50 Fun Facts About Cajun and Creole Food

Which three vegetables make up the Cajun 'holy trinity'?

It is Louisiana's answer to the French mirepoix, which uses carrot instead of pepper.

The Cajuns descend from French colonists deported by the British from which region?

The 18th-century expulsion is known as le Grand Derangement.

The word gumbo comes from a West African word for which vegetable?

In Bambara and other languages okra was known as (ki) ngombo.

Which two thickeners are traditionally used in gumbo?

File was historically added when okra was out of season.

File powder is made from the ground leaves of which tree?

The practice was borrowed from the Choctaw.

Roughly how long is a dark roux stirred over the heat?

Burn it and the whole dish is ruined; the smell clings to clothes until they are washed.

What fat do Cajuns traditionally use for roux, unlike the French?

Creole roux in New Orleans are lighter and often use butter.

Which colour of roux suits a seafood gumbo best?

A dark, nutty roux would overpower the seafood but suits chicken and sausage.

What is boudin?

Some call it 'dirty rice in a casing'; boudin balls are the fried version.

What is added to make boudin rouge?

Other versions can even contain crawfish.

What is tasso?

It is a speciality of the Opelousas area.

Andouille sausage is a speciality of which stretch of the Mississippi above New Orleans?

It is coarse-ground, spicy and smoked, in a large casing.

What are gratons?

They resemble Spanish chicharrones.

Chaudin, or ponce, is a stuffed and smoked what?

It is filled with spiced pork.

Which Cajun dish is a popular 'smothered' preparation of crawfish or shrimp?

Smothering means cooking slowly with the trinity and a little stock, then serving over rice.

Cajun 'brown' jambalaya gets its colour from what?

Creole 'red' jambalaya is the tomato-rich New Orleans style.

Which town hosts the annual World Jambalaya Festival?

Brown jambalaya is the style served there.

Jambalaya is related to which West African rice dish?

Spanish paella and Provencal jambalaia are the other ancestors.

Whose spicy 1980s style gave the public a false idea of classic Cajun cooking?

He dubbed the blended restaurant style 'Louisiana cooking'.

Which cooking technique did Prudhomme invent in the 1970s that is not traditionally Cajun?

Blackened redfish became so popular that commercial fishing of the species was restricted.

What French Quarter restaurant did Prudhomme and his wife Kay open in 1979?

The name blends his and his wife Kay's.

A turducken is a chicken inside a duck inside what?

Prudhomme trademarked the name in 1986; John Madden made it a Thanksgiving TV staple.

Which fusion style arose from Vietnamese immigration to the Gulf Coast?

Vietnamese-spiced crawfish is its signature dish, found between Houston and New Orleans.

At a crawfish boil, newcomers are jokingly told not to eat which crawfish?

Folk belief says live crawfish curl when boiled and dead ones stay limp.

What is a boucherie?

Men butcher and cook the pork; women traditionally make the boudin.

What does cochon de lait mean?

The roasted pig is rotated on a rope over a hardwood fire.

In the rural Courir de Mardi Gras, what do householders traditionally throw to the maskers?

The riders chase it down, symbolising a hunt, and it goes into the gumbo that night.

The Courir de Mardi Gras was revived in the 1950s in which town?

It had been abandoned early in the century because of violence at the event.

Creole cuisine is stereotyped as what kind of cooking, compared with Cajun?

Creole grew up in New Orleans; Cajun cooking arose about 40 years after the city was founded.

In what year was The Picayune Creole Cook Book first published?

It has been reissued in 16 editions with few changes to the recipes.

Who first mastered crystallising sugar in Louisiana, in 1795?

His plantation is now Audubon Park.

Red beans and rice arrived with white Creoles fleeing which uprising?

The stew carries a strong Caribbean influence.

Classic shrimp creole is notable for lacking what?

Some cooks add one anyway.

Where is the oldest operating rice mill in the United States?

The Conrad Rice Mill still runs there.

What is pain perdu?

It means 'lost bread' and is a Creole breakfast staple.

What is calas?

It appears on the Creole breakfast list beside beignets and eggs Sardou.

At which New Orleans restaurant was oysters Rockefeller created in 1889?

Jules Alciatore invented it during a shortage of escargot.

Oysters Rockefeller was named for the tycoon because of what quality?

John D. Rockefeller was then the wealthiest American.

Bananas Foster was created in 1951 at which restaurant?

It was named for Richard Foster, chairman of the New Orleans Crime Commission.

Which spirit is flambeed in Bananas Foster?

Banana liqueur, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon make up the rest of the sauce.

What does a 'dressed' po' boy come with?

Non-seafood versions often add Creole mustard.

The Martin brothers' po' boy story involves a 1929 strike by which workers?

The brothers, ex-conductors themselves, fed the strikers and called each 'another poor boy'.

At which New Orleans deli was the muffuletta sandwich created in 1906?

Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant, built it on round sesame bread.

Which bitters are essential to a Sazerac?

The glass is rinsed with absinthe or Herbsaint first.

In 2008 the legislature proclaimed the Sazerac the official cocktail of what?

A bill to make it the state cocktail had failed that April.

What is hidden inside a Mardi Gras king cake?

The finder buys next year's cake or hosts the next party.

In king cake icing, what does the colour green stand for?

Purple is justice and gold is power.

Tabasco sauce is made on which Louisiana salt dome?

Edmund McIlhenny created it there in 1868; the salt dome beneath supplied the salt.

For up to how long is Tabasco pepper mash aged in oak barrels?

The barrels previously held whiskey and are decharred before use.

Beignets came to New Orleans with French immigrants in which century?

The classic version uses choux pastry and a snowfall of confectioner's sugar.