CAJUN/CREOLE, IS IT THE SAME?

The most common question I get from my clients is, “what is the difference between Cajun and Creole?”  The short answer is Cajun is more of a country style of cooking whereas Creole is more of a refined, city style of cooking.  In 1755, the original inhabitants of L’Acadie, now known as Nova Scotia, were exiled by the British for not unconditionally accepting the crown.  Many of these folks made their way down into the bayous of South Louisiana beginning in the year that followed.  These folks, known as Acadie, were referred to as Acadians, which was soon bastardized into Cajuns.  Cajun food can be considered a true indigenous cuisine as the Cajuns had to create an entire cuisine based on the ingredients at hand, granted they brought their cooking techniques, but had to make do with the unfamiliar bounty of their new home.  Creole, on the other hand, was defined as “new born native to the soil”, or more specifically, applied to the “new born of French or European parents living in the West Indies, or more specifically, South Louisiana.”  The cuisine is a rich cacophany of French, Spanish, Italian, Native American, African, German, Polish, British and any other ethnicity who called New Orleans home.  There is more of an emphasis on wine, butter, cream and other fine ingredients that may have made their way from the formal kitchens of France and Spain, most notably.  I guess, the easiest way to define the cuisine is “America’s most unique and flavorful contribution to the culinary world”…enough  said!