With a little Roux, the Cajun pot thickens.

Roux by flickr

One of the basic cooking elements of Cajun food is learning how to make a roux.  What is a roux, you ask? It's actually quite simple.  A roux is a mix of flour and oil that is "browned" to make a thickening agent.  There are varying opinions on roux.  Some are in favor of browning a roux hot and fast, while others insist on the slow method. This argument also includes the black pot method.  A black pot lends itself to hot and fast so slow roux cookers avoid it at all cost.  Depending on who you talk to a roux needs to be just a little brown in color. While others see the need to have their roux almost black. In any case, you must know how to make a roux to open the door to the world of Cajun cooking.


No matter what side the roux battle you fall on, it is still the key to some of the best dishes in Cajun cooking. The first and most iconic Cajun dish that requires a roux is Gumbo.  Without a roux, gumbo would be nothing more than soup.  But gumbo is so much more than soup.  Most love chicken and andouille gumbo. If you can't get your hands on andouille, then whatever sausage you prefer will do fine. Others are passionate about their seafood gumbo.  I've seen just about every form of seafood know to man put in gumbo.  Some keep it simple with just shrimp.  While others put shrimp, crab, and oysters all in the same pot to make you feel like a rich man.  The different meats put in gumbo is usually a reflection of the individual cook's passion, but it's the roux that binds it all together.  A more traditional dish with a roux is stew.  Obviously the thickening effects of roux lend itself well to making a stew.  Down here you can take just about any meat and make it into stew.  Turkey neck stew is really popular these days.  I'm a big fan of taking the left over Thanksgiving turkey carcass and making a stew.  Especially if it's a colder Thanksgiving.  Some Cajuns still use a roux to make gravy, but more and more are skipping this step.  Another Cajun favorite is Sauce Piquante.  A sauce piquante has a roux and adds some form of tomato paste or tomato ingredient.  Again, most forms of meat work fine with a sauce piquante.  Most make simple chicken sauce piquante on a regular basis.  One of my favorites is very seasonal, that's alligator sauce piquante.  Alligator are only hunted for one month a year so the meat is usually very pricey and sold out very quickly.

Chicken and sausage gumbo courtesy of flickr

So I hope you get a chance to come to Louisiana to eat some good food.  There are so many options to choose from that you are bound to find something you like.  And just remember that if you dish is has a thickness to it, it means that somebody took the time to make a roux. And that means they probably have a story behind their version of roux.  That is the uniqueness of Cajun cuisine.  We all cook similar dishes but we all have our little family preferences that make each dish both Cajun and personal at the same time.

Hope you have a great day and that you eat well today.

Cajun Traditions. Washing away with the Coastline.

Map by Wikimedia

Traditions are something that most people take great pride in. Traditions are also something that authors love to write about.  But the truth is traditions often fall victim to progress.  Such is the case of the many traditions of Cajuns in Louisiana. As most know, our ancestral roots can be traced back to the eviction of the area now known as Nova Scotia. But the assaults have never really stopped!


My Grandparents spoke fluent "Cajun french" but, never taught it to my parents or my generation. They would only speak it in front of their peers, usually inside while sharing coffee. The oddest thing was that every so often they would all stop as one and look around the room, then resume their dialect. One day as a teen I decided to ask my Grandmother (whom I worshipped) why. Why not teach us and why do you all look around the room? Her answer was somewhat hard to believe. In the 1920's the all knowing government decided it was unintelligent to speak two languages and more specifically to speak "Cajun french". The solution to these little Cajun brats speaking their native tongue was to use the school system to eliminate such behavior. My Grandparents who only spoke "Cajun french" at home would be paddled for doing such at school. Which explains both behaviors of not teaching their children and looking around the room when speaking. Thanks to "intellectuals" the native tongue of my people is now a thing of folklore!

Then came the ingenious idea of flood control! It seems that living along side nature and it's bountiful harvest was not how a man should live. We must upstage nature. We must decide where rivers flow. We must drain swamps. And all this has gotten us a few more steps away from our Cajun heritage. Our way of life is dictated by floodgates. Or in the case of my home, lack of floodgates.  Our bountiful marshes erode everyday with no silt to cross the mighty levees. Our homes sink on the land that was pumped dry. The barrier islands waste away in the tide.  It seems the more billions of dollars we spend the more hundreds of acres we lose to the Gulf. All this thanks to great engineering minds.

Satellite by Fotopedia

In 2010, we faced a dire future.  An explosion and fire on an offshore drilling rig threatened the entire Gulf Coast.  For some six weeks the nation was glued to the TV while oil gushed out of the sea floor.  The bounty of seafood we love, eat, and take pride in was in harm's way.  Fortunately, we've survived that doomsday. Mother Nature always finds a way.  And that's the key.  Let nature take it's course.  We've lived along side of nature and lived well for over three hundred years. Cajuns will live on.  The same uniqueness that caused my grandparents to be punished is now held is high regard. No where else in this nation can you have a social gathering over some boiled bugs caught in a ditch.  Our marshes and coast lines may disappear.  God knows those idiots in D.C. haven't got a clue how to save the land or the culture.  But we will persevere.  We've been evicted before, we can build anew and bring more wrinkles to our storied past.  Come what may, we will find a way to coexist with whatever nature has and we will hand down as many traditions as we can to our kids.  So forget all the catching slogan's, Cajun life is out in the swamps and lowlands and it truly is the good life.

Crawfish Platter by Wikipedia.

A taste of Louisiana

Life in Louisiana is very unique and it's food is even more unique.  We are very passionate about our food.  We eat everything we can find and we spice it up like nowhere else.  Let me start with a few breakfast items.  Yes we eat coffee and beignets like advertised to the world.  Heavy on the coffee.  Most are familiar with "French toast" here we make it a little different and have two different names for it.  Some refer to it as Pan Pan Deaux, and others call it Lost Bread, but simply put it's stale bread coated in milk and egg wash then fried and sprinkled with sugar.  We love grits in the South.  Shrimp and grits is not uncommon but in my family we put Boudain in our grits.  What is Boudain you ask?  It is a sausage made from pork, rice, liver, green onions, and other spices.  In Louisiana, pork is a basic food group.  Boucheries don't happen as often as they did in the past but they still are a clinic in how we use the entire pig.  As the locals say, "we eat everything on the pig except the oink".  Most people would throw away a perfectly fine pig head.  In Louisiana we make Hog Head Cheese and pickled pig lips. Whoever made the commercial that says, "Pork, the other white meat" has never been to a boucherie.

Next we have our fruits and vegetables.  We love our onions and down here we refer to green onions as shallots.  I grow my own vegetables so I know a thing or two about tomatoes and in Louisiana, Creole tomatoes are things of idol worship.  My personal favorite is cucumbers.  We also brag on our own personal favorites when it comes to squash, beans, and peas.  One local favorite that is not for me is the mirliton.(pronounced "melly ton")  It's a "prickly pear" or a "vegetable pear".  But the vegetable that is a staple of Cajun cooking is okra.  Okra is something that can be cooked any which way and served at almost every meal.  It is also the base veggie for gumbo.  We also love our fruits, growing strawberries is an art form and picking wild blackberries is a rite of passage.  Figs are also included with those two and more jelly and jam you can eat is made every year. Also, if you grow fruit you must know how to make wine.  Whether it's strawberry, blackberry, or muscadine wine, everyone has a very passionate opinion about it.  As far as nuts go, there is only one you need to know about.  That's the pecan.  If you can't make pecan pie then you're not marrying material.  Most of our seasonings fall into the veggie category. Onions, bell peppers, parsley, celery, and basil are all chopped fine and considered seasoning.  And of course we love our cayenne pepper.  Whether it's in a jar pickled in vinegar, or a sauce, or dried season, a little red pepper makes everything better.


Everyone knows that Louisiana is a seafood lovers paradise.  Crawfish is one of our favorites.  While these mud bugs are plentiful, they are only available for about half the year.  Crawfish season usually starts in late January and ends in early June when they start to get to hard.  What can you make with crawfish?  There's crawfish etouffee, fried crawfish tails, crawfish bisque, crawfish jambalaya, crawfish stew, and oh yeah we like to boil them.  If you don't know how to boil crawfish, you'll never get a good woman to marry you.  We love shrimp as well.  There are two types of shrimp.  There is brown shrimp and white shrimp, and it would do you good to know the difference.  My wife's shrimp etouffee is the best.  Name a fish and we probably have it.  We have an abundance of freshwater and saltwater fish.  Two of my favorites are Red fish on the grill and the wife makes a mean fish court bouillon.  My all time favorite seafood is oysters.  While there are many ways to cook oysters, I prefer them raw.  In Louisiana they are good and salty.  They are so good you can pull one out of the cool water, crack it open and eat it on the spot.

Seems like I've only scratched the surface.  I haven't mentioned all the wildlife we eat.  Such as deer, squirrel, rabbit, alligator, quail, and ducks.  By the way nobody uses the word venison.  Most people that eat deer don't know it's called venison.  I've also failed to cover all the different types of dishes.  We have gumbo, jambalaya, etouffee, court bouillon, stews, deep frying, pan frying, barbecues, boiled seafood, baking, caking, preserves, and a few more that escape me at the moment.  Anyway, I hope that if you get to come to the bayou you don't waste a meal at a burger joint.  There's food everywhere and there's usually a good story told behind every meal.  Cooking is a part of our heritage and we not only enjoy it, we love to share it.  So in the words of my Dad, "come to la vey, and bring a little pig sha!".  That's truly C'est bon!

Bayou Life

In our media driven world the marshes, bayous, and plantations of Louisiana are all the rage.  The great state of Louisiana is now considered one of the most filmed locations outside of Hollywood.  For some it's the old southern charm of a plantation home.  For others it's the long and storied history of New Orleans.  And for most it's the sportsman's paradise.  As one friend put it, "Where else can you catch Red fish and Bass on the same trip?"  Then for reasons I don't understand most people (not from here) think that Mardi Gras is year round. Life in the bayou is slightly different than the movies. Let me burst a few bubbles for you.

First, to live in Louisiana you must know how to live on, off, from, and in the water.  You can't go more than three miles in any direction without hitting a bayou, swamp, lake, river, or canal.  So if  you are on dry land, you can't get lost.  Venture out into the swamp and it's a different story.  Most people either fish or have a brother in law that fishes for a living.  Everyone knows how to catch mud-bugs and make a meal out of them. Teaching your kids how to peel crabs, shrimp, and crawfish is a right of passage.  It doesn't matter if your 20 plus years old, if you can't peel your own then your still a baby.  Then you must know the direction of water flow to live in the swamp.  Most places around the world the river in considered the lowest place because the river usually carves out the land.  In Louisiana the banks of the river are the highest point you can be at.  That's why it's called a delta, because the land is built up from the river overflowing and depositing it's silt.  So the water always drains from the river out to the marshes.  Also, water comes in different forms, there is muddy river water, there is brackish lake water, and salty gulf water.  Notice there is no fresh water.   Next, not everyone in Louisiana practices voodoo.  It's the bible belt for crying out loud!  There is a church on every corner and on Sunday they are all full.  The whole reason Mardi Gras is such a big deal is because the overwhelming number of Catholics are about to enter the Lenten season.  The amount of fish consumed on a Friday, during Lent in Louisiana is staggering.  Voodoo is just for show down in the French Quarter to scam tourist out of their money.  And yes Mardi Gras only last a couple of weeks.  Speaking of tourist, plantations are a dime a dozen.  I don't have to hear your accent to know you are not from around here.  All I have to do is be behind you on the river road and realize you are stopping to take a picture of a house I pass three times a day.  The term "scenic route" is a contradiction in terms.  If you stop in the middle of the highway to take a picture then it's not a route at all.  Anyone who thinks it would have been great to live in a plantation has obviously never lived without A/C.  Not only is it hot it is steaming in the swamp.  I'm not sure what "dry heat" is but when the temperature is 98 degrees and the humidity is 90 percent it's hard to breathe.  I met a nurse who had moved here from Canada, she said the first three Summers here she cried all Summer because of the heat and humidity.  By the way it's Summer nine months of the year here.  She cried a lot.  All these movies they film of some detective walking along the bayou with a sports coat on is pure Hollywood fantasy.

Life in the bayou is hard but like everything else, it has it's rewards.  We work all day in oppressive heat but come dinner time, we get to enjoy some of the finest food in the world.  We literally eat everything. Where else can you enjoy some muscadine wine, garfish balls, and boudain?  Never wanted to do a recipe blog but maybe I should do one on the diversity of food in Louisiana.  Great now I'm hungry.  We speak our own accent and sometimes our own language because we are truly a melting pot of French, Spanish, Irish, Indian, and a few others.  We still stop on side the road to help some one who has broke down or to let a funeral procession pass by.  Our family includes everyone we know.  Blood might be thicker than water but it's the waters that connect us all.  So I guess it's only fitting that Hollywood would want to film this unique life we live, but trust me the movies don't come near to the real thing.  So meh shay, I hope you get to come to the bayou, pass a good time, fill your belly with some etouffee, dance at the fais do do, and live the good life that can't be captured on a movie screen.