A New Orleans Black-owned bakery wants to nourish the nation

By Todd A. Price, Times Union

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Kathryn Conyers is not a baker, but she tried. And she failed. When she sought advice from her friend Carla Briggs, a trained pastry chef, Conyers was too embarrassed to send photos of the lackluster loaves. In the end, Briggs decided that she needed to come over and bake the bread herself.

A month later, as the coronavirus pandemic ramped up, the friends saw shelves in New Orleans barren of bread and thought, ‘maybe baking bread could be a business.’ Soon after that, Viola’s Heritage Breads was born.

“Viola just sounds nice and homey, like somebody’s grandmother that maybe would have a recipe that exists today but didn’t really get the recognition,” Conyers said.

Featured Image, Todd A. Price/The Daily Advertiser via AP
Full article @ Times Union

CONTEXT: New Orleans

New Orleans is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With an estimated population of 390,144 in 2019,^{it is the most populous city in Louisiana. Serving as a major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.}

New Orleans is world-renowned for its distinct music, Creole cuisine, unique dialect, and its annual celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras. The historic heart of the city is the French Quarter, known for its French and Spanish Creole architecture and vibrant nightlife along Bourbon Street. The city has been described as the “most unique” in the United States, owing in large part to its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. Founded in 1718 by French colonists, New Orleans was once the territorial capital of French Louisiana before being traded to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. New Orleans in 1840 was the third-most populous city in the United States, and it was the largest city in the American South from the Antebellum era until after World War II. The city has historically been very vulnerable to flooding, due to such factors as high rainfall, low lying elevation, poor natural drainage and location next to multiple bodies of water. State and federal authorities have installed a complex system of levees and drainage pumps in an effort to protect the city.

According to the 2010 Census, 343,829 people and 189,896 households lived in New Orleans. Its racial and ethnic makeup was 60.2% African American, 33.0% White, 2.9% Asian (1.7% Vietnamese, 0.3% Indian, 0.3% Chinese, 0.1% Filipino, 0.1% Korean), 0.0% Pacific Islander, and 1.7% were people of two or more races. People of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 5.3% of the population; 1.3% were Mexican, 1.3% Honduran, 0.4% Cuban, 0.3% Puerto Rican, and 0.3% Nicaraguan.

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The last population estimate before Hurricane Katrina was 454,865, as of July 1, 2005. A population analysis released in August 2007 estimated the population to be 273,000, 60% of the pre-Katrina population and an increase of about 50,000 since July 2006. A September 2007 report by The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, which tracks population based on U.S. Postal Service figures, found that in August 2007, just over 137,000 households received mail. That compares with about 198,000 households in July 2005, representing about 70% of pre-Katrina population. More recently, the Census Bureau revised upward its 2008 population estimate for the city, to 336,644 inhabitants. In 2010, estimates showed that neighborhoods that did not flood were near or even greater than 100% of their pre-Katrina populations.

A 2006 study by researchers at Tulane University and the University of California, Berkeley determined that as many as 10,000 to 14,000 undocumented immigrants, many from Mexico, resided in New Orleans. The New Orleans Police Department began a new policy to “no longer cooperate with federal immigration enforcement” beginning on February 28, 2016. Janet Murguía, president and chief executive officer of the National Council of La Raza, stated that up to 120,000 Hispanic workers lived in New Orleans. In June 2007, one study stated that the Hispanic population had risen from 15,000, pre-Katrina, to over 50,000.

As of 2010, 90.3% of residents age 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 4.8% spoke Spanish, 1.9% Vietnamese, and 1.1% spoke French. In total, 9.7% population age 5 and older spoke a mother language other than English.

New Orleans. (2020). Retrieved June 26, 2020, from Wikipedia.