Chopping It Up in New Orleans With Action Bronson About Bush Meat and the Philadelphia Offensive Line

On a sweltering Saturday afternoon in New Orleans, just over 24 hours away from kickoff of Super Bowl LIX, Action Bronson has one thing on his mind. “I want a million oysters,” he says. “Charbroiled is phenomenal, but raw is from the essence.”

The 41-year-old rapper-chef-food personality is on stage at Pepsi NOLA Eats Fest, a riverfront celebration of the city’s impeccable grub. New Orleans is throwing its last full-day party of the week, which has brought seemingly the entire entertainment world to the gulf shores, creating biblical traffic that made both of us late. Before climbing on stage and answering questions about jazz and crawfish (he tailors his answers in real time to the locals in attendance, who gently shake their heads when they disagree), Bronson and I hide from the heat in a folding tent backstage. He’s wearing his signature look: t-shirt, shorts, sunglasses, sneakers. After shaking a few hands and taking a few photos as part of a meet and greet, he tells the final fan that his plan now is to talk to GQ, do some pushups, and then get on stage.

As promised.

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“I love it down here,” he tells me. “I have this in my blood.” The festival features pop-ups from ten restaurants around the Big Easy—everything from a Jamaican grill to a barbecue joint to an Italian bistro—and a performance from Mannie Fresh. Bronson says it was a no-brainer to come to America’s most unique food city, one he says has inspired him and chefs around the country. Where does New Orleans land on his personal list of food cities from around the world? “I haven’t sat down to make that power ranking,” he admits. “But I would imagine it’s in the top ten. It has to be. I mean, there’s a lot of places in this world. For New Orleans to be top ten, that means it’s beating out a lot of stuff. Think about how many places there are on this earth.”

The food scene, of course, is one thing, but Bronson also has a cousin down here who “works with all the line dancers and music troupes and shit like that.” This gives him a bit of familiarity with the city, where he has equal respect for counter-service sandwich spots like Turkey and the Wolf as well as staples like Willie Mae’s and Cafe du Monde. An acclaimed cook in his own right, Bronson has tried his hand at a few classic New Orleans dishes, breaking down how it all works for me.

“There’s a trinity here in New Orleans: peppers, onions, celery. It’s not like normal mirepoix. This is the New Orleans style of cooking, a Cajun mirepoix. Then you take that roux and you gotta brown it. That’s butter and flour together, it’s used as a thickener. The basis of all this New Orleans-style cooking is brown roux. It gives it that nutty backbone.” I tell him that during my Super Bowl week, nearly the entire animal kingdom has touched my tastebuds. I’ve sampled the obvious seafood classics, but also rabbit, alligator, and frog, all of which were delicious. “They have all kinds of bush meat here, which I love,” he says, real reverence coming through his trademark Queens drawl.