Patsy Younghouse’s grandmother has a recipe for everything–including grizzly bear. Younghouse is a Louisiana native, former farmer, mother of six, ex-deputy township clerk for Oak Park, and proprietor of a distinctly idiosyncratic restaurant called Memere’s, the Cajun word for grandmother. That’s appropriate, since it is her own memere’s Cajun and Creole recipes that set Younghouse’s eatery apart–that and things like her willingness to serve alligator and rattlesnake. Since the passing of Cafe Bohemia, few restaurants have offered such exotic cuisine.
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Memere’s occupies a double storefront at 22 Chicago Ave. in Oak Park, just a few feet west of the Chicago line. With its painted tin ceiling, an eclectic decor that includes everything from an oak-framed mirror to ceramic masks hanging on the walls, and lidless mason jars used as water glasses, it might be in danger of becoming Clark Street cute; but it’s saved by the scuffed wooden floors, the grease-spotted typing-paper menus, the mixed clientele, and the staff–most related to Younghouse, supplemented by the odd friend of the family. Her mother, who didn’t speak English until she was in the first grade, works there. “My whole family’s still in Louisiana,” says Younghouse, “except the ones here with me–my memere, my aunts, my uncles.”
Then there’s the food. “The difference between Cajun and Creole food is that Cajun is basically like country-type, eat-in-the-kitchen-type food, and Creole is eat-in-the-dining-room, more delicate, formal-type eating–it’s Sunday food,” says Younghouse. “Cajun is good, basic, hearty food. You fix a lot of it for a family, and it goes a long way. The red beans and rice [a staple side dish at Memere’s] is a good example. There’s that difference in Cajun and Creole music, too. We like to play both. Creole is more like zydeco, with a lot of accordion–good dance music. Cajun is more country music–all those old sad things about love gone wrong. There’s a lot of fiddle in Cajun music.”
Like the recipes for gumbo and catfish and shrimp creole, the recipes for bear and alligator and snake all came from Younghouse’s grandmother. She’s had to learn to translate them. “She never measures anything–it’s all a pinch of this, a coffee cup of that.” Memere is now 89, Younghouse says. “Her biggest complaint right now is that she has arthritis in her knees and she can’t scrub her own floors anymore.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/John Booz.
