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CAJUN
•
CREOLE
in developing their cuisine in a new and strange land.
Creole cuisine, then, is that melange of artistry and talent, developed
and made possible by the nations and cultures who settled in and
around New Orleans. Those of us who know and love it, keep it
alive by sharing it with the world.
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 twenty-four
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
[TOP] Rouses Smoked Boudin – photo by
Romney Caruso
[LEFT] Tommy Rouse’s Jambalaya – photo by
Denny
Culbert
[RIGHT] Shrimp Creole – photo by
Eugenia Uhl