An Open Letter to Sonic Drive-In
A Cajun friend and I were talking about how much we dislike being known for cooking "blackened" food even though neither of us have ever made it or even eaten it. After our conversation, I was prompted to write to Sonic Drive-In which just introduced a new "Cajun" burger. The burger sports, among other things, pepperjack cheese and blackened chicken. Boo, I say.
To Whom it May Concern,I’m a displaced Cajun living in Los Angeles. I grew up in Kaplan, Louisiana, often called the “Gateway to [Acadiana].”While I love your food and even drive with my friends in Anaheim to eat it on special occasions, I wanted to share my concerns about your new “Cajun burger.”
The first time I saw this Cajun burger, I was actually visiting home and was at the Kaplan Sonic Drive-in. I wondered what was in it but ordered my usual. Today I was talking to another Cajun friend about how our culture is misrepresented in the media and he brought up your new television (or was it radio?) commercial. He said the actor in the Sonic commercial felt like she was on a roadtrip to New Orleans when she eats this Cajun burger. He also mentioned how your commercial emphasizes that your burgers are blackened.
Any Cajun who watches this commercial will turn up his or her nose. First, New Orleans is not in Cajun Country. Cajun Country, or Acadiana, is a 22 parish region across South Louisiana. Baton Rouge doesn’t even make the cut, much less New Orleans. Second, none of us eat blackened food. The blackening technique was invented by Cajun Chef Paul Prudhomme in the mid-1980s but it’s nothing we cook at home. Your website also states “Whatever Cajun tastes like, the Cajun Chicken Sandwich has it.” We Cajuns take our food seriously and your burger, while it may be delicious, is not Cajun. If Cajun were to taste anything, it would probably taste like roux and that’s not an ingredient I see listed on your website.
Sonic has made its way into our culture and I’d even say that I’m reminded of Kaplan when I drive the 45-minute trek to the Anaheim Sonic Drive-in. We Cajuns are well aware of your brand but do not appreciate the harm you do by continuing to tell the world that we burn our food and live in New Orleans. We take pride in our cooking and your burger does not represent any part of it. If you do not retract your commercials around America, you should at least consider taking it off of the air in Southwest Louisiana – some people are offended while others are laughing. Either way, it’s not good publicity.
Thank you for your time.
Chrissy LeMaire
Co-creator, www.RealCajunRecipes.com
Sonic is, and will remain, one of my favorite fast food restaurants. I really hope they consider my letter!
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Bravo!I live as a Southern Louisianan vicariously thru my Cajun wife and her family, and couldnt agree with you more. I too love Sonic, but am irritated when restaurants feel that “Cajun food” have to be prepared not only with the most offensive spices found on the planet, but with a hefty dose of napalm. Do you mind if I cut and paste parts of your letter into something like yours so I can send it to sonic as well?
I’d love if you would, Steve! I couldn’t find any contact information on their website so sent it to soniccorphr@sonicdrivin.com and asked them to forward it on but I may call them to find a more accurate email..they still haven’t responded :/Chrissy
Oh Chrissy,You’re breaking my heart. Half of my first year in college was spent battling this sort of foolishness in our college cafeteria, where they served “gumbo” that contained a) no roux and b) corn. Hell, they put okra in tomato soup and suddenly it’s gumbo.Jerks.
hahah I HATE GUMBO WITH CORN! And then some have peas..its a vegetable soup medley and they call it gumbo. It drives me crazy!And then there’s the new Pasta Jambalaya going around. Nastee. They do the same thing to Chinese food too.. I told my girlfriend “Dammit, they throw in Cayenne and call it Cajun” and she said “Yep, just like they throw in soy sauce and call it Chinese.”
I tell you what, for all the “local flavor” Copelands is supposed to have, you can tell a bunch of yayhoos from North cack-a-Lackee cook for them here! I have never eaten anything quite as hot as their Crawfish etoufee!! I drank TWELVE cokes with my dinner, and that was after I cleared off the layer of cayenne they had spread across the top of my food! Absolutely horrible. I would have done better with my German mother trying to make etoufee.
my wife is carlene lemaire from gueydan area, she has a several uncles in kaplan, any kin?
I am a cajun from Richard, LA now living in Santa Fe, Tx near Houston. What is it with these people saying they are cooking cajun and using these different spices? When I was growing up all we used was salt and pepper, black and red. Now these restaurants are bragging about their “Cajun “dishes that I never heard of. Anything around here that is full of red pepper is called Cajun. These people do not know anything about Cajuns. People from New Orleans are not Cajuns but in Texas everyone from LA is considered a Cajun. I’m glad you sent Sonic a letter, if more of us would object to the many restaurants who try and use the Cajun name and have no idea who we really are, then maybe we could get the word around. I am proud to be a Cajun and try to buy as many Cajun cookbooks as I can. I will be ordering one from you very soon. I ordered one from Lucy Zaunbrecher, I really enjoyed that one because its the same dishes my mom would cook. My Mom died when I was young so I had forgotten some of the dishes that she would cook and Miss Lucy’s recipes remined me of them . Thank you for your website. I just found it today.
I was born and raised in Orange Texas, spent a lot of teen age years in Vinton, Starks, Sulphur, Breau Bridge, ect. so I think i know what a Cajun is or is not. Refuting Shirley Matte Hollier every one in Texas does not think that every one from LA is Cajun. In fact Northern LA residents don’t know what a Cajun is..I agree on the Sonic issues, have you noticed that their burgers look nothing like the ones in their posters. Oh the blakened food was a way of salvaging burnt food that should be feed to the gators. Keep your web site CAJUN.AL
Chrissy, you are 100% correct. I manage a SONIC and was totally unhappy with thier decision to call this a “Cajun Burger”. Myself along with other managers complained and prayed that they would not bring that burger back and if they ever wanted to place the Cajun name on something it better have Crawfish (from Louisiana), roux, or gumbo as part of its ingredients. Thanks for caring and Yes I can admit that Sonic was wrong. Thanks, Larry
OOOH! This is one of those issues that get’s me highly upset! I was born in Kaplan, and lived in Abbeville, Iowa, Vinton, Toomey, and Cameron. Right now I live in Northern Virginia area - a surburb of Washington D.C. and let me tell you, they don’t have a clue about what “Cajun Food” really is. Up here they put out red hot, spicey chicken and call it “cajun chicken”, or you step up to the “cajun buffet” (owned by Chinese mind you), and there in the window is “cajun squid’! My wife is from Michigan and cannot understand why I get so upset when we pass an establishment that passes itself off as “Cajun.” There is a Copelands up here somewhere, but havn’t been there yet. I would rather eat mexican food than eat at a fake “cajun” place. Or just wait for my mom to come visit me and bring me some links of boudin.And I agree that New Orleans ain’t cajun and might as well be in another state. To me, anything east of the Atchafalaya should be considered Mississippi, and anything North of I-10 is Yankee.Anybody else agree?
I say… Cajuns of the world UNITE! we ought to band together and boycott these companies that make $Billions off of raping and exploiting our heritage to the point that the rest of the world doesn’t really know how real Cajun food taste, and when you do actually take time out and make a home-cooked meal for them they say things like “well this doesn’t look or taste like from ” here is one of my rantings: http://news.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=m&board=37138456&tid=apvermontlabel&sid=37138456&mid=143And how about Mr Emeril “Bam BAM” Lagasse? Now don’t get me wrong, I do like Emeril and some of the dishes he makes, but in all honesty, he IS NOT a Cajun. He in fact is a YANKEE!!! http://www.emerils.com/emeril/biography.htmlNow for Justin Wilson, that man has had my admiration and respect from the time i was just a kid. He showed people how Cajuns are. He cooked authentic Cajun food. I doubt if anyone will ever be able to be put in the same category as him. A Cajun, a Legend… http://www.justinwilson.com/
i say a miss lucy show and she had made a fruit salad. i can’t seem to find the recipe. could you please email the recipe. i think the show was in january, but i don’t remember the date. thank you’ betty babineaux email address: bj1944@cox.net
Sure, I’m a couple years late with this reply, but here goes. “Acadiana” does not refer to a 22-parish area in southwest Louisiana. It refers to a 22-parish area in south Louisiana, including the southeast parishes Terrebonne and Lafourche.
…and for Henry Gayneaux, no, I do not agree. I live in Terrebonne Parish, east of the Atchafalaya, and I don’t live in Mississippi. We’re just as Cajun as the southwest and we plan on keeping it that way. Just because we don’t live within a 50-mile radius of CODOFIL doesn’t make us any less Cajun than the rest of Acadiana.
Paul Prudhomme is from Lafayette. I think that is Cajun, is it not. He inventd the Blackened Redfish dish and it became popular across the country. Unfortunately the rendition of this dish by other chefs is to load the darn thing with Cayenne. Cajun cooking uses a lot of Cayenne, (my grandmother was Cajun), but the lengths other chefs went to to recreate the dish were rediculous and inedible.
I was born in and have lived my whole life in La.–New Orleans–we in N.O. consider our food to be Creole, not Cajun.
Talk about ruining good food, have you ever tried the red beans at the Black eyed pea? They are ugly purple things.