SFA | Oral History | New Orleans Eats

“Jazz Fest is probably when I’m working the hardest—that and Mardi Gras. And I can make candy from before sunup until after sundown, and if you have somebody helping you wrap, you can produce about 2,000 sticks in a day. That’s about the limit at this point. Without, you know, there’s no machines.”

– Ron Kottemann

Ron Kottemann acknowledges that New Orleanians are captivated by the very sight of the nearly century-old, wooden, mule-drawn cart that his grandfather designed and that Ron now directs down Uptown’s backstreets and through New Orleans traffic. “People look at this thing and, you know, get all gaga,” he said. And if the vision doesn’t tug at their heartstrings, Ron’s taffy-like Roman Chewing Candy hooks them at the sweet tooth. Rolled in wax paper and sold in roughly foot-long sticks, the candy comes in three flavors—vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry—all developed by Ron’s grandfather, Sam Cortese. Sam toyed with more flavors but limited the variety so that customers couldn’t be too wishy-washy in their selections. A street vendor needs to keep moving.

Listen to this 1-minute audio clip of Ron Kottemann talking about what happened to his mule, Patsy, during Hurricane Katrina. [Windows Media Player required. Go here to download the player for free.]

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What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Subject: Ron Kottemann
Location: Jefferson Avenue, New Orleans, LA
Date: September 18, 2006
Interviewer: Sara Roahen, writer and SFA member

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Sara Roahen: This is Sara Roahen for the Southern Foodways Alliance. It is Monday, September 18th. We’re in New Orleans, Louisiana on Jefferson Avenue at the home of Poppy Tooker, who is here participating in the oral history interview of the Roman Candy Man. So if I could get you to state your name and your birth date, and what you do for a living.

Ron Kottemann: My name is Ron Kottemann. I was born July 28th 1949. And I’m the Roman Candy Man, which basically is a vending operation. I sell and make candy from a horse-drawn wagon.

How long has that business been in existence?

Ninety-one years. It was started in 1915 by my grandfather.

And what was his name?

Sam Cortese. He was—actually, the candy itself dates back to Sicily probably three or four generations, because I know—we know for sure his mother made the candy, and maybe even before then. And they were in the confection business in Sicily and so, you know, we don’t know exactly how far back it goes but it goes back a pretty good ways.

Which generation came here to this country? Did your grandfather’s parents come here or—?

Yeah, and—and the way that worked was my great-grandfather, my grandfather’s dad...He came to the United States—he made like three or four trips, which evidently was something that some people did back in those days. And on the last trip he took his family back with him. For whatever reason—and nobody seems to know why—he always came to New Orleans until the last trip. They went up to Louisville, Kentucky, and I guess he had some business up there.

Do you know what your great-grandfather did when he would come here?

He was always a vendor as far as know. He sold fruit and vegetables. Although he may have made candy up in—in Louisville, you know, because they do sell a lot of taffy up that way and that’s basically what—what I sell, and he knew how to make it. So it was a possibility, you know; nobody knows for sure exactly.

Poppy Tooker: What kind of taffy is up there? Is it similar to yours? Is it in a stick?

It’s taffy. I mean, taffy is found all over the world. From what I’ve been able to read, taffy was in most of the seacoast towns in the world and—and taffy was made actually on ships first—probably the Venetians started it years—you know, way back when. But the toothbrush wasn’t invented and they needed something to clean their teeth with. So in the galley they would make the sticky candy, the taffy, so that after you ate you would eat the taffy, you know, to get the particles out of your teeth. And that’s—that’s why it was invented as near as anybody can tell.

And so when you were growing up, what did your grandparents call it? Did they call it Roman Candy, or did they call it taffy, or did they just call it candy or—?

They just called it candy. But the name Roman Candy was what my grandfather gave it and he—you know, it was Italian candy and he was in New Orleans trying to sell it. Well, you know, if he was in the Irish Channel it was mostly Irish people, you know, you had different ethnic neighborhoods and they were stuck together around the city and so he called—if he called it Italian, he figured nobody else was going to buy it except Italians; so he called it Roman instead.

So can you describe the shape of it?

Well it comes in a stick about a foot-long, about the diameter of a dime I guess. Years ago it used to be a little bigger around—about a nickel or so, the shape of a nickel, but it was always the same length. It was just bigger around.

And how come it changed?

Because the cost of ingredients have gone up. [Laughs] My grandfather started out selling candy a nickel a stick, okay in 1915. He died in 1969 and it was still a nickel a stick. Okay, so he sold candy for a nickel for 54 years. Well you can't—you can't keep the size and have it at the same price. You’ve either got to go up in the price or cut down the size—you know, basic economics.

And what is it now, 50-cents?

Seventy-five cents.

So I’ve heard the story of how it started happening, but can you tell the story of your grandfather and how he—?

Well he was a—a street vendor, not necessarily by choice but that’s the way it turned out. He—he was involved in a streetcar accident when he was like 10 or 12 years old and got his legs cut off below the knee. And so it was a miracle that he survived that without antibiotics, and it just so happened that there was a guy there who was with—he was in the Spanish American War, and he knew a little bit about amputees and he put tourniquets on—on Grandpa and saved his life. He was in Touro for a while, and I think the bill was $500. [Laughs]

But once he—once he overcame that, then he went back to school but he had to be carried around. His dad made him a little cart and he had a team of goats that he used to drive the cart around. And so he used to go to school in the cart, and then once he got to school people would have to carry him, you know, into class and whatever. Well kids being what they are, they would go out and—and let the goats out and, you know, run them through the school and all. So the principal got mad at that—aggravated, so he just kicked him out of school.

So he only got a third-grade education. And that was it, you know. He—first he used the goat cart and he’d go out selling fruit and vegetables every day. He started out being a vendor at, you know, 14—15 years old. And you know, the family would still make candy for family get-togethers, you know like—you know, Christmas and whatever; you know, Saint Joseph’s Day, they would make candy. Well sometimes if they had candy left over, they’d put it on the cart with him. Well by this time he was—he was grown. At age 19 or 20 they fitted him for a pair of legs and he got the false legs, which was not—not many people realize it, but New Orleans was the place in this hemisphere to get artificial limbs because after the Civil War and after the Spanish American War, there was so many people in the South that—that had missing limbs, it was incredible. So that whole business was pretty much generated down here.

And it would only work because his legs were cut off below the knee, so the knee could fit into the—they could make a—what they did was, the top of it was made out of leather and—and you laced it on, and it had some hinges—iron hinges—on either side of the knee. And the rest of it was wood, but they grooved the wood out so that the nub that was below the knee would fit into the—into that groove. And then you just strapped it on and learned how to keep your balance and walk, you know.

And could he like get up into the cart by himself and stuff?

Yeah, yeah. But anyway, the way he got into the business—by that time, like I said, he had legs and he also had a stone coal and firewood business, which was a vending business. He would go every morning in the wintertime and go to a coal yard, and they would shovel coal into your wagon and then you’d go out on the street and, you know, yell and make whatever noise you made and—and sell the coal, which was a brutal business because a bushel of coal was a nickel.

And what you had to do was, somebody stops you know and they need coal, so you got to get out of the wagon and shovel coal into the—into a basket. Usually they would get two bushels at a time, so you’d shovel two bushels of coal and then you’d put one on each shoulder, and then you’d go bring it into their house. And every house had these, you know, little short fireplaces, you know that’s a coal-burning fireplace. That’s what they are; that’s what they had in New Orleans. Stone coal is like baseball-sized coal. Anyway, then you’ve got to bring it in the house and then empty it into their coal basket, which was usually right next to the fireplace. For that, get a nickel or dime. This is New Orleans, and most houses had steps, and you had to go up the steps. [Laughs]

Plus he had artificial legs.

Right, so anyway, so that’s what he did in the wintertime—sold stone coal and firewood. And in the summer he was selling fruit and vegetables, like I said. Every now and then they’d put candy on the wagon, if they had it leftover, and the candy sold really well. People started asking for it. So in the spring of 1915, he decided to try to sell just candy and get out of the fruits and vegetables and see if the candy would make a go of it. The problem was finding a way to make candy as you roll down the street, because you know, before his mother was making the candy, and if she had some left over, well fine, you know; she—he could take it with him. Well she had other kids; she couldn’t be at home just making candy every day. She had a lot of other obligations, and so—so he went to a bunch of wheelwrights and told them what he was trying to do and what he was going to need in the wagon to do it, and all of them but one said No, it’s impossible; you can't do it—it can't be done. Now he talked to one named Tom Brinker, who had a shop on Washington Avenue and Claiborne, and he said yeah, he could do it. And so they—they sat down and designed the wagon, the same wagon we use today. He wanted windows all around, which is unusual for anything except a hearse. And he wanted to be able to drive it from the inside, okay, which was very unusual for a wagon. Most wagons have a perch on the outside where somebody sits, and they’re either in the weather—out in the weather—or they might have an overhang over the top of them, you know, but they’re outside; they’re not inside driving. Well he wanted to be inside and he wanted hot and cold running water in there, marble tables; had to have a hook made, you know, to pull the candy on. And so and the guy was able to do it all.

And what year was this again?

This was 1915. Yeah, this was before they had regulations on it.

When you took over is 1971?

Yeah.

And so how old was your grandfather at that point?

He died in ‘69. He worked until two or three months before he died.

Did he know that you were interested?

Yeah.

Did you get trained by him or anything?

Yeah. I mean, I worked—I started making candy when I was 14 years old. And you know, my brothers and I—I’m one of 11 kids. Well the first five of us were all boys, okay. Well by the time we got to be teenagers, you know, mom and dad needed some help. I mean they couldn’t make enough money to [Laughs]—for—for a family of 13 it was a little tough, you know. So Grandpa set us up in the truck; we had a—a truck that we sold cotton candy and popcorn and peanuts and Roman Candy. And the five of us worked that truck, you know. I worked—I started working in the eighth grade, I think, when I first started. I worked all the way through high school and then—so I was making candy by the time I was 14. And then—and you know, and then when I wasn’t working in the truck during the summer, sometimes I would work with Grandpa on the wagon, you know, ‘cause he was—he was getting up in age and he needed some help, you know. So that’s how—it was like an apprenticeship type of deal, I guess.

Did any of your other siblings want to take over the cart?

No, no, I was the only one who liked it. It’s hard work; it’s hot in the summer. [Laughs]

So you don’t have air—you have four sinks but no air-conditioning?

No, there’s no air-conditioning.

Did you always know that you wanted to do that for a living?

Yeah. I mean, I was about 19 or so when I decided that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to give it a shot and see if I could, you know—if it would work.

Where did your grandfather live?

He grew up down in the Irish Channel on Annunciation as a kid, and then he moved to Magazine Street—5429 Magazine, which was a—it had a shop in the front and, you know, the living quarters in the back and upstairs too. And then when he got married he moved to Constance Street—5510 Constance.

Where Ronnie lives.

Really? You live in your grandfather’s house?

Yeah.

I heard on a pod-cast that there weren't always flavors of the candy.

Right, originally the candy had no flavor. It was just a base candy that you cooked, and you pulled it and wrapped it—cut it and wrapped it. It wasn’t until the 1940s that people started wanting flavors, you know. The consumer got, I don’t know, sophisticated because everything else had flavors. You know and so he—he experimented with a bunch of flavors and settled on just the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, because it took people too long to make up their mind, you know, when he had seven or eight flavors. Yeah, I mean the object is to make your sale and move. And you’ve got to move because you’re not going to sell that much just sitting in one place, you know.

And is the recipe written down, or is it all in your head?

No, it’s not written down. My dad knows how to make the candy. Two or three of my brothers know how to make the candy. My brother-in-law, who worked for me for 10 or 11 years in the zoo until the storm—he knows how to make the candy. [Laughs] So—

What is your—what are your routes like on the street? Where do you go?

Well ain’t much of the city left right now. [Laughs]

The route is smaller now. [Laughs]

Yeah, so you know I’m uptown now. I’m going to build some new wheels pretty soon, and I’ll be able to move around a little bit better and go downtown and go, I guess, down in Bywater. I mean, Grandpa worked everywhere—everywhere you could work in the entire city. His boundaries were Chalmette, over to Causeway Boulevard, and from the river—across the river; he used to get on the ferry and go to Algiers and—and Gretna. So he was—

It was a weekly route, right. Did he—?

Normally yeah. It would take him a week—sometimes more than that—a week and a half—to work every route. Now he would have two or three animals, you know. He never had just one—one horse or mule— until he was old, and then he only had one, but he didn’t work every day after that. When he worked every day, there would be one or two horses home resting while one was working, so every day he had a fresh animal to work with.

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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

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