Recipes
Here are a few authentic Cajun recipes, taken from family collections and early local cookbooks from around the Bayou Teche area. These recipes were gathered before Cajun food became fashionable and commercialized. As someone who grew up eating home cooked food in the heart of Acadiana, they are the real thing.
Main Dishes
Vegetables
Desserts
Lagniappe
Lagniappe is a French word commonly used in South Louisiana to signify the giving of “something extra. My mother owned a grocery store, and she frequently gave lagniappe (pronounce lan-yap) to her customers in the form of an extra amount of whatever they were purchasing. Sometimes she gave out penny candy to the children of her customers as lagniappe.
Thus, this section contains a few extra odds and ends: recipes, cooking techniques and stories to complete this recipe page. All of the above recipes are unique in that they were found in cookbooks written before the year 2000. Some of the following recipes were the unsung but delicious foods enjoyed in everyday life by the typical Cajun family.
From the author: There are many traditional Cajun recipes not included here, especially if they require special equipment or ingredients, are too complicated, or are best cooked out of doors in the open air.
But the recipes for these dishes, such as dirty rice, boudin, boiled crawfish, hogs head cheese and cracklings are certainly available. Join our community and ask for the recipe. If I don’t have it, maybe someone else will!
Happy cooking!
Melanie Durand Grossman
Music and Dancing
Like food, Cajun music and dancing, are part of the glue that holds the distinct Cajun Culture together. People of all ages and backgrounds gather together to listen to music and dance. The two step is easy to learn, and the band is happy to play anywhere: outdoors, in a barn. On a front porch or in a bar, Best of all, you don’t have to know a person to ask them to dance. People just grab a partner and
start dancing to the irresistible beat of the music.
