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Cajun Cuisine: Authentic Cajun Recipes from Louisiana's Bayou Country |  | Creator: W. Thomas Angers
Publisher: Beau Bayou Publishing Company
Category: Book
List Price: $22.50
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Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 321183
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 7.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 0935619003
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.59763
EAN: 9780935619003
ASIN: 0935619003
Publication Date: October 1, 1985
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
The magic and mystique behind Lousiana's Cajun (or Acadian) cuisine are completely revealed in this collection of recipes from the heart of Cajun Country: the bayous of southern Lousiana. In her introduction to Cajun Cuisine, third-generation Acadian Marie Louise Comeaux Manuel writes, "Acadian (Cajun) Cuisine is a recipe in itself. For ingredients, take the classical French cuisine, combine it with Spanish classical cuisine, blend well, take herbs and spices from France and Spain and sometimes couple with seasoning learned from the Choctaws and Chickasaws. Then be sure to add the ingenuity, the creativity and the keen taste of the refugee Acadians.... Now, add the exotic taste and magic seasoning of the African cook. Voila! This is Acadian cuisine." The differences between Cajun and Creole cuisines are explained (the Creole cuisine of New Orleans is fattier and more highly seasoned), then the home cook is treated to more than 200 recipes, from breakfast to dessert, designed to bring forth the bayou.Favorites such as fried okra and Maque Choux are represented, as well as 11 different gumbos (even one with squirrel!) and seven recipes for Jambalaya. There's a recipe for Alligator Stew, plus two ways to prepare frog legs, and the book closes with a generous dessert section, which naturally includes Pecan Pralines and Tarte á la Bouillie, a classic Cajun custard pie. The recipes are simple and straightforward and have clearly been tested in homes for the past couple of centuries--no processors or microwaves need apply; all you need is a sharp knife and a big iron pan. Put some Zydeco music on the stereo, fry up some oysters, and let the good times roll!
Product Description
Cajun Cuisine is a carefully selected compilation of totally authentic cajun recipes screened by several career cajun home economists for authenticity and quality. It was compiled by W. Thomas Angers, a member of a second generation Louisiana publishing family. The introduction was written by Marie Louise Comeaux, the worlds leading authority on cajun cuisine, and contains critical information on the origins and component parts of authentic cajun food. The title includes Louisiana classics including gumbos, jambalayas, bisques, fricassees, etoufees, sauce piquantes, wild game, seafood and much more. An extraordinary effort was made to identify and publish truly authentic and tasty cajun recipes so the world would know the real thing.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
 Not impressed February 16, 2010
Richard E. Polous Jr. (Apachicola Florida)
I no longer live in Louisiana; I have cooked Cajun and Creole All my life, the recipes in Cajun Cuisine, are simple and quick to prepare, Cajun yes, Cuisine no! School lunch program maybe. However this is my personal opinion!
The best authority on Cajun cooking I have found, was Tony's Cajun Country Cookbook, I've had mine for over 30 years.
 houston, tx December 14, 2008
cook book collector (houston tx)
i think this cook is great! the corn and shrimp soup is amazing..the only thing i would have to say is the cook book would be a little better if it gave exact measurements on how much spices to put in the recipie ( i am more of a beginner cook)..but the recipies come out great!
 CAJUN CUISINE April 14, 2008
Delia J. Anderson (New Orleans, La.)
I live in New Orleans, La., and lost ALL my cookbooks (and everything else) as a result of Hurricane Katrina. I purchased Cajun Cuisine and I have tried several recipes - I am very pleased with it.
Excellent Reference to Basic Cajun Recipes. Buy It. February 3, 2007
B. Marold (Bethlehem, PA United States)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
`Cajun Cuisine', published by the very local Louisiana publishing house, Beau Bayou Publishing Company, and with no clearly discernible author, may be the publishing analogue to what in the culinary world is called `rustic' or in the pharmaceutical world, `generic'. Aside from a fairly nicely composed cover photograph of all sorts of raw and prepared Louisiana victuals, there are no frills and only one `pretension', in the form of a semi-scholarly introductory essay on `Arcadian (Cajun) Cuisine' by the retired Director, School of Home Economics, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Marie Louise Comeaux Manual. While this author's credentials are `academic', her essay is not terribly scholarly, as it is poorly written. It does, however, do a decent job of adding some material to our understanding of `Cajun' cooking.
Most foodies know that there is a `Cajun' and a `Creole' cuisine, which seem to coexist in and around Louisiana, centered in New Orleans. The problem is that I suspect few food enthusiasts who have not studied the matter can make a clear statement of the difference between the two. It seems as if the classic dishes of the area such as gumbo and jambalaya, as well as a foundation in French cooking techniques are claimed by both heritages.
According to the `Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink', the two cuisines are very similar, and the main distinctions that source can make between the two is that `Creole' is an urban cuisine originating with the earliest Spanish settlers from the 17th century and that `Cajun' (from Arcadian), is a rural cuisine deriving from the French émigrés from Nova Scotia in the late 18th century, after being kicked out by the English following the French and Indian Wars (That little opening act for the American Revolution). And, while both cuisines claim gumbo and jambalaya, etouffee and its principle ingredient, crawfish, seems to be distinctly `Cajun'. A second culinary difference is the greater extent of French influence from Arcadia, a purely French colony. This influence can be seen in the fact that Cajun cooking values balanced, but varied seasoning. It's `signature' cooking technique is braising, which is straight out of the French provincial cooking playbook. This is ironic because `Cajun' cuisine is often associated with very spicy foods; however, much of this `heat' was probably added a scant 25 years ago by the famous Paul Prudhomme of New Orleans, who, I believe, virtually invented the `blackened' cooking technique, most famous with `blackened catfish'.
But getting back to this book, my initially cool impression made by the somewhat pretentious introduction was redeemed when I started looking at the recipes. All the recipes are written in a very economical style, with crisp ingredients lists and matter of fact descriptions of procedure. The writing is not the minimalist sparse writing of Elizabeth David in `A Book of Mediterranean Food', but it has few if any `trucs', tips, hints, sidebars, or other accroutremonts of modern cookbook writing. And, it has none of the scholarly observations on origins or variations also found in Ms. David's works. For an experienced cook, this may be a very good thing. It means we have `just the facts, ma'm'. So, an experieced cook can be on their way to reproducing the dishes and fill in the extras where needed. One place a modern cook will especially wish to fill in is in replacing `oleo' with either real butter or a less saturated vegetable oil. In the mid-1980's, we had not heard all the dangers of trans-fats, commonly found in common margerine (oleomargerine).
One advantage of the sparse recipe writing style is that the slim 222 page book can contain a very healthy number of recipes, probably numbering close to 250, if you include the supplementary recipes for dressings, sauces, and condiments. And, this healthy number of recipes seems to cover the full range of `Cajun' specialities. The very best thing is that those classic dishes such as gumbo, jambalaya, and etouffee are represented by several variations. From there, it goes all the way from fried oysters to boudon to beignets. I did find some famous preparations missing, such as coffee with chicory, `poor boy' sandwiches, and `mouffelata' (sic) sandwiches, but as none of these are `cooked' dishes, I'll not feel cheated.
One thing I like about a cookbook with a lot of recipes for dressings and sauces and condiments is that it adds a great source of information on which one can improvise (See Sally Schneider's new `the improvisational cook'). This book is the perfect source for making a few dishes, then striking out on your own in making `Cajun' style dishes without having to resort to Monsieur Prudhomme or Monsieur Lagasse.
The book was very nicely organized and will stand up to some serious stints in the kitchen. I was also very happy to see tables of contents with all recipes listed at the beginning of each chapter. This is something all cookbooks (other than the monster references) should have. The ony annoyance is that the recipes were not printed in the order they appeared in the table of contents. I have no clue why they were different.
But, for a very reasonable list price, we have here an excellent source of basic, authentic `Cajun' recipes with all the essentials and none of the frills.
A great beginning Cajun cookbook. December 12, 2005
Megan Romer (Ithaca, NY)
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
It's hard to learn to cook Cajun food from a cookbook; the food traditions of the Cajuns of Southwest Louisiana have been passed down orally for 400 years, and only in the "Cajun Cuisine" craze of the late '80s-early '90s did Cajun cookbooks really start to become popular.
These recipes are stripped down to the bare basics, because that's how Cajuns do it. Cajuns don't customarily use Emeril's Essence (remember, Emeril is from Boston) or carefully measured spices. It's a dash of this, a dash of that, until it tastes right. Don't make it too spicy; you can add your hot sauce later. You will never be able to make authentic-tasting Cajun food if you follow a recipe to a T.... that's not how it's done! You also need to learn how to modify recipes to suit your tastes... if you don't like file' powder, don't add it (many Cajun cooks don't add file' to anything, some put it on the table for you to sprinkle in yourself, some use it heavily). If you don't like okra, don't use it! Again, not all Cajun cooks do (although in response to the reviewer below, when Cajuns do use okra in gumbo, it is always sliced, and it is always slimy. Some people like it that way.)
This book provides excellent framework-style recipes for you to do what you want with. If you want to add tomatoes, go ahead! No one's stopping you! If you want to pour in a half gallon of Tabasco, feel free! If that's how you like it, that's how you like it. If you want to make your roux with butter (or oil or lard or bacon grease) do it that way! It won't change anything important, the recipe will still be fine. That's the beauty of Cajun food.
In response to the other reviewer who complained about a lack of pictures, the reality is that Cajun food is not as pretty as New Orleans food, and therefore doesn't make for terribly appealing photos. Gumbo looks like brownish-gray glop, but it tastes like heaven. That's just the way it is. If they'd included pictures, the sauces piquantes, the gumbos, the stews, the fricasees and the etouffees would've all looked the same, and how much would that have really helped? Plus, the drawings that are included in lieu of pictures are really adorable.
Get this book, and don't be scared to experiment with it! That's what it's all about!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
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