Become a Cajun Food Connoisseur: Roux, Gumbo and More

A Cajun food connoisseur can explain what Creole means too. The two cuisines share a French inheritance and a Louisiana kitchen, yet they feel different on the plate. Mosey has a Cajun and Creole badge that counts the different places you have rated, which is a good excuse to compare them.

What does a Cajun food connoisseur know?

Start with the basic split. Both cuisines draw on French cooking adapted to Louisiana's ingredients, and Creole is stereotypically seen as city food while Cajun is seen as simpler country food. Creole originally described the population of French colonial Louisiana, descended from the French and Spanish, and the term later widened to include Acadians, Germans, Caribbeans, people of African descent and people of mixed ancestry.

The cuisine blends French, Spanish, West African, Native American and Caribbean influences. Red beans, for example, arrived with white French Creoles who fled the Haitian Revolution.

What is the Cajun and Creole difference in cooking?

Roux is central to both and was inherited from the French. It is equal parts fat and flour cooked on the stove until it reaches a set level of brownness. A Creole roux in New Orleans is typically lighter, made with butter or bacon fat, while a Cajun roux is generally darker. Light roux suits seafood, medium roux is the most versatile in the New Orleans area, and dark roux suits chicken, sausage, crawfish or alligator. A dark roux takes fifteen to forty-five minutes of constant stirring and burns easily.

The other pillar is the holy trinity: bell pepper, onion and celery, used together as a flavor base. Spot it and you have found the start of most dishes.

What are gumbo, jambalaya and etouffee?

• Gumbo is the quintessential stew-like soup of Louisiana, with roux as its backbone. The name comes from the French word for okra, which originated in West African languages. Okra thickens gumbo but is no longer required, and file, ground sassafras leaves, is an alternative whose use was borrowed from the Choctaw. Tradition says seafood gumbo is more common in summer and chicken or game gumbo in winter.
• Jambalaya is rice with meat or seafood and often peppers, onions, celery and tomatoes. Its origins include West African jollof, Spanish paella and the Provencal dish jambalaia.
• Etouffee is a smothering method, cooking over low heat with small amounts of water or stock, often with crawfish or shrimp.

Ask which roux the kitchen uses, and you will usually get a good answer.

How do you order Cajun and Creole food with confidence?

Ask what the base is. A gumbo, a jambalaya and an etouffee can all begin with the same vegetables, and the roux, the rice and the seafood or meat are where kitchens differ. Ask whether the gumbo is thickened with okra or file, and whether the roux is light, medium or dark. Seasonal advice is worth following: tradition says seafood gumbo suits summer and chicken or game gumbo suits winter.

Tell the server about any shellfish or other allergies before you order, since many dishes in this cuisine contain shellfish, and ask the place directly instead of relying on a tag.

What should you write in a Cajun or Creole rating?

Describe the roux by color and flavor, the heat, and how the rice was cooked. Say whether the dish felt like city food or country food to you; it will make you think harder about the difference, and your rating teaches the next diner what to expect.

How do you rate Cajun and Creole places on Mosey?

Cajun and Creole is a single cuisine family on Mosey, with four levels at five, ten, twenty and fifty different places: Sampler, Taster, Expert and Connoisseur. A level is never taken away, and repeat visits to one place count once.

A comparison plan:

1. Rate a gumbo and note whether the roux looked light or dark.
2. Rate a jambalaya and a rice dish with seafood.
3. Rate an etouffee, saying what it was smothered with.
4. Add the Cajun and Creole tag, and mention if a place leaned city or country.

A badge is not a prize. It appears beside your name on a rating, a clue that you have rated five or more different places of the same kind.

Why does comparing Cajun and Creole help?

The best way to understand a difference is to taste it twice. Eat one gumbo with a light roux and one with a dark roux in the same month, and write down what changed. Eat a jambalaya and then an etouffee, and notice how the rice sits in one and under the other. Your own comparison will teach you more than any definition.

Lists and friends for a regional cuisine

Mosey is a food app for finding, rating and sharing places to eat, and it is free for a place to list. There are no hidden fees and the tools are affordable, which helps the small kitchens that keep this food alive. Rating by the dish helps them most.

Create a list called "Roux, light to dark" and add a note on each entry. Invite a friend who has a family gumbo recipe to add theirs, tag the people you ate with, and follow people whose taste you trust.

The guide to Creole versus Cajun food and gumbo in New Orleans is a natural companion, along with gumbo on Holy Thursday. The food badges page explains the levels, and the US food guides list more.

To start another ladder, try Italian food region by region.

Get the Mosey app, rate your next gumbo by the dish and add the Cajun and Creole tag, then see how many different kitchens you can compare.