Louisiana's Creole & Cajun Cuisine

Bounty from the Bayou

Creole versus Cajun Cuisines

What is the difference between Creole and Cajun cooking?  Many of the early Creoles were rich planters, where they cooked lavish cuisine in their kitchens.  Their recipes and chef's came from France or Spain.  By using classic French techniques with the local food ingredients, they created a whole new cuisine, Creole cooking.

The Cajuns were refugees who relied on their Acadian cuisine tradition and made the best of what south Louisiana offered them so that they could survive.

The Cajun and Creole cultures were very distinct and so were their cuisines.  The Creoles were the European born aristocrats, who were wooed by the Spanish to establish New Orleans in the 1690's.  Second born sons who could not own land or titles in their native countries, were offered the opportunity to live and prosper in their family traditions here in the New World.  They brought their chefs and cooks, who had the knowledge of the grand cuisines of Europe, with them, as well as their wealth and education.

The influences of classical and regional French, Spanish, German and Italian cooking are readily apparent in Creole cuisine.