Hey, Polish friends - cajun food

[Jaga]

Do you know what cajun food is? I never meet this name in Poland ;D

[jmaduzia]

The cuisine of the Cajuns is a mirror image of their unique history. It is a cooking style which reflects their ingenuity, creativity, adaptability and survival.

When the exiled French refugees began arriving in South Louisiana from Acadia in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1755, they were already well-versed in the art of survival. Their forefathers had made a home in the wilderness of southeast Canada in the land of "Acadie." Following their exile, these French Catholics found a new home compatible with their customs and religion in South Louisiana.

The story of "Le Grand Derangement" is memorialized in the epic poem EVANGELINE by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This love story tells of Gabriel and Evangeline, tragically torn apart when 10,000 Acadians were gathered and driven from their homeland. It took six days to burn the village of Grand Pre, and families were divided and put aboard 24 British vessels anchored in the Bay of Fundy.

The Acadians were forcibly dispersed, nearly half of them dying before a year had passed. Survivors landed in Massachusetts, Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia (where some were sold into slavery), the French West Indies, Santo Domingo, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Honduras and the Falkland Islands. The main tragedy is that the men were exiled first, to destinations unknown, with the women and children following later. As time passed, the struggle to reunite these families, in most cases, proved futile.

A large contingency of Acadians returned to the coastal seaports of France, their initial homeland, and eventually came to South Louisiana. Some were sent to England while others made their way back to "Acadie" to Sainte-Marie and settled on the French shore. Word rang out across Europe, Canada and South America that reunion with their husbands and fathers could be possible in the bayous of South Louisiana.

As wave after wave of the bedraggled refugees found their way to yet another land, the Acadians were reborn. In Louisiana, they were free to speak their language, believe as they pleased and make a life for themselves in the swamps and bayous of the French Triangle of South Louisiana. They were among friends, friends who enjoyed the same "joie de vivre" or joy of living.

Just as they had become such close friends with the Micmac Indians when they were isolated in the woodlands of Canada, so they befriended the native Indians here in South Louisiana. Friends were quickly made with the Spanish and Germans as well.

The original Acadian immigrants had come to Nova Scotia from France beginning in 1620. They were primarily from Brittany, Normandy, Picardy and Poitou. These fishermen and farmers had learned how to adjust, survive and make a life for themselves in Acadie. Once again, they were faced with the task of survival. Rugged as they were, the Acadians learned to adapt to their new surroundings. Armed with their black iron pots, the Cajuns, as they had come to be known, utilized what was indigenous to the area. No attempt was made to recreate the classical cuisine of Europe. None of the exotic spices and ingredients available to the Creoles were to be found by the Cajuns in Bayou country. They were happy to live off the land, a land abundant with fish, shellfish and wild game.

The Cajuns cooked with joy and love as their most precious ingredients, a joy brought about by reunion, in spite of the tragedy that befell them. To cook Cajun is to discover the love and experience the joy of the most unique American cuisine ever developed.

Cajun cuisine is characterized by the use of wild game, seafoods, wild vegetation and herbs. From their association with the Indians, the Cajuns learned techniques to best utilize the local products from the swamps, bayous, lakes, rivers and woods. Truly remarkable are the variations that have resulted from similar ingredients carefully combined in the black iron pots of the Cajuns.

Jambalaya, grillades, stews, fricassees, soups, gumbos, sauce piquantes and a host of stuffed vegetable dishes are all characteristic of these new Cajun "one pot meals."

From the Germans, the Cajuns were reintroduced to charcuterie and today make andouille, smoked sausage, boudin, chaudin, tasso and chaurice, unparalleled in the world of sausage making.

Cajun cuisine is a "table in the wilderness," a creative adaptation of indigenous Louisiana foods. It is a cuisine forged out of a land that opened its arms to a weary traveler, the Acadian.

[jmaduzia]

Jaga,
Click here for Cajun Recipes==>
cajun-food-recipes.epicurean.com/asc_results.jsp?cultural_type=Cajun

Johnny M.

[Jaga]

John,

thanks so much for your feedback on the cajun cuisine. I know about this cuisine a little and I suspect that Europeans are not familiar with it at all.

By the way what are the differences between different cuisines in the US? You as a southerner should know more about it than me Maybe I should start abouther thread?