cajun

Until the early 20th century, corn, not rice, served as the predominant starch in the Cajun and Creole diet.
A typical meal in 19th-century Acadiana would have contains slow-cooked meat, often salt pork, served with cornbread and whatever vegetables were in season.
For breakfast, couche-couche, a dish of fried corn was often served, and sweet corn was often prepared in macque choux, a dish with Native American roots.
Pork sausage —distinctively seasoned and usually smoked, this sausage is often found in gumbos as is andouille, nonetheless it may also be grilled or pan-cooked to make a rice and gravy dish.

By enough time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, gumbo had become deeply ingrained in the neighborhood diet.
The dish was prevalent among Cajuns, Creoles, and folks of color, regardless of their socioeconomic station.
The initial documentation of gumbo in Louisiana originated from the pen of French immigrant and travel writer C.

Grand Opera House Of The South

Boudin – a brand new sausage made with green onions, pork, and rice.
Pig’s blood may also be put into produce “boudin rouge”.
Acadian refugees, who largely originated from what is now modern-day New Brunswick and Nova Scotia adapted their French rustic cuisine to local ingredients such as for example rice, crawfish, sugar cane, and sassafras.
Cajun cuisine relies heavily on game meats, frequently smoked, supplemented with rice or corn.
French, Native American, Caribbean, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, African, Philippine and South Asian Indian culinary influences can be detected in Cajun food.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Acadiana Profile, we’re reflecting on all of the ways that the region has grown, thrived and transformed in to the cultural heart of Louisiana.
With its unrivaled music and entertainment, nature and culture and — our personal favorites — food and drink, Acadiana is a place like no other.
The indigenous Louisiana repast is currently such an ingrained area of the state’s cultural heritage that it has become area of the local vernacular vocabulary.
Louisianans will often proclaim that it’s “gumbo weather” once the barometer drops.
There is a good restaurant in New Orleans, The Gumbo Shop, devoted to the versatility of the dish.
But gumbo can be now on menus all over the world, a testament to Louisiana’s enduring global influence.
The refugees lived in close quarters, and suffered a variety of diseases that spread easily beneath the poor conditions.

charismatic presence (the wooly beard, the pristine chef’s whites) made him a magnet for media, and soon a national figure for imitation.
Blackened redfish, a Prudhomme invention created by coating filets in a pepper-heavy spice mix and searing the fish in butter in a white-hot cast iron pan, became one of the defining bowls of the 1980s.
During lean times or Lent—and in particular ethnic enclaves including Afro-Creole and German communities—gombo z’herbes filled local stockpots.
Sometimes called gumbo verde or gumbo maigre, this vegetarian gumbo often included mustard greens, collard greens, turnip tops, beet tops, spinach, and parsley.
German communities in Louisiana traditionally prepared this dish on Holy Thursday.
Cajuns made their life by scratching out a new existence after years of persecution and tragedy in a rural setting that was in many ways completely alien to anything that they had ever experienced.
Creoles however are descended from the French colonial settlers of Louisiana.

Death by Gumbo, Restaurant R’evolution’s most popular dish, is a full gumbo served with a whole, semi-boneless quail filled with oysters, andouille sausage, and filé rice.
Thin but rich gravy varnished a chicken drumstick and thigh and glossed the white rice underneath.
A dish of corn sauteed with bell peppers and onions called maque choux and a cluster of unadorned peas flanked the rice heap.
Frankly, the vegetables were bland and mostly lent color, but the chicken and rice embodied the lushness of the region’s cooking.
The meat fell easily from the bones, the spice mingled with the rice, and the complete affair came together such as a lavish pilaf.
But, “having a gumbo” may also denote the social event during which the soup will be served.

City Vs Country

The region’s distinctive culture dates back hundreds of years, to the 1760s when a group of French Acadians were expelled from Nova Scotia by the British.
The Acadians introduced deep, abiding Gallic influences to the region, but Cajun cooking is much more than revamped French gastronomy.
Cajun culture has been influenced over the centuries by German, Spanish, African, and Caribbean residents, too.
At Antlers Restaurant & Bar in downtown Lafayette, the decor skews more toward mounted fish than actual antlers, and lunch is pure Acadiana.
I scanned down a list of familiar Louisiana dishes, debating what things to order.

• This popular dessert sometimes appears on rural lunchroom menus throughout Cajun country.
• Similar to—but not similar thing as—butter beans, which are a small, pale yellow-green variety of lima beans.
• The gravy at Laura’s II coated my pork chop like ganache enrobing a cake.
• Poutine – A traditional Sunday supper deriving from the French “Beouf Bourgignon” but served with a thick gravy from which it derives its name Poutine, meaning “pudding”.

With over 100 locally owned eateries ranging from Cajun, Italian, Mediterranean, Asian, BBQ and everything among, there’s something for everyone’s taste buds.
Along the way, you’ll get a feel for the interesting history and local culture behind the making of boudin, and the boucherie – or local butchers – that once united communities during harvest season.
The French Press – Try the Sweet Baby Breesus – buttermilk biscuit sliders with fried boudin balls, thick bacon, and Steen’s cane syrup.
Delcambre Seafood & Farmers Market – This local seafood market is a mini-cultural connection with the shrimping industry in lower Louisiana, and definitely worth a visit.
Bon Temps Grill – Their Grilled Chili Butter Shrimp over mashed sage sweet potatoes was a nice twist on a normal scampi, and served with collard greens with smokey ham pieces managed to get even better.

“The holy trinity of Cajun cuisine” utilizes onion, celery and bell pepper to supply a flavor base for most dishes.
Paprika, thyme, file , parsley, green onions and many more are also very common ingredients in Cajun kitchens.
Inspired by the Cajun and Southern cooking of his grandparents, Louisiana native Chef Donald Link began his professional cooking career at 15 yrs . old.
Chef Link has peppered the streets of the Warehouse District of New Orleans with an accumulation of award-winning restaurants over the course of the past two decades.
Herbsaint a contemporary undertake the French-American “bistro” is the flagship of the Link Restaurant Group.