Cajun cuisine ( , ) is a subset of Louisiana cooking developed by the Cajuns, itself a Louisianan development incorporating elements of Native American, West African, French, and Spanish cuisine.
Cajun cuisine is often referred to as a "rustic" cuisine, meaning that it is based on locally available ingredients and that preparation is simple. Cajuns historically cooked their dishes, gumbo for example, in one pot.
Crawfish, shrimp, and andouille sausage are staple meats used in a variety of dishes. The aromatic vegetables green bell pepper (), onion, and celery are called "the trinity" by chefs in Cajun and Louisiana Creole cuisines. Roughly diced and combined in cooking, the method is similar to the use of the mirepoix in traditional French cuisine which blends roughly diced carrot, onion, and celery. Additional characteristic aromatics for both the Creole and Cajun versions may include parsley, bay leaf, thyme, green onions, ground cayenne pepper, and ground black pepper. Cayenne and Louisiana-style hot sauce are the primary sources of spice in Cajun cuisine, which usually tends towards a milder, well-balanced heat, despite the national "Cajun hot" craze of the 1980s and 1990s.
History
The Acadians are an ethnic group descended from French colonists who settled in what is today Eastern Canada in the early 17th century. In the mid-18th century, thousands were deported by the British during the French and Indian War in what they termed le Grand Dérangement, and many of them resettled in southern Louisiana where they are known as Cajuns. Retrieved 2014-04.
Due to the extreme change in climate from that of Acadia, Acadians were unable to cook their original dishes. Retrieved 2014-04. Soon, their former culinary traditions were adapted and, in time, incorporated Native American and African American traditions—as exemplified in the classic Cajun dish gumbo, which takes its name from the word for its principal ingredient, okra, in the West African Bambara language. In Louisiana, the Acadian settlers replaced the whole-wheat bread they were accustomed to with cornbread, which by the beginning of the 19th century they were eating with cane syrup. Between 1790 and 1810 most Louisiana Acadians bought one to three enslaved black persons, many from the West Indies, from whom they learned the use of new ingredients, including okra. The ragu sauces that the Cajuns developed are very similar to sauces used in French West Africa, possibly introduced by enslaved cooks.
Many other meals developed along these lines, adapted in part from Haiti, to become what are now considered classic Cajun cuisine traditions (in contrast to the more modern concepts associated with Paul Prudhomme's style).
Up through the 20th century, the meals were basic, not elaborate. The public's false perception of "Cajun" cuisine was based on Prudhomme's style of Cajun cooking, which was spicy, flavorful, and not true to the classic form of the cuisine.
Cajun and Creole cuisine have mistakenly been considered the same, but the origins of Creole cooking are in New Orleans, and Cajun cooking arose 40 years after its establishment. Today, most restaurants serve dishes that consist of Cajun styles, which Prudhomme dubbed "Louisiana cooking". Retrieved 2014-04. In Cajun home cooking, these individual styles are still kept separate. However, there are fewer people cooking the classic Cajun dishes that would have been eaten by the original settlers.
An influx of Vietnamese immigrants to Gulf Coast states after the Vietnam War led to the establishment of the Viet-Cajun fusion style of cooking. Viet-Cajun dishes and restaurants can most commonly be found between Houston and New Orleans. A popular dish in this tradition is "Vietnamese style crawfish," or crawfish seasoned with Vietnamese spices.
Cultural aspects According to political scientist Kevin V. Mulcahy writing on cultural identity, Cajun cuisine today is different from that of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but still defines Cajun culture for many people within and outside Acadiana. Its heritage reflects French, Spanish, American Indian, German, and Afro-Caribbean influences. Cajun food is the result of this assimilation or "cultural blending". Rural Cajun cuisine is distinct from the urban Creole cuisine, having arisen by economic necessity among the Acadian immigrants who came to Louisiana in the 18th century. These settlers lived off the land and survived on foods they could obtain by hunting, fishing, ranching, foraging, or growing crops.
Although there is a large variety of dishes within the regions that make up Cajun country in Louisiana, rural Cajuns generally prefer strong dark roast coffee, highly seasoned foods, hot peppers, vegetables smothered in brown gravy, and one-pot dishes served with rice. Each region has its own specialties, such as andouille sausage on the west bank of the Mississippi River above New Orleans, formerly known as the German Coast; barbecued shrimp in Terrebonne Parish; tasso ham made from hog's shoulder in the area around Opelousas; and crawfish all across the parishes of southern Louisiana, where they are abundant in the fresh water wetlands and waterways.
Many Cajun recipes are based on rice and the "holy trinity" of onions, celery, and green pepper, and use locally caught shellfish such as shrimp and crawfish. Much of Cajun cookery starts with a roux made of wheat flour cooked and slowly stirred with a fat such as oil, butter or lard, known especially as the base for étouffée, gumbo and sauce piquante. Cajun cooks in south Louisiana historically have cooked meals in single pots, and still cook meats by braising. Almost all Cajun households had gardens up until the latter years of the 20th century, and lifted regional culinary standards by adding the fresh vegetables they grew to their dishes.
There was continuity in cuisines between the southern Bayou Teche area and the northern boundary of Cajun country in Avoyelles Parish. Fresh sausage, pork, and the use of salt and pepper as the main seasonings were universal in the region's foodway traditions, north and south. The role of seafood in the cuisine of the southern parishes distinguished it from that of the prairies, where more wild game was consumed instead.
Anthropologist Charlotte Paige Gutierrez has written extensively on Louisiana's traditional foodways. She writes: "The term foodways, as it is now used by writers in various disciplines, has a broad definition. The study of foodways may include the production, distribution, preparation, preservation, serving, and eating of food, as well as the social, symbolic, psychological, and behavioral aspects of food." Modern conveniences influenced Louisiana's culinary traditions: with the introduction of electricity and refrigerators, consuming freshly butchered meat immediately was not imperative as in the past, thus community events such as hog-killings (boucheries) occurred less frequently. Improved transportation and increased incomes made food stores more accessible and buying produce became more affordable for working families. Cajuns now bought their bread at a grocery store rather than baking their own. According to Gutierrez, when the economy of southern Louisiana boomed with the expansion of oil industry operations in the 1970s, Cajuns gained a renewed pride in their ethnicity.
Only those Cajuns who live near the coast are able to regularly harvest seafood such as crabs, oysters, shrimp, and saltwater fish directly from their habitats. Shrimping, crabbing, fishing, frog-gigging, and gardening have been practiced in Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes as subsistence and commercial pursuits for many generations. Before the introduction of modern transportation and refrigeration, Cajuns who lived in the southwestern prairie parishes away from the coast had little opportunity to incorporate seafood into their diets. Today, fresh seafood is available all across Acadiana, so that now it is regarded as a regional food rather than one available only to coastal residents.
The cooking traditions of the western prairies and those of the Bayou country in southeastern Louisiana overlap in the lower and middle Bayou Teche region. The complicated network of lakes, streams, bayous, and the flood plains with their rich soil characterize the terrain of Iberia, St. Martin, and St. Mary parishes. The traditional cuisine uses those resources available in the area: pork from hog farms on the plains and seafood from the lowlands.
Seasoning practices in the Teche country occupy a middle place between the salt and black pepper-based approach to spices in the Bayou country and the prevalent use of cayenne pepper in the Cajun prairies. People along the lower and middle Teche use cayenne more often than in the Laforche area. Hot pepper sauce has a more dominant role in the Teche country cuisine than in other Cajun regions.
In the upper Teche region, wild game, freshwater fish, and pork are important in the local diet, with rabbit, duck, and venison being eaten more often than among their neighbors to southward. Avoyelles Parish, along the northern edge of Cajun country where cultural influences converge, shares some of these dietary features, although local cooking traditions are somewhat different than in the Teche country. Natives of the parish make fresh sausage, but cling to certain European customs, notably the preparation of cochon de lait róti, or roasted suckling pig. After the young pigs are slaughtered, they are suspended vertically by a rope tied to a tree limb and hang over a hardwood fire. For even cooking of the pig, it is rotated with a stick. Halfway through the roasting, the carcass is turned end for end to assure even heating of the meat. Local cooks have constructed improvised rotisseries, some fitting theirs with small motors for mechanized rotation.
The upper prairie, historically an area of small farms, ranches, and rice fields, has its own distinctive cuisine, well known for its smoked meats and boudin blanc, white sausage made of pork, rice, and seasonings. Local hardwoods such as oak, pecan, and hickory are used to smoke sausages and tasso. Smoked meats are comparatively rare, however, in other Cajun communities.
Cajun cooking methods Barbecuing—similar to "low and slow" Southern barbecue traditions, but with Creole/Cajun seasoning. A classic example is Johnson's Boucaniere ("smokehouse") in Lafayette, which was named best barbecue in Louisiana by the Food Network in July 2022. In the Ville Platte area, a unique sauce is made from dried onions reconstituted in water and vegetable oil thick with ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and seasonings. The flavorful oil that rises to the top is applied directly to meats being cooked as a baste. Two popular brands are Jack Miller's and Pig Stand, which are available online and in grocery stores across the state. This sauce is also commonly used on hamburgers, hot dogs, pork chops, chicken, and other grilled items. Baking—direct and indirect dry heat in a furnace or oven, faster than smoking but slower than grilling Grilling—direct heat on a shallow surface, fastest of all variants; sub-variants include: Charbroiling—direct dry heat on a solid surface with wide raised ridges Gridironing—direct dry heat on a solid or hollow surface with narrow raised ridges Griddling—direct dry or moist heat along with the use of oils and butter on a flat surface Braising—combining a direct dry heat charbroil-grill or gridiron-grill with a pot filled with broth for direct moist heat, faster than smoking but slower than regular grilling and baking; time starts fast, slows down, then speeds up again to finish Boiling—as in boiling of blue crabs, crawfish, or shrimp, in seasoned liquid, often with side items like corn on the cob, whole new potatoes, and mushrooms cooked in the same boiling pot. A seafood boil is often a large outdoor social event.