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Cajun cuisine originates from the French-speaking Acadian or "Cajun" immigrants in the Acadiana region of Louisiana, USA. It is what could be called a rustic cuisine — locally available ingredients predominate, and preparation is simple. An authentic Cajun meal is usually a three-pot affair, with one pot dedicated to the main dish, one dedicated to steamed rice, skillet cornbread, or some other grain dish, and the third containing whatever vegetable is plentiful or available. The aromatic vegetables bell pepper, onion, and celery, called by some chefs the holy trinity of Cajun cuisine. Finely diced and combined in cooking, the method is similar to the use of the mire poix in traditional French cuisine — which blends finely diced onion, celery, and carrot. Characteristic seasonings include parsley, bay leaf, "onion tops" or scallions, and dried cayenne pepper. The overall feel of the cuisine is more Mediterranean than North American. Cajun cuisine developed out of necessity. The Acadian refugees, farmers rendered destitute by the British expulsion, had to learn to live off the land and adapted their French rustic cuisine to local ingredients such as rice, crawfish, and sugar cane. Many households were large, consisting of eight to twelve people; thus, regardless what other vocations may have been followed by the head of household, most families also farmed. Feeding a large family, all of whose members did hard physical work every day, required a lot of food. Cajun cuisine grew out of supplementing rice with what meat, game or other proteins were available. Cajun methods of preparation Note. Deep-frying of turkeys or oven-roasted turduckens entered southern Louisiana cuisine more recently. Also, blackening of fish or chicken and barbecuing of shrimp in the shell are excluded because they were not prepared in traditional Cajun cuisine. See Misconceptions below. Cajun ingredients The following is a partial list of ingredients used in Cajun cuisine and some of the staple ingredients of the Acadian food culture. Grains Rice proved to be a valuable commodity in early Acadiana. With an abundance of water, rice could be grown practically anywhere in the region, and grew wild in some areas. Rice became the predominant starch in the diet, easy to grow, store, and prepare. The oldest rice mill in operation in the United States, the Conrad Rice Mill, is located New Iberia. Fruits and vegetables Meat and seafood Cajun folkways include many ways of preserving meat, some of which are waning due to the availability of refrigeration and mass-produced meat at the grocer. Smoking of meats remains a fairly common practice, but once-common preparations such as turkey or duck confit (preserved in poultry fat, with spices) are now seen even by Acadians as quaint rarities. Game (and hunting) are still uniformly popular in Acadiana. The recent increase of catfish farming in the Mississippi Delta has brought about an increase in its usage in Cajun cuisine in the place of the more traditional wild-caught trout and redfish. Seafood Poultry Pork Beef and dairy Though parts of Acadiana are well suited to cattle or dairy farming, beef is not often used in a pre-processed or uniquely Cajun form. It is usually prepared fairly simply as chops, stews, or steaks, taking a cue from Texas to the west. Ground beef is used as is traditional throughout the southern US, although seasoned differently. Dairy farming is not as prevalent as in the past, but there are still some farms in the business. There are no unique dairy items prepared in Cajun cuisine. Traditional southern US and New Orleans influenced desserts are common. Other Seasonings Individual Blended Cooking bases Cajun dishes Noted by the popular Hank Williams' Jambalaya song, three of the primary dishes in Acadiana are "Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and filé gumbo." One variation is that crawfish boils are more popular today than crawfish pies. Primary favorites Boudin Boudin is a type of sausage made from pork, pork liver, rice, garlic and green onion, and other spices. It is widely available by the link or pound from butcher shops. Boudin is usually made daily as it does not keep well for very long, even frozen. Boudin is typically stuffed in a natural casing and has a softer consistency than other more well-known sausage varieties. It is usually served with side dishes such as rice dressing, maque choux, or bread. Gumbo High on the list of favorites of Cajun cooking are the soups called gumbos. Gumbo exemplifies the influence of African and Native American food cultures on Cajun cuisine. The word originally meant okra, which is a word brought to the region from western Africa. Okra, which is a principal ingredients of many gumbo recipes, is used as a thickening agent and for its distinct vegetable flavor. A filé gumbo is thickened with sassafras leaves, a practice borrowed from the Choctaw Indians. The backbone of a gumbo is a dark roux, which is made of flour, toasted until well browned, and fat or oil, not butter as with the French. The classic gumbo is made with chicken and the Cajun sausage called andouille, but the ingredients all depend on what is available at the moment. Jambalaya Another classic Cajun dish is jambalaya. The only certain thing that can be said about a jambalaya is that it contains rice and almost anything else. Usually, however, you'll find green peppers, onions, celery and hot chile peppers. Anything else is optional. Food as an event Crawfish boil The crawfish boil is a celebratory event where Cajuns boil crawfish, potatoes, onions and corn over large propane cookers. Lemons and small muslin bags containing a mixture of bay leaves, mustard seeds, cayenne pepper and other spices, commonly known as "crab boil" or "crawfish boil" are added to the water for seasoning. The results are then dumped onto large, newspaper-draped tables and covered in spice blends. Zatarain's, Louisiana Fish Fry and Tex Joy are popular commercial blends. Cocktail sauce, mayonnaise and Tabasco are common condiments. The seafood is scooped onto large trays or plates and eaten by hand. During times when crawfish are not abundant, shrimp and crabs are prepared and served in the same manner. Attendees are encouraged to "suck the head" of a crawfish by separating the abdomen of the crustacean and sucking out the abdominal fat/juices. The practice is known by the common phrase is "Pinch the tail, suck the head." Other popular practices include kissing the tail section of a soon-to-be-cooked crawfish, leading to the vulgar phrase: "Kiss my ass, suck my head, eat me." The phrase has been printed on shirts and posters in years past. Boucherie The traditional pig-slaughtering party, or Boucherie, where Cajuns would gather to socialize, play music, dance, and preserve meat does still occur in some rural communities, especially St. Martinville, but the exploitation of every last bit of meat, including organs and variety cuts in sausages such as 'boudin' and the inaccessible bits in the head as head cheese is no longer a necessity. Other dishes and sides Misconceptions There is a common misconception outside of south Louisiana that Cajun food is hot and spicy. An authentic Cajun dish will usually have a bit of a "kick" but will not be eye-wateringly hot. The Cajun cook does not seek to overpower the dish with simple heat — this is done by the diner at the table if they so wish. Rather, a balance of different pepper flavors is strived for, usually involving a mixture of black, white and cayenne pepper in various ratios. The sensation of these three peppers along the palate is what makes Cajun seasoning unique. Cajun dishes prepared outside of Louisiana, are often hotter than their Louisiana counterparts, and lack the flavor of the original dishes. Even andouille sausage, mild and smoky in Louisiana, gets the pepper treatment elsewhere. This is partially a result of the "Cajun" foods craze of the 1980s, when Cajun-style seasoning was popularized by chef Paul Prudhomme's creation of the very spicy dish called Blackened Redfish at his New Orleans restaurant "K-Paul's". It is also a result of recent "extreme" food fads, where many items are hotter than the originals. Outside of southern Louisiana, foods prepared using Cajun-style seasoning are called Cajun, including some decidedly non-Cajun dishes such as red beans and rice, and blackened redfish. Sometimes the label is applied incorrectly to any dish including traditional Cajun ingredients such as cayenne pepper, or merely as a slogan, as in McDonalds's "Spicy Cajun McChicken". Cajun cuisine is sometimes confused with Creole cuisine, and many outside of Louisiana don't make the distinction. Creole is more city – urban, cosmopolitan, and French-inspired – while Cajun is more country, with simpler recipes and more common ingredients. This matter is complicated by the sharing of several dishes between the cuisines, including gumbo, gumbo z'herbes (a vegetarian gumbo), seafood à l'étouffée, and jambalaya, although New Orleans jambalaya and gumbo are prepared differently from their Cajun counterparts. Further complicating this is that the term Creole is used to designate several somewhat distinct New Orleans food cultures. So-called 'haute-creole' cuisine was influenced in the past few decades by Cajun food as Creole restaurants such as Commander's Palace and K-Paul's created a distinct "Cajun-Creole fusion" cuisine combining Cajun flavors with Creole ingredients and preparation. Dishes rooted primarily in the New Orleans metropolitan area such as po'-boys, barbecued shrimp, or red beans and rice are in general Creole, not Cajun, as are most dishes involving a cream sauce or the French mother sauces. Non-Cajun dishes This is a listing of dishes sometimes mistakenly called or thought to be Cajun but having origins elsewhere, usually in New Orleans or in northern Louisiana, and sometimes are relatively unadopted in Acadiana: Note: Underwriters Laboratories have warned that this technique can be dangerous. Some safety precautions can be found at *. Cajun or Cajun-influenced chefs See also | |||||||
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