Misconceptions about Cajun Culture
Sorry, long time no blog. I’ve been super busy with work. I wanted to post about all the recipes we made for Christmas but never got around to it. I also wanted to post about how each year my mom sends all her kids a King Cake for Mardi gras from Meche’s Donut King but didn’t manage that either.. hopefully soon I’ll have time. Until then, I wanted to clear up a few misconceptions about our culture. Here they are, in no particular order.
- New Orleans is not in Cajun Country and only 1% of its population claimed Cajun ethnicity in the 1990 US Census. Cajun Country, or Acadiana, consists of 22 parishes in Southwest Louisiana. Not even Baton Rouge makes the cut. The parish with the highest Cajun population, Vermilion Parish (where I grew up!) claims has a 49% Cajun population.You can read more about all that here.
- Mardi Gras is not just celebrated in New Orleans. It’s celebrated all around Southern Louisiana in towns big and small (Kaplan’s population swells to about 15,000 during the Mardi Gras parade) and our parades are very kid-friendly. When I was growing up, we’d get 3 days off of school to celebrate Mardi Gras.
- We do not eat blackened anything. Like my momma used to say "If its black, its burnt and we throw it out!" It was a dish invented by the famous Cajun chef, Paul Prudhomme. You can read more about it at CajunCulture.com
- Our food isn’t insanely spicy. Most dishes just have a nice little kick.
- We call it "rice dressing" not dirty rice
- We call them "crawfish" not crayfish or crawdads
- Emerile’s food & cooking style does not accurately portray Cajun cooking. As a matter of fact, as Murph points out, Emerile was born in Massachusettes. Justin Wilson and John Folse do a better job.
- We don’t take pirogues to school or work. Come on, people! Only our parents do
- We don’t have pet alligators. Though sometimes we do stop off in Cameron Parish and see if we can find dinner in a lil canal.
- We are not Creole. Many people disagree on the definition but I was initially taught that Creoles are black folk living in Southern Louisiana.
Here are other things you may enjoy knowing:
- In addition to lots of beef, pork and poultry, we also eat crawfish, shrimp, alligator, rabbit, frogs, oysters and duck. I also ate squirrel growing up but I don’t know how traditional that is. Edit: Ken Wheaton says that eating squirrel is very traditional and that "Ville Platte and those areas practically shut down the first day of squirrel season."
- We eat breakfast in the morning, dinner at noon and supper in the evening.
- Most of our parents and grandparents spoke Cajun French as their primary language but most of my generation does not even speak it as a second language
You can read more about this in the book Cajuns: Americanizations of a People. - High school dances played Cajun music alongside rap, country and pop. Most of my friends know how to Cajun dance. I was too shy to learn even though I had ample opportunity. My mom is a wonderful dancer.
- Many people in my small Cajun town pass a good time drinking Miller Lite, eating Jack Miller’s BBQ hamburgers and playing softball. Most of them are also Roman Catholic.
- We like our coffee strong and black. Many Cajuns drink Community Coffee and Mello Joy.
- We don’t have many Starbucks. CC’s Coffee (CC is for Community Coffee) is a cafe similar in style and is very popular in SW Louisiana.
- WikiPedia.org has a great writeup of Cajun Cusine.
- We have parishes, not counties. I used to be jealous of other states that had counties. haha.
- We used to be able to buy (but not drink;) alcohol at 18. Then the federal government decided they’d withhold funds for roads if we didn’t up the buying age to 21. Cajuns love to drink and thus, were very disappointed. "I can serve my country but not be served beer?!"
- We say "sha" but its spelled "cher." I’ve grown up saying it two ways .. kids call cute things cher. "Aww cher, this puppy is sooo cute!" while our grandmas and "taunts" call us cher. "Come, sha, give maw-maw a kiss."
Fellow Cajuns, feel free to chime in and let me know if there’s anything you’d like people to know. I’ll add it on to this post.
13 Comments so far
Leave a reply
“We do not eat blackened anything”THANK YOU!!! That’s what I keep telling these yay-hoos in North Carolina!! That, and they think Cajun food has to be seriously offensively spicey, even Copelands up here over-spices!! My MIL is from Napoleonville, and she cooks the best seafood gumbo at christmas time. Lent is always a favorite time of year too, because I know I’m going to get her shrimp or catfish for dinner on Friday nights!CC’s! You know what is really maddening about being out of Louisiana? Cafe Au-Lait somehow becomes latte. there is one place in Charlotte that is owned by guys from Mississippi who know how to make real Au-Lait and beignets, but we dont get to go very often. they also make a decent etoufee,on the downside their trinity is in huge chunks, but overall its a pretty good restaurant.I’m happy to see your blogging again BTW!! I love your site!
Amen, sister. I have to say, I’d consider squirrel fairly traditional. In fact, it might be more traditional than crawfish as Cajuns were probably eating it before they started fooling with crawfish (crawfish becoming really, really popular I believe, only after rice farmers figured out it was a good way to used their paddies). Hell, Ville Platte and those areas practically shut down the first day of squirrel season.Oh, and I met Jack Miller III AND went to high school with Tony Chachere’s grandkids. How hot is that.God, I’d kill for a Jack Miller covered hamburger right now.
Thanks all around! My family is from Plaisance and I am from Lafayette and one of my biggest pet peeves is how everyone outside of the state thinks we all take pirogue’s to work and such. UGH!Great post - I’ll have to visit your site more often.
Tell them Emeril isn’t even from Louisiana (I think he’s from Massachusetts).It may also be worth clarifying the difference between Cajun and Creole, since lots of people out in L.A. think they’re the same thing.
That last comment was from me.
I agree with all you wrote. I’ve said it all myself in various articles. I appreciate you putting it all in one.Here’s one article on the Cajun thing: http://mostlycajun.com/wordpress/index.php?p=482I love your blog and hope you get back into it regularly…
hey I’m creole - but with a lotta influences from y’all - my family’s from Houma. I found this page reasearching Louisiana culture - and i spent an hour lookin around - very nice, tugs at my heart. I live in Seattle and crave anything that reminds me of home. Glad u cleared up some things too… like the thing about “blackened” - somebody made me some blackened food and start hollerin bout thats cajun. I said no chile that ain’t no cajun, you just don’t know how to cook. just burn up everything! *I grew up sayin dirty rice - but then.. i ain’t cajun! N then what else… oh the word “taunt” we said that too.. but also Tee-Tee?? Has anyone ever heard that said in reference to your Aunt-T? how u said.. come give ya mawmaw a kiss.. i remember bein told come give ya tee-tee some suga. Okayyyy i’ll go away now. just wonderin where that came from… cuz i never heard it said nowhere else.
Monique,Have you ever heard of a writer named Tim Gautreaux?his Amazon.com link is: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/102-9084834-8448906His best books are “Same Places, same things”, and “Welding with children”, both are a series of short stories. He writes mostly about anything from Washington Parish Gravel truck drivers to River tugs to elderly Italian tomato farmers from Metarie to a story about a couple struggling to survive a trip from los angeles back to their hometown of Tiger Island. He is sometimes very gritty and grim, and his stories can range from the presnt to the early 1920’s, but he paints a very vivid picture of Southern Louisiana that will make you smile.
While Cajun is a clear ethnicity, Creole is a lot less clear. It originally referred to Europeans (therefore white) born in the colonies. It’s also a linguistic term referring to the language that grows out of a pidgin when two cultures collide.Wikipedia has a brief entry on Louisiana creoles on this pagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole
Thank you all for your comments! :)haha Monique, we usually call boys “Tee”. Like “T-boy” “T-mut” “T-glenn”. hahah and my grandma also said “COME GIMME SOME SUGA!”Ken, www.creoleinc.com has some good stuff too.
me too me too! I got an uncle called T-boy… matter of fact.. I’m not exactly sure what his REAL name is lolthanks for the links guys…
EVERYBODY had an uncle or a cousin named “T-Boy”. I understood it to come from a contraction of the Cajun for “little” (petite) boy.
Put me down for another Cajun that loves to eat squirrel. And rabbit too! As a matter of fact, I like squirrel more than I do venison. The last time I visited my dad on Forked Island, I ate me a big plate of squirrel gumbo!You should see all these Yankees up here in “D.C” celebrate Mardi Gras. They look so foolish walking around drunk, with a bunch of beads hanging off their necks, thier party hats, beer in a starbucks cup, while eating “creole wings” - hot wings with tons of spice on them. Your site is very interesting and makes me wish I was back “home.”