June 23, 2022

A new food truck features recipes that go back eight generations in New Orleans.

Felichia Cottrell has expanded A Taste of New Orleans from catering, which she has been doing for a couple of years, to the original Windy City Bites trailer, which she’s in the process of buying.

“My family, they cooking for hundreds of years, and all these recipes are passed down,” said Cottrell, who first came to the Midwest as a Hurricane Katrina evacuee.

She’s starting with a basic menu for the truck, which is based in the parking lot of Gift & Thrift at 10th Street and Bahnson Avenue on the east side of the city.

Customers will find jambalaya, which is “one of our signature dishes that people just love,” said Cottrell’s manager and longtime best friend, Kichwa Johnson. Other staples are  catfish po’ boy and a Cajun po’ boy with a beef patty.

“I’m going to have all other types of foods,” Cottrell said. “ I just can’t do it just yet because I get all my seafood from New Orleans. They fly it up here. So I have to wait until I build up my clientele first.”

Among those dishes to come are soft shell crab and a stuffed version.

“There’s a lot of other stuff I want to introduce to South Dakota and Sioux Falls.”

Cottrell cooked at a hospital in New Orleans and then for SDSU for a couple of years after moving to South Dakota five years ago.

“The manager loved me,” she said, noting that he would taste recipes she had tweaked and would be left wondering how she had made them so good.

“I’m from New Orleans, so we believe in flavor.”

A sign for the business staked in the grass along 10th Street features a drawing of Cottrell’s mom, Erana Jackson.

“She taught her ever since we were children how to cook,” Johnson said.

Cottrell continues to work as a personal chef, and A Taste of New Orleans is available for private and public events.

The main hours for the food truck are 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays and are updated as they change on A Taste of New Orleans’ Facebook page.

That’s also where customers can find what Cottrell is cooking each day.

Editor’s note: The type of protein on the Cajun po’ boy has been corrected to beef. 

Love food trucks? Here’s your complete guide to the 2022 season