Strawberries, buildings, and a way of life – preserved at Soniat House
Growing up on a strawberry farm north of Lake Pontchartrain, Soniat House proprietor Rodney Smith probably little realized the bearing the fruit would have on his future career as a hotelier.
But the fresh strawberry preserves featured at breakfast at his fine boutique hotel on a quiet residential street in New Orleans’ most famous ‘Quarter’ are as important a signature touch as the exquisitely decorated guestrooms.They are perfect to the extent that nothing else accompanies the delectable biscuits and Creole coffee for the morning meal in the sun dappled courtyards of the three meticulously preserved townhouses that make up the hotel.They are made from the same Ponchatoula berries grown by his family for generations, by the same family that cooked preserves for his grandmother.
“This wonderful woman, she chooses the very prettiest berries for us and preserves them whole in their own syrup,” he explains, “this is not jam, you understand, but the whole, perfect fruit.It’s a painstaking, loving process.Every year she tells me she’s going to retire – but then she just leans on the stove and keeps stirring!”
The biscuits themselves were developed as a local alternative to croissants, “which are not New Orleans, after all,” says Rodney.It took baking some 80 batches over the course of several months before Rodney and his wife Frances were finally satisfied with the formula.According to the proprietor -- and all his guests! -- “It’s a really good biscuit, flaky light on the inside, crispy on the outside.”This enviable texture, Frances believes, can be attributed to the oval warming stones that share the oven with the biscuits, six stones to each batch; once they emerge, a single stone is nestled in the bottom of each serving basket to keep the goodies piping hot.
Those lidded baskets themselves, woven of straw, were discovered by Rodney and Frances on a trip to Bali.“That’s the fun of the business,” says Rodney, “we’re always traveling and finding interesting things.In this case, we got one home, realized it would be just the thing for breakfast service, and called to order some more.They send them to us by the bushel, and our guests love them so much that we carry them in the Gallery as souvenirs.”
As you might expect by now, those lace cookies gracing your pillow at turn-down also have a poignant story all their own: Frances, a native of New Orleans and a graduate of the grand old Sacred Heart Academy there, recently unearthed an old photograph of herself and some classmates making lace cookies under the instruction of Mother Soniat – yes, that Soniat.She dug up the recipe, and, years after the fact, added yet another layer of family history to the hotel of the same name, now in her care.