Cajun or Creole cuisine?
Behind these words, of course, lies the whole of Louisiana. They blend together to the point where you don't always know what they mean. When it comes to cuisine, each style was originally quite distinct.
Cajun cuisine comes from old country recipes imported by the Acadians. Taking refuge in the bayous, they cooked everything edible. It's an ingenious, creative cuisine that reflects their enormous capacity for adaptation, their instinct for survival and their immense joie de vivre. The Acadians made the most of everything they found in the bayous and swamps. Always friendly towards the Indian tribes, the latter in return gave them the secrets of aromatic plants and spices.
"We don't eat to live, we live to eat", as the Cajuns say. Just as "A good cook must know how to cook everything, even skunks". To survive in the bayous, the Cajuns had to eat what was available: squirrels, turtles, alligators, fish, crustaceans... To this, they added what became the "Holy Trinity" of Cajun cuisine: chopped onions, pimento cheese and celery. The Cajun Bayou Food Trail (lacajunbayou.com/foodtrail) is the perfect way to discover this type of cuisine.
Creole cuisine, on the other hand, derives from the haute cuisine served in New Orleans restaurants, a blend of diverse culinary traditions imported by European-trained chefs and Indian, West Indian, African and other know-how.
The dishes concocted were perfectly suited to a class of wealthy planters with a taste for sophisticated fare and a city lifestyle of luxury and varied pleasures. Over the years, the Creole cuisine known in New Orleans blended with Cajun cuisine, born in the bayous and popularized by chef Paul Prudhomme. Today, it's the famous cuisine of South Louisiana. Louisiana cuisine has traveled the world, but no one cooks it as well as in South Louisiana. In families, the best recipes are carefully passed down from generation to generation.
To better understand the history and culinary culture of this region, you can opt for a gastronomic tour when you're in Lafayette. Marie, from Cajun Food Tours (www.cajunfoodtours.com) takes you on a gourmet bus tour of the city. A must.
Louisiana specialties
Alligator sauce piquante(spicy gator). Chunks of alligator in a tomato and Tabasco-based sauce.
Andouille. Spicy pork sausage.
Beignets. Speciality prepared with a mixture of wheat flour and yeast, flavored with lemon zest, cognac or rum and generously dusted with powdered sugar. They're served steaming hot with Creole coffee blended with chicory. There's even a festival dedicated to the cause, Beignet Fest in New Orleans.
Boudin. Pork casing stuffed with rice, onion and pork chunks. Very famous in Cajun country, where the best dishes are often found in small street corner deli's and gas stations. Locals will tell you that the best way to enjoy it is on the go in the parking lot or in your car. The Cajun Boudin Trail (www.cajunboudintrail.com/default.html) is an itinerary for tasting the boudin, which is accompanied by the famous cracklins.
Crawfishetouffee. Peeled crayfish prepared in a thick, spicy sauce, served with rice.
Crayfish(crawfish or mudbug) is best eaten steamed in season (winter and spring) and with all kinds of sauces. The little freshwater beast even has a few festivals dedicated to it, such as the Mudbug Madness Festival held in Shreveport in May, and above all the Crawfish Festival, also held in Breaux Bridge in May.
Filé. This is ground sassafras, widely used in gumbo but also in other Creole specialties to spice up and thicken the sauce. An old superstition says that green filé is in fact a magic gri-gri which, once consumed, will keep you coming back to Louisiana.
Gumbo. Some call it a soup, others a stew. That said, its main ingredient is okra - gumbo is the name of this African vegetable, which slaves considered sacred and hid the seeds in their hair so that they could replant it in Louisiana - to which are added, depending on the recipe, shellfish, chicken, pork sausage, tomatoes, onions, celery stalks, peppers, rice, various spices.... Every family, every cook, every region of the state has its own gumbo recipe. In other words, you'll be able to try a wide variety, and it'll never taste the same! Just beware of the touristy restaurants, where it often turns out to be disappointing.
Oysters. New Orleans, surrounded by fresh and salt water, Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico, is famous for its seafood, especially oysters. They are usually eaten raw, with a drizzle of lemon juice, hot sauce or ketchup. Oysters Rockefeller are stuffed with a mixture of spinach and onions, finely chopped parsley and celery, and baked in the oven. The stuffing is spicy and flavored with pastis. The Bienville oysters are covered with a mixture of cream and shrimp and baked in the oven. Tip: the Louisiana Oyster Trail (visitjeffersonparish.com/restaurants/oyster-trail/).
Jambalaya. The most typical dish of Creole cuisine, a kind of paella made with rice, meats (chicken, pork, sausages, etc.), shellfish (shrimp, crayfish, etc.), vegetables and Cajun spices. Here again, recipes vary.
Muffuletta. A large, round sandwich of Italian origin, topped with cold cuts, olives and other condiments and drizzled with olive oil.
Po-boy. This typical Louisiana sandwich varies from place to place and can be found everywhere. In general, it's always the same type of bread known here as "French" with meat, especially roast beef, or fried seafood, lettuce, tomatoes and pickles. It's certainly not the lightest sandwich, and you get it all over yourself when you eat it, especially when you get the roast beef with gravy, but it's so Louisiana.
Originally, po-boys were the sandwich of the less wealthy. One theory is that Benny and Clovis Martin's restaurant served free sandwiches to streetcar drivers during a strike, and since their nickname was the poor boys, by extension it became the sandwich they were served.
Breadpudding . Stale bread mixed with cream or milk, rum and often served with a whisky sauce.
Pralines. A New Orleans specialty. It's said that this recipe originated in Orleans, France, and was brought here by the Ursulines. This sweet little galette is made with pecans and cane sugar. A bit like doucelettes in Martinique.
Riz aux haricots rouges(red beans and rice). Red beans cooked in a sauce with bits of sausage and mixed with rice.
Tabasco. The world-famous hot pepper sauce is made on Avery Island, close to a salt mine, since salt is an essential component of this sauce. The pepper puree ferments for three years in white oak barrels. After this time, fine vinegar is added and the mixture is left to stand for a month. Finally, it is filtered and bottled. The finished product is exported to over a hundred countries, and the packaging is translated into several languages.
Drink local, a must!
The craft beer industry has been all the rage for the past decade, a trend that shows no signs of abating. While large industrial companies dominate the U.S. market (Anheuser-Busch, Molson Coors Beverage Company...), microbreweries andcraft breweries are springing up all over the state. They often incorporate local ingredients in the brewing process to give a distinctly regional character to the various house beers. Breweries are also the perfect place to enjoy cuisine based on regional products, and they often offer cultural and artistic programming showcasing the local scene.
Less numerous, but just as worth discovering, are Louisiana's distilleries, which produce excellent nectars, from rum made from local sugar cane to absinthe concocted according to the rules of the art. As a result, cocktails are very popular in Louisiana. These include the Mint Julep (bourbon, mint leaves, sugar, water and crushed ice), the Sazerac (rye whiskey or cognac, aniseed liqueur, Peychaud's bitters, sugar and lemon zest garnish), the Absinthe Frappé (absinthe, simple syrup, sparkling water, mint leaves and crushed ice), the Pimm's Cup (Pimm's No. 1, lemonade, Seven Up and cucumber slice garnish) or the Hurricane (light rum, dark rum, passion fruit juice, orange juice, fresh lime juice, simple syrup, grenadine, and orange and cherry slice garnishes). We also recommend the famous Café Brûlot Diabolique, available in some of New Orleans' top restaurants.
A few tips
Forget the Louisiana diet! Everything is rich, in sauce, with garlic or fried, sometimes to excess.
When it comes to cooking meat, well done means "very cooked", medium "medium rare " and rare "blue".
Beware of the term seafood platter. This has nothing to do with the seafood platters you're familiar with, where everything is often fried. Instead, tryboiled shrimps, a Louisiana specialty, étouffées or grilled meats. Don't be surprised by the omnipresent influence of French cuisine, and choose Cajun restaurants with live bands to experience the festive atmosphere for which these people are famous. And above all, treat yourself!
