If you ask two Louisiana gourmands the difference between Creole and Cajun food, you are in for an endless debate.
“Creole food is genteel city food, and Cajun food is rustic country food. But both have French dish names and similar ingredients,” explains Cajun-born New Orleans food authority Tom Fitzmorris. But he adds, “There’s no real difference anymore. The two have cross-pollinated each other so thoroughly that the question is academic.”
Maybe so, at least in New Orleans. But there are still distinctions, and the farther west you head into bayou country, the spicier the Creole food. Classic Creole dishes rarely seen in Cajun eateries would include oysters Rockefeller, chicken Clemenceau, crawfish Sardou, frogs’ legs Provençal and pommmes soufflé. They’re all still served at Antoine’s Restaurant, which opened in New Orleans in 1840 and where, until recently, the menu was still all in French. Indeed, if you want to get a true sense of the refined flavors and style of Creole cooking, a table at Antoine’s would be a good lesson.
So, too, all the classic Creole dishes are on the menu at the revered Galatoire’s Restaurant, opened in 1905 on Bourbon Street. Here, classics such as crabmeat ravigote, shrimp Marguery, chicken bonne-femme and sweet potato cheesecake are served by long-term waiters in tuxes who will tell you what fish just swam into the kitchen that morning.
The lighter style known as “New Creole” was pioneered by Ella and Dick Brennan at Commander’s Palace in the 1970s, with dishes like crawfish mousse, shrimp and fettuccine, trout with roasted pecans and bread pudding soufflé. It was from Commander’s Palace that a young chef named Emeril Lagasse graduated to open his own namesake restaurant, where he introduced global influences to traditional Creole cooking. Dishes include jerk Mississippi quail with chorizo sausage and Jamaican salsa and his own versions of barbecued shrimp and gumbo.
In fact, gumbo, along with jambalaya, crawfish etouffée and shrimp remoulade, are crossover dishes found in both Creole and Cajun kitchens. In the former, which shines bright at Mr. B’s Bistro in the French Quarter, the classic gumbo is a rich broth of Gulf shrimp, crabmeat and okra, while the latter, on the same menu, is gumbo ya-ya, made with chicken and andouille sausage flecked with hot pepper.
Both Creole and Cajun aficionados will tell you it’s all about the “roux” — a mix of fat and flour that is browned in a saucepan and used to thicken a dish’s base or sauce. In Creole cookery, the roux is lighter in color and thinner; in Cajun, it’s darker and thicker — differences that affect the color and taste of the gumbos.
So, when the redoubtable Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme, who also had worked at Commander’s Palace, opened a no-frills, communal-seating eatery called K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in the French Quarter, his intensely rich, blisteringly spicy country-style Cajun food was greeted with far more praise from visiting food writers than sceptical locals.
Prudhomme eventually won them over with signature dishes like blackened redfish, eggplant bayou Teche shaped like a pirogue (Cajun canoe), crawfish pie (like the one Hank Williams sang about in “Jambalaya”) and chicken Tchoupitoulas.
Bayou-born-and-raised Donald Link has straddled both culinary worlds. When he opened a New Orleans restaurant named Herbsaint, he served eclectic items like curried shrimp with chili couscous, and gnocchi with pancetta and Parmesan. But Link’s next restaurant, Cochon, was truer to his Cajun roots — in his cookbook “Real Cajun,” he called his food “Rustic Home Cooking,” offering dishes like Aunt Sally’s black-eyed peas, fried pig’s ears with barbecue sauce, smoked pork chops with watermelon pickle and fried alligator with a chili-garlic mayonnaise.
Link also brought to New Orleans the Cajun boucherie (“butcher”), making his own boudin and andouille sausages and bacon. And the farther away from New Orleans you go, the food will more resemble Cochon’s than anything at Herbsaint. The town of LaPlace even declares itself — to nearby townspeople’s consternation — the Andouille Capital of the World and holds a festival each October to celebrate it.
To taste Cajun boudin and barbecue in its authentic setting, head to Lafayette, on the Vermilion River in southwestern Louisiana, 135 miles from New Orleans, where, since 1937, Johnson’s Boucanière has been turning out hearty smoked meats, boudin sausages and beef briskets.
The store has a little walk-in area for ordering and paying, and in the back, three enormous smoking ovens filled with hanging sausage, trays of beef and pork on a rotisserie. Don’t miss the Zydeco Special — a sandwich of slow-smoked mixed beef and pork sausage loaded up with mayonnaise, mustard, lettuce and tomatoes. Also terrific are the pulled pork po’ boy sandwich, crispy-skinned brisket of beef and smoky boudin grilled on a hot griddle and served with hot sauce.