Something you’ll find when you visit any country is that our understanding of their food is pretty limited. We love Italian food, but we mostly make pizza our own way, and it originated in Napole, so no matter how much we love a good, authentic pizza, it’s only the tiniest slice of Italian culture. We love Chinese restaurants, but the vast majority of Chinese restaurants have been heavily modified to fit the American palate—most Chinese food is more like Chinese “themed.”

Is this a problem?

In my opinion, no. You’re allowed to like what you like, and in all fairness our “warped” versions of cultural cuisine are still delicious. We took Italy’s pizza, and we enriched it. We didn’t make a “better” pizza, and we didn’t disrespect them in any way when we said “Hey what about the Chicago Deep Dish? What about the New York slice?” Cultural interchange is a beautiful thing.

With that being said, it can be interesting and endlessly rewarding to really dig into the roots of a cultural cuisine we’ve heard a lot about—especially when that culture is part of your own country. This is something I learn every time I spend time with my French-speaking friend who is descended from Cajun southerners.

Enter Chef Dustin

Dustin Romero is a fascinating guy. He has a Spanish-sounding last name that he says actually used to be Jewish before it was changed during the Spanish Inquisition. He’s an award-winning chef from Salt Lake City where he used to run a small food cart (Indian food, oddly enough). He’s also incredibly Cajun. When people call America a melting pot, I picture Dustin Romero. He and I get together when we can to try interesting food and exchange thoughts on cooking.

Like I said before, Chef Dustin is very Cajun, and he has a lot to say about his heritage. He blew my mind the first few times we talked, and now every time I see “Cajun” dishes in restaurants (usually chicken wing places) it makes me think about how unlike “real” Cajun food it tends to be.

Dustin and I sat down for a long chat at my favorite restaurant yesterday, and he talked me through a long history of Cajun food. What follows is the closest I could get to a guest post from a generational Cajun chef, and Chef Dustin did me a huge favor by editing this article for me before publishing.

The Difference between Cajun and Creole

This may seem like an odd place to start, but it’s important to place a distinction between the two major food cultures you’ll find around the bayou.

Believe it or not, there was no real distinction between Cajun and Creole until around the 1950s after the country’s major leaps in civil rights. It was only then that newspapers and auditors inserted a more strict definition for the two.

Creole has been a cultural term much longer than “Cajun” has, and as such it became a point of cultural interest in the American South. Creole food is what tourists came searching for in New Orleans.

Cajuns, on the other hand, were a cultural group of French immigrants who were expelled from Canada and, after decades of hardship, eventually settled in Louisiana. They became hardy people very closely tied to their land. People of different backgrounds frequently married into their culture—Germans, Italians, freed slaves, native Americans, Cubans, French, etc. And instead of global interest driving their cuisine, Cajun food developed simply by living off of locally available ingredients and preparing them in ways heavily influenced by their cultural heritage. So you’ll find a lot of French and African influence in Cajun food.

More than anything, Cajun food is known for the Holy Trinity (or Cajun Trinity), which is an aromatic base of onions, bell peppers (traditionally green) and celery. This is their incredible spin on the traditional French mirepoix.

These days the real difference between Cajun and Creole boils down to this: Creole is city food and Cajun is country food. And they’re incredibly similar. For example, they’ll both make gumbo every day, but by now Creole-style adds tomato to their gumbo and Cajun-style doesn’t. Why? Because reasons. Sometimes labels are useful because they help us distinguish between groups and appreciate their differences.

More than anything, “Cajun” isn't food, it's cultural heritage. And more interestingly, it’s recent cultural heritage—like Boomer era. Before then, they all called themselves French or Creole.

Chef Dustin’s Favorite Foods

The list of Cajun and Creole foods is long, so to keep things simple I asked Chef Dustin what his favorite dishes to prepare are. He gave me the following list that I fully invite you to search for in your Cook’n app:

Red Beans and Rice: Go to your local Popeyes and buy this if you have doubts, but I love red beans and rice. It is typically viewed as a side dish, but Chef Dustin makes his version extra special by preparing it in the Holy Trinity. He’ll serve it as the entire meal. Cheap, healthy, and delicious.

Gumbo: This is gonna blow your mind. Gumbo is a popular stew in the American South. There is generally chicken and sausage gumbo or seafood gumbo, but you won’t find all three of those mixed in a Cajun restaurant. The word “gumbo” is a West-African word that means okra (which is also an African word, just from a different region). Can you smell the African influences in this dish? Gumbo falls somewhere between soup and stew served over rice, but one “rule” is it’s served in a bowl. This doesn’t come from Chef Dustin, but based on my own research, gumbo comes with some fun urban legends and classic gatekeepy rules: it must be served in a bowl or it’s too thin, it must be served with a wooden spoon (obviously), it must be stirred counterclockwise, as this will bless you with a quiet hurricane season. Gumbo is a super important piece of Cajun-Creole heritage.

Jambalaya: A delicious rice dish comprising the holy trinity, spices, chicken, shrimp and vegetables. Just try it or you’re lame.

Corn Maque Choux: I’d never heard of this until the other day when I asked Chef Dustin his favorite recipes. Corn Maque Choux is stewed corn with seasonings, the holy trinity, bacon, and just a touch of heavy cream. It’s like a heavily “Cajunized” (Cajunified?) creamed corn, and I’m here to try it all.

Collard Greens: Find a hearty leaf-vegetable like kale, swiss chard or rhubarb, and stew it for plenty of time with a ham hock and bacon. Bam, you’ve got basic collard greens. They’re simple, cheap and healthy. Chef Dustin makes them with whatever greens he can find fresh at the local farmers market, and he’s not averse to using spinach.

Etouffee: This is one of those dishes that I’ve only ever heard of and dreamed about. I’ve never seen it in the wild, let alone tried it. Simply put, it’s a shellfish stew served over rice. Just like gumbo, it’s roux-based and takes seafood stock, chicken stock or crawfish stock. The major difference between etouffee and gumbo is consistency. Etouffee tends to be much thicker (I guess a plate is now allowed).

Crawfish: The Cajun lived off of crawfish for forever. “Crawfish boils” (everyone gets together, catches a ton of crawfish, and enjoys them as a community covered in awesome Cajun spices) are synonymous with Cajun culture. Chef Dustin was kind enough to invite me to his family's upcoming crawfish boil, and I hope beyond hope that I won’t be busy that day.

Here’s a funny story about crawfish… When Chef Dustin was digging deeper into his family history, he met a very Cajun uncle who invited him to go try the most authentic Cajun crawfish he’d ever found. He brought Chef Dustin to, of all places, a Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet, and he insisted that it was authentic Cajun stuff.

Why? Because he knew the guy that supplied the Chinese restaurant, and these were the largest crawfish he’d ever seen. That’s some real Cajun stuff!

It brings me back to the point I made earlier: cultural gatekeeping is kind of silly and pointless, and in fact there is a lot to be lauded for cultural interchange. The Cajuns are an incredible example of that.

Bananas Foster: Let’s round this list off with some dessert. If you’ve read my article on caramelization, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about here. Try turning your stovetop way down low and spending twenty minutes slowly cooking a sliced banana in some butter. The sugars in that banana will gradually caramelize, leaving you with a pile of goodies that is sinfully sweet. It is generally prepared in a rum sauce over ice cream, and is super popular to flambé (aka light on fire!!!) tableside in restaurants.

I don’t know about you, but I’m craving some red beans and rice after writing this article. Now go forth and try some niche Southern food!

    Matthew Christensen
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2023
    Email the author! matthew@dvo.com