A vintage New Orleans sauce sent me down a rabbit hole through sauce gribiche, cold fish, Patio Royal, Brennan’s and the assumptions old recipes made about the cooks reading them. I didn’t love Fish Sauce Mère, but I learned a great deal from making it.

A gift of fresh blue crabs at Gumbo Cove sent me into my vintage cookbook collection, where a family of creamy crab casseroles inspired this lemony Crab and Artichoke Casserole recipe. Along the way, I found patterns, party-food history and even more questions for Cooking the Past Forward.