The jokes turned to praises and
imitators when
chef Paul
 Prudhomme
opened the hugely successful K-Paul's Louisiana
Kitchen in New Orleans and called its cooking Cajun. Soon seafood
restaurants all across the bayou were calling themselves Cajun and
serving up generous helpings of frog legs, blackened catfish and
steaming jambalaya. Cajun-style dishes spilled across mainstream
America, showing up in supermarkets and delis and fast food restaurants.
Forgotten amid all the hoopla is the fact that Cajun cooking ain't
fancy. The swamps were the pantry for the earliest Cajun kitchens and
they were usually stocked with wild game, seafood, bay leaves and
peppers. Poverty wrote the recipes for many a meal, prescribing the
Cajun technique of slow cooking as a cure for tough meat.
True Cajun meals, like the people who make them, consist of simple
servings of hearty victuals with a decidedly spicey flavor. And the
same goes for Cajun music and Cajun living. Down-home style. Zesty
taste. Big-time fun.
Laissez les
bon temps rouler! |
by MichaelHofferber@outriderbooks.com
Copyright © 1993. All rights reserved.
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