You can put a tangy boost into Cajun chicken salad with honey-jalapeño dressing. - MCT photos

Cajun cuisine is a totally indigenous American cuisine with influences from the French, Spanish, Acadian and other Louisiana inhabitants such as Blacks and Indians.

Cajun cuisine is traditional cooking which has been shaped by foods native to Louisiana, including the abundant catch of seafood and the treasure of game, poultry, pork and beef. Cajun cuisine is distinctive from the Creole cuisine of New Orleans, Louisiana.

The predominant use of locally available food and their simple preparation makes fans consider Cajun cuisine 'rustic'. The original Cajun meal is usually a three-pot affair. One pot is dedicated to the main dish; another to steamed rice, skillet cornbread or some other grain dish; and the third to a seasonal vegetable dish.

The aromatic vegetables bell pepper, onion, and celery are dubbed by some chefs the 'holy trinity' of Cajun cuisine.

Epicurean appeal

There is an epicurean appeal to Cajun cooking, also known as Acadian cuisine, originating in the entire Cajun region of Louisiana known as Acadiana. Acadian cuisine was pioneered by Cajun women who took time to perfect the art and pass it on to generations. The excellence of Cajun cooking started in south Louisiana over two and a half centuries ago.

When the French-Acadians were banished from Nova Scotia by the British, they took with them the tradition of la bonne cuisine to south Louisiana. Having left most of their possessions behind, the French-Acadians had to find creative ways to survive. They used their imagination and with a great deal of hard work combined with the foods they found - a great variety of seafood, an overflowing supply of wild game and semi-tropical weather - were able to create innovative dishes.

Cajun cuisine is a recipe in itself, according to Marie Louise Comeaux Manuel, retired home economist of University of Southwestern Louisiana. She added that food - its preparation and consumption - must be classified as Acadian pleasure. The cuisine is unsurpassed through the combination of classical French and Spanish cuisine blended with herbs and spices from France and Spain and the even more exotic taste and magic seasonings of Africa. (Beau Bayou Publishing, 1985).

The early Acadians had keen taste buds and were inspired to use produce from the soil for exquisite recipes. In Cajun style, creating any improvisations of native food is best when fowl, fish and game are combined with the fruits of the field that are currently in harvest as all these edibles complement each other.

Cajun Cooking Essentials

There are several essentials in Cajun cooking.

The iron pot: Very critical to the perfect outcome of a dish as it retains heat and does not burn.

The roux: The typical dishes of Louisiana include a roux, a simple combination of flour and fat. Any Acadian chef will tell you that the most successful method of making a good roux is to sprinkle flour slowly in melted shortening, to brown it and to stir continuously. The secret is gradually to add cold water or stock, spices and herbs.

Stock: Game, meat, fish, bones, fowl flesh all boiled together. Vegetables and other items are added for soups and stews. Stock is used in making gravies for the roasting pan, in basting and in almost all cooking.

Herbs and spices: Obtained from the roots, stems, leaves, seeds or fruits of many plants. Dried herbs were found to be more pungent compared to fresh ones.

Gumbo: When you hear of gumbo, you know that you are in the heart of Cajun cuisine. A gumbo is a hearty, soup stew in a delectable blend of seafood, fowl, wild game, sausage, chitterlings and smoked meat. Gumbo is an African word meaning okra and was brought to America by slaves who could just take seeds of their favourite foods.

The first preparation for the gumbo is making the roux. At the right consistency, chopped onions, celery and green peppers are added. The mixture is slowly cooked until the onions become transparent and the green peppers and celery are soft. Cold water is slowly added along with mixture of turkey, duck, geese, wild birds, crawfish, crab, shrimp or oysters.

Heather Little-White, PhD, is a nutrition and lifestyle consultant in the Corporate Area. Send comments to editor@gleanerjm.com or fax 922-6223.

For people in Louisiana, gumbo isn't just gumbo. It's Creole history and Cajun roots, a bowl of tradition touched with Caribbean influence and thickened with native ingredients.

A large cooking pot with wire basket big enough to hold 25 pounds of crawfish and a lid for the pot are among the first preparations for cooking crawfish. Salt and special Creole seasonings are used. One thing to always remember is first to separate live crawfish from crawfish that will not make it to the pot.

A very important stage is to purge the crawfish. This is done by placing rock salt in a large tub of water or two large ice chests. Stir the water with the salt and then place the crawfish into the water. Let the crawfish purge for seven minutes. Remove the crawfish and place in an ice chest until ready to cook.

Crawfish Jambalaya

Jambalaya is a Cajun dish in which pork, game and other ingredients are cooked together with rice.

2 onions

1 sweet pepper, chopped

4 stalks celery, chopped

6 tbsps olive oil

2 cups uncooked rice

4 cups water

2lb tails, peeled

2 tsps salt

1 tsps pepper

1/2 tsps garlic powder

Method

1. Sauté onions, bell pepper and celery olive oil until onions are transparent.

2. Remove vegetables, add rice and cook until brown.

3. Return vegetables to browned rice. Add water. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer for about 20 minutes.

4. Stir in crawfish and seasonings. Cover and cook for an additional 25 minutes. Add water if needed.

Serves 6.

Chicken-okra gumbo

1 chicken, cut in serving pieces

Salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper to taste

1/4 cup oil

2lb fresh okra, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

2 onions, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup flour

1 quart water

Method

1. Season chicken with salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper.

2. Heat oil and brown chicken in a large, heavy skillet. Remove chicken as it browns.

3. Add okra, onions, garlic to the pot and sprinkle flour over the top. Stir constantly and cook over low heat until oil starts to rise to the top, about 20 minutes.

4. Add chicken and water and simmer until chicken is tender and the gumbo is the consistency of a cream soup, about one hour.

5. Serve over cooked rice in soup bowls.

Serves 6.

In true Acadian cooking, meat is seasoned and browned before anything else is added, resulting in a more tasty, flavourful product. The plentiful Louisiana crawfish, which looks like a small lobster, is used to make classic Cajun dishes.