Cajun cooking.

Cajuns migrated from southern France to Nova Scotia whence they were kicked out by the British, moving to French Louisiana. This was before Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, buying Louisiana and a bunch of other states from Napoleon. Nappy promptly wasted the proceeds on his disastrous invasion of Russia.

Paul Prudhomme (1940-2015) was a Louisiana born chef, the youngest of thirteen (!) children, who learned cooking from his mother. The home had no refrigerator so everything was sourced daily from the surrounding land. He remains the dean of French influenced Cajun cooking, and of its Creole cousin with its more African focus.

Cajun cooking has a strong focus on chicken, shrimp and fish, and both the classic ‘Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen‘ (Cajun and Creole) and ‘Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Seasoned America‘ (countrywide American dishes) make extensive use of spices, often as many as nine or more. So probably ill suited to bland English palates. The books were published in 1984 and 1991 and, rightly, remain in print. Invest in these and your spice drawer will grow. Mine comes in at no fewer than 68.

Prudhomme opened his famous restaurant K Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in 1979 (now closed) and I was fortunate to dine there, in beautiful New Orleans, in 1982, enjoying a still memorable seafood and Andouille sausage gumbo with a Cajun Martini*. The line was out around the corner and I was accompanied by my girlfriend of the time, appropriately a Southern beauty and native of nearby Mobile, Alabama. As we waited behind a couple of cops, she got into conversation with one and they discovered that they has been high school classmates some 20 years ago!

Anyway, if you like properly and subtly spiced food in Cajun and American styles these two books are strongly recommended. Clearly Louisiana natives have abundant time on their hands as some of these recipes are anything but speedy. No problem for this retired old fart. Be warned that the layout is dated – solid text interleaved with (beautifully photographed) color plates – maybe just 5% of the recipes illustrated. From a health standpoint our understanding of saturated fats and their artery clogging proclivities is far better than it was when these tomes were written, so I would advise cutting back on processed Andouille sausage, and replacing margarine (ugh!), butter and vegetable oil with extra virgin olive oil, in the interest of heart health. Also the recipes frustratingly use volume (cups) instead of weight, though that is easily fixed with the knowledge that 1 cup = 8 ounces.

Tip: Unless you like your books splattered with food, juices and oils, no cookbook should ever see the inside of a kitchen. Take a picture with your cell phone, print and annotate the result and it’s off to the stove.

A word of warning: A few of the recipes call for warming up your pan until it is smoking hot, adding the fish or chicken and then immediately adding butter. That’s a prescription for fire. In a large, professional kitchen with large, vented hoods that’s likely not an issue. However, in the tighter confines of a home kitchen you could be looking at a visit from the fire brigade. I avoid those recipes.

*Soak coined jalapeno peppers in dry/white vermouth for a week, strain and add vodka. Liquid fire.