Cajun or Creole; what's the difference?
After reading lengthy articles about the two I am now unsure as to how I
cook. Fact is, just about every self proclaimed Cajun cook has a
container of Creole seasoning in the spice pantry! Go figure. Today it's
pretty much a mixture of the two.
I just think of it as Cajun being originated from around the Lafayette
(Southwest Louisiana) area and Creole being from the New Orleans
(Southeast Louisiana) area.
There is a distinct difference though, and, it is all explained very
well here..
This following is taken from
www.houmatravel.com
The term Creole can have many meanings, but during the early days of
Louisiana, it meant that a person was born in the colony and was the
descendant of French or Spanish parents. The term is a derivative of the
word “criollo,” which means native or local, and was intended as a class
distinction. In present Louisiana, Creole generally means a person or
people of mixed colonial French, African American and Native American
ancestry. The term Black Creole refers to freed slaves from Haiti and
their descendants.
Still another class of Creole originates with the placage system in
which white and creole men took on mixed-race mistresses in a lifelong
arrangement, even if the men were married or married later. In this
arrangement, the women had property, their children were educated and
entitled to part of the man’s estate upon his death. In New Orleans,
these people made up the artisan class and became wealthy and very
influential.
“Cajun” is derived from “Acadian” which are the people the modern day
Cajuns descend from. These were the French immigrants who were expelled
from Nova Scotia, and eventually landed in Louisiana after decades of
hardship and exile. Hearty folks from many backgrounds married into the
culture, including Germans, Italians, Free People of Color, Cubans,
Native Americans and Anglo-Americans. French or patois, a rural dialect,
was always spoken. Due to the isolation of the group in the southern
locations of Louisiana, they have retained a strong culture to this day.
As to the difference in the cuisines, Creole can be defined as “city
cooking” with influences from Spain, Africa, Germany, Italy and the West
Indies combined with native ingredients. Cajun cooking is more of a home
cooked style that is rich with the ingredients at hand in the new world
the Acadians settled into. A one pot, hearty meal is typical in Cajun
cooking.
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