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The so-called "Cajun food craze" that Paul Prudhomme inadvertently
launched in the early-to-mid '80s when his nouvelle technique of
blackening redfish caught on ended up creating a lot of
misconceptions about Cajun food. What we ended up with, all over the
country, was a glut of so-called "Cajun restaurants" run by
non-Cajuns who had no idea what they were doing, and who served food
that actual Cajuns wouldn't eat if their lives depended on it. I once
stormed out of a so-called "Cajun restaurant" that had opened in West
Hollywood, with out paying for my uneaten and decidedly inedible
meal, which included a "gumboquot; that compared poorly to Chef
Boyardee's ABC soup.

As I mentioned earlier, blackening is NOT a Cajun technique, as its
inventor Chef Prudhomme freely states. It is a nouvelle American
technique developed by a Chef who is Cajun, and it was popularized at
his Cajun restaurant, but almost nobody does that kind of thing at
home ++ the technique produces so much smoke that you need a
professional kitchen with an exhaust hood, or you need to do it
outdoors. What characterizes true, down-home country Cajun food are
fresh ingredients, locally obtained ++ lots of local seafood and
vegetables++ and almost always cooked in one pot. For most Cajun
meals, even if it's for 50 people, you'll generally see one big pot
with the main dish and one pot of rice. But this is not to say that
Cajun food isn't changing. Brilliant, innovative Acadiana chefs like
John Folse, Patrick Mould, James Graham and others are bringing in
other ingredients, techniques, and sophisticated sauces into
contemporary Cajun cuisine. They're creating marvelous flavors, and
they're not encasing their food in hot pepper either! So before you
enter a Cajun restaurant somewhere out of Louisiana, check and see if
there's someone from Louisiana in the kitchen. If there is, you're
probably OK! Article Copyright 1995 Charles E. Taggart

Submitted By SAM LEFKOWITZ On 08-12-95

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