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Subject: [LASTLAND-L] ACADIAN COOKING OF ACADIA AND CREOLE AND CAJUN COOKING OF LOUISIANA part 3
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 22:52:07 EST

ACADIAN COOKING OF ACADIA AND CREOLE AND CAJUN COOKING OF LOUISIANA part 3

The Acadians that returned to Acadia after the expulsion were denied
permission to return to the areas that they had lived before the expulsion.
Some were fortunate and settled in an agricultural environment and were able
to continue with their traditions. A lot more were forced to settle along the
coast of Maritime Canada and these Acadians had to adapt to their new
environment and available food sources.

The Acadian developed a unique cuisine where ever they settled. Those that
settled in South Louisiana, now known as Acadiana, or Cajun Country, developed
a cuisine that became known as Cajun cuisine.

The Louisiana Cajun gradually developed into three distinct agricultural and
economic divisions. With the Dauterive Contract, a successful cattle industry
was developed by the south-west, or "Prairie Cajuns", while along the
Mississippi River at the "Acadian Coast" and upper Bayou Lafourche,
Acadians developed into principally agricultural settlements. Those who
settled in the low lying marshes and coastal areas developed a trapping and
fishing industry.

Agricultural products of the early Louisiana Acadians consisted of cotton,
corn, beef, chickens, eggs, milk, pork, field peas, red beans, butter beans,
and English peas , and were among the most significant crops. Small amounts of
rice, tobacco, squash and pumpkins were also grown. By 1804 okra, which was
acquired in the Lafourche area from slaves in the 1790s, was being produced.
Fruit crops were figs, peaches, and apricots and some concord, white and
muscadine grapevines.

Because the major ingredients of the Acadian diet was scarce and often
unavailable to the Louisiana Acadian, he had to substitute locally grown
products. Corn bread quickly replaced whole wheat bread and by the early
nineteenth century, corn bread was eaten with cane syrup.

At first turnips and cabbages, plentiful in pre-expulsion Acadia, were scarce
to the Louisiana Acadian, so they substituted locally grown vegetables and
ingredients into their traditional winter soups. The result was "soup de mais"
and later "file gumbo'. The African vegetable okra was used in gumbo as well.

A typical Acadian meal consisted of salt pork, corn bread, seasonal vegetables
and fruits,. Originally rice was consumed only rarely and then only when the
corn crop failed. The steady diet of salt pork was augmented by eggs, poultry
and wild game such as ducks, geese and venison.

Like their pre-expulsion ancestors, animals were slaughtered when their
productivity ceased. This resulted in old hens and roosters and tough stringy
beef. Because the cooking of these animals required long cooking such as
boiling and the necessity of boiling out the salt from the cured pork, the
cooking techniques of their pre-expulsion ancestors were kept.

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth century households contained
several large iron cauldrons and usually one frying pan. The frying pan was
used to fry eggs, bacon and freshwater fish, and doubled as a baking pan for
cornbread. (Carl Brasseau - founding of new Acadia" p. 135-136)

Because, until recent years the Louisiana Cajuns were not affluent, they lived
off the bounty of the land. They fished, hunted, trapped and farmed. They took
their family recipes, like the Creoles in New Orleans, and adapted them to
their adopted environment, available food, spices and herbs and added some of
the German, Spanish and native American Indian cooking secrets. Because
recipes had to be developed to fit the slender purses, Cajun and Creole
cuisine can be prepared in the humblest kitchens.

The metamorphosis of the Louisiana Acadian society necessitated by the
environmental factor. Profiting from the mistakes that were made by the
Creoles, the Acadians quickly adopted time proven Louisiana crops and
agricultural practices. Within ten years after the first Acadians arrived in
Louisiana, the Acadians had attained a standard of living at least equal to
that of the pre-expulsion Acadia. For example, in 1777 the typical Acadian
living along the Mississippi River owned 14.7 cattle, 11.59 hogs and 1.03
sheep, and with the drop in the number of sheep, large flocks of chickens were
developed . Compare this to what they had accomplished in a similar amount of
time, and as shown at the time of the 1701 census, the Acadians at Mines had
an average of 12.7 cattle, 8.95 hogs and 12.04 sheep.

As I mentioned earlier, Creole and Cajun cuisine is a combination of French
and Spanish settlers, combined with the secrets of the Indian and African,
influenced later by the Germans of the countryside and further enhanced by the
Irish and Italian immigrants traditional recipes and styles. You might say
that Cajun and Creole cuisine are truly universal cuisines. And it is my
opinion that the original Cajun and Creole recipes are long gone, having been
influenced by ethnic cultures that later settled in the area, and in their
place there has developed a cuisine that could more accurately be called
south Louisiana cuisine, or Cuisine de la Louisiane. In fact, Louisiana Creole
and Cajun cuisines are still in a state of evolution.

To be continued

This thread:

• [LASTLAND-L] ACADIAN COOKING OF ACADIA AND CREOLE AND CAJUN COOKING OF LOUISIANA part 3 by <>

  • [LASTLAND-L] ACADIAN COOKING OF ACADIA AND CREOLE AND CAJUN COOKING OF LOUISIANA part 4 by <>