Desporte: The Point’s First (and Last) Name in French Bread

The best part of a pot roast was sopping up the gravy with French bread from The Avenue or Desporte’s Bakeries. Both were owned by the Desporte family and baked their bread in these fabulous old brick ovens. Desporte’s burned and The Avenue (located on Howard Avenue) became Desporte’s Avenue bakery. Hurricane Katrina damaged the bakery – and more importantly its ovens – beyond repair. I am still trying to come to terms with that tragedy.

When Aunt Selema visited Biloxi, she always stopped at The Avenue on her way out of town to load up on bread for her freezer back in San Antonio. You couldn’t get this stuff in Texas.

In addition to baguette sized loaves, individual po-boy loaves and rolls, known as pistolettes, the old Avenue bakery also sold sweet rolls and donuts. Someone usually picked up a couple of sacks of these on weekends, for company or after a death in the family. As great as the bread was, Desporte’s sweet stuff, to me, was just a little weird.

The texture was tough, and full of air holes, more like bread than pastry. The dough was an improbable day-glo yellow and caked with cement-like icing. By noon, any leftover pastries turned into rocks edible only after a dip in hot coffee.

Oddly enough, I’m having a craving for one of those sweet rolls right now. Go figure.

There were a million uses for French bread in a Point household. Sliced and served with butter or to sop up gravy at a regular family meal. Po-boys. Ground up to make bread crumbs for topping casseroles, extending meatloaf or coating fish or chicken filets.

Stale, the stuff made great French toast for breakfast and the world’s best bread pudding for dessert.

Last weekend, I had some fabulous bread pudding at the Upperline in New Orleans. The texture was dense and, well, pudding-y. As good as it was, it really didn't taste like the bread pudding I remember my mama making with day-old French bread. Hers was fluffy rather than dense. Sadly, I lost her recipe in the hurricane. She never made it the same way twice. Some times she served it with rum (or whiskey) sauce. Sometimes she put raisins in it. Or apples. Or peaches and blueberries in the summer. I came across this recipe and it reminded me of her.

If you're a bread pudding fan, the Ole Biloxi Recipe fan site on Facebook has some good bread pudding recipes using French bread (and any kind will do) as well as ton of other good food native Biloxians grew up with.

Apple/Raisin Bread Pudding

1 large loaf of day-old French bread cut into cubes (about 12 cups)
3 large eggs
2 cups whole milk
3 T vanilla
1 cup of sugar
3/4 t of cinnamon
3/4 t, nutmeg
2 cups apples peeled and chopped
1 cup raisins
3/4 cup of butter, cut into bits
3 T cinnamon
2 t nutmeg

Preheat oven to 325. Butter a 9 x 13 baking dish. Put bread cubes into a large colander, pour about 4 cups of hot tap water evenly over the bread. Leave for five minutes. Squeeze out excess water and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, vanilla, sugar and spices. Gently fold in bread, apples and raisins. Pour into the baking dish. Drop butter bits evenly over the top. Mix together cinnamon and nutmeg and sprinkle even over the pudding. Bake 1 hour and 20 minutes. Serve hot or cold. Some people serve this with ice cream or whipped cream or even top with a hot rum or whiskey sauce. I like it just as is.