reading the racing pages in the local newspaper. But there he was Railbird Ronnie. The author of a short column that ended handicapping the day’s horse races. I came to look forward to his distinctive, happy ability to bring together words much in the same happy style of Damon Runyon, or P. G. Wodehouse. Of the three Ronnie’s would always be a New Orleans voice. How exactly I came to own a copy of Lost Bread( Pan Perdu), with a Little Steen’s Cane Syrup is something of a mystery. Neither The Wife nor I remember buying a copy but; here it is.
The title tells you almost all you need to know about this book, or at least why Ronnie Vergets never made the jump to the national level Pan Perdu, in English is the old neighborhood New Orleans name for French Toast. Properly made with stale, locally baked, crusty, French bread. Not that gummy stuff your dad will use for special Sunday breakfast, and never those ready-made frozen thingies. Ronnie Vergets is New Orleans, from the old neighborhood.
What I did not expect was that more than Runyon or Wodehouse, Ronnie can be nostalgic, sad, poignant and even political. As this book progresses from the more humorous to its most regretful; and finally into his most personal, he is mostly remembering that which has been lost. Mostly neighborhood things lost to time, but this being New Orleans, most dramatically lost to Hurricane Katrina. Long ago headlines for most people, but if you were here, then, one of life’s abrupt break points.
How much Ronnie Vergets can connect with non-New Orleans readers, I cannot say. I can recommend him to those who stayed and my fellow wanderers. But if you can get his voice, remember the old guys of memory's old neighborhood, Lost Bread will not be lost on you.
The title tells you almost all you need to know about this book, or at least why Ronnie Vergets never made the jump to the national level Pan Perdu, in English is the old neighborhood New Orleans name for French Toast. Properly made with stale, locally baked, crusty, French bread. Not that gummy stuff your dad will use for special Sunday breakfast, and never those ready-made frozen thingies. Ronnie Vergets is New Orleans, from the old neighborhood.
What I did not expect was that more than Runyon or Wodehouse, Ronnie can be nostalgic, sad, poignant and even political. As this book progresses from the more humorous to its most regretful; and finally into his most personal, he is mostly remembering that which has been lost. Mostly neighborhood things lost to time, but this being New Orleans, most dramatically lost to Hurricane Katrina. Long ago headlines for most people, but if you were here, then, one of life’s abrupt break points.
How much Ronnie Vergets can connect with non-New Orleans readers, I cannot say. I can recommend him to those who stayed and my fellow wanderers. But if you can get his voice, remember the old guys of memory's old neighborhood, Lost Bread will not be lost on you.
Displaying 1 of 1 review