What Cajuns Eat

Together with their own culture, history, food and habits, the Cajuns more or less disappeared into the swamplands of the Bayous,staying in the South and the Achafalaya areas of Louisiana, they are known as the Bayou Cajun. Many of them found their way through the swamp/bayou and settled the otherwise inaccessible prairie lands to the West of these swamps. They are know as Prairie Cajuns. They meet approximately at Lafayette. Although now good communications mean that they mix a lot more.

The clay soil meant that normal cereal crops would not grow, but would hold water, so rice became the main cereal crop.

So it is hardly surprising that most of the traditional dishes have rice in them. Jumbalaya is a rice dish (like risotto), Gumbo (a soup) has rice in it and Etouffe (thickened Roux sauce) is served on a bed of rice.

The Creole influence ensured the introduction of spicy flavours to all these specialities. The bayous and the rice paddies provided a place for crawfish to grow and then to be farmed (they ar a freshwater crustacaean), the Coastal Bayous provided giant shrimp.

The Cajuns on the bayou lived by trapping, fishing and hunting, so meat was often whatever they caught (possum, raccoon, deer,), along with their ‘annual hog’. The variety of meat, the ‘make do’ culture and spices ensured the popularity of meat by-products such as sausage (the local favourite is Boudin Sausage, pork or chicken (or ?), rice and spices). These spicy sausages also found their way into many of the local dishes, which often gives them their spicy flavour, such as Red Beans and Rice (the closest thing you will find to baked beans, without tomato), but also gumbo and jambalaya.