Louisiana's Creole & Cajun Cuisine

Bounty from the Bayou

Cuisine Styles: Cajun versus Creole

Cajun cuisine is usually referred to as heavy and "country" cooking, because the bayou and swamp areas, where they lived had an abundance of fish and wild game.

The soil produced delicious fruits and vegetables.  The Cajun cuisine uses fresh herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables to add exciting hot flavors.

These are some examples of Cajun dishes: Brown Jambalaya, boudin sausage, fried alligator, pan-cooked rabbit, boiled crawfish, and blackened fish dishes.

Creole dishes tend to be milder than Cajun, and evolved from French techniques and recipes.  Creoles trace their heritage to the French, Spanish, Africans, and Italians.

Creole food is more refined than Cajun.  The food is very complex to prepare, but has a mild flavor.

Creole cuisine examples are: red Jambalaya, gumbo--a rich stew made from a roux, which is caramelized flour, thickened with sassafras (file), and then served over rice.

Other Creole dishes include: Oysters Rockefeller, crawfish Etoufee, shrimp Creole, shrimp cocktail with Remoulade sauce, and several pasta dishes influenced by the Italians.

In general, if it has a sauce piquant or is simmered in an Etoufee sauce, then it's Creole cuisine.

Cajun and Creole cuisines use sauces and the "holy trinity" of onion, garlic and bell pepper. However, the Cajun Jambalaya dish has a brown sauce (file); and Creole Jambalaya has a pink sauce, because tomato sauce is used--a minor difference.