Creole vs Cajun food, and gumbo, explained for New Orleans visitors

Creole and Cajun food both come from Louisiana and share a lot of ingredients, but they have different roots. Creole cooking is the city food of New Orleans, shaped by French, Spanish, African and Caribbean cooks, and it often uses tomatoes, seafood and butter. Cajun cooking is the country food of rural south Louisiana, developed by the Acadians, French-speaking settlers who arrived from what is now eastern Canada, and it leans on dark roux, pork, sausage and crawfish.

What is Creole food?

Creole food grew up in New Orleans itself, a port city where French and Spanish colonists, enslaved and free Africans, Caribbean islanders and later Italian and German immigrants all cooked in the same kitchens. It is often called city food. It had access to imported goods and a wide range of seafood, and it borrowed from all of those traditions: rich sauces from France, tomatoes and peppers from Spain and the Caribbean, okra and cooking techniques from West Africa.

On Creole menus, look for tomato-based seafood dishes, seafood gumbo with okra, and plenty of shrimp, oysters and crab.

What is Cajun food?

Cajun food comes from the Acadians, French-speaking exiles from Acadia in eastern Canada who settled in rural south Louisiana. Their cooking is often called country food: practical, hearty one-pot cooking built around what could be raised, hunted, trapped or fished. That means smoked pork and sausages such as andouille, game, rice, and freshwater seafood, especially crawfish.

On Cajun menus, look for dark-roux chicken and sausage gumbo, dishes built on pork and andouille, and crawfish in every form, from boils to etouffee.

How do you tell Creole and Cajun dishes apart?

Clue	Usually Creole	Usually Cajun
Tomatoes	Often included	Rarely included
Roux	Lighter, blond to medium brown	Darker, cooked to a deep brown
Protein	Shrimp, oysters, crab	Pork, sausage, game, crawfish
Setting	New Orleans, the city	Rural south Louisiana

These are tendencies, not laws. Cooks in Louisiana have been borrowing from each other for generations, and plenty of New Orleans restaurants serve both.

What is the holy trinity?

The holy trinity is the base of many Creole and Cajun dishes: chopped onion, celery and green bell pepper, cooked together at the start. It plays the same role that onion, carrot and celery play in French cooking, and once you know to look for it you will taste it in gumbo, jambalaya and etouffee alike.

When did gumbo become a New Orleans staple?

Gumbo took shape in colonial Louisiana in the 1700s, in kitchens where enslaved African cooks and French cooks worked side by side, and written mentions of it appear in the 1800s. By the 1830s it was a fixture of Creole cooking in New Orleans, in seafood, chicken and andouille, and Lenten greens versions much like the ones served today. That long history is why almost every family and every restaurant in the city has its own version, and why arguments about the right roux, or whether tomatoes belong in it, never end.

What is gumbo?

Gumbo is a thick soup or stew of a strongly flavored stock, meat or shellfish, the holy trinity, and a thickener, served over rice. It is Louisiana's best-known dish and a good way to understand the whole cuisine, because it brings the different traditions into one pot: okra from West Africa, file (powdered sassafras leaves) from the Choctaw, and roux from French cooking. Even the word gumbo is believed to come from West African words for okra.

What are the main kinds of gumbo?

• Seafood gumbo, made with some mix of shrimp, crab, oysters and crawfish, and more often thickened with okra. A typical Creole style.
• Chicken and andouille gumbo, made with chicken and smoked sausage, often with a dark roux and more often thickened with file. A typical Cajun style.
• Gumbo z'herbes, a gumbo made with a large variety of greens, traditionally eaten during Lent.

Gumbo is usually thickened by a roux, okra or file, or a combination. File is often added at the table or at the end, because boiling it makes it stringy.

How do you eat gumbo in New Orleans?

Gumbo is served in a bowl over a scoop of white rice. It is usually offered as a cup (a smaller portion) or a bowl. If you are trying several dishes, a cup of gumbo is a good start. Ask whether it is a seafood gumbo or a chicken and sausage gumbo, because the two taste very different.

Where can you try both styles?

New Orleans restaurants serve both cuisines, and many menus mix them freely. For more of the Cajun country tradition, food lovers often head west into the rural parishes where it grew up. Inside the city, look at what the menu calls itself, ask your server which dishes the kitchen is proudest of, and order the gumbo.

When you find a bowl you love, write it down. On Mosey you can rate the places you ate at and the dishes you ordered, with photos, keep lists of favorites and follow friends whose taste you trust.

More guides to read next:

• Eating in the French Quarter without the tourist traps
• Po'boys and muffulettas: New Orleans sandwiches explained
• Beignets and cafe au lait in New Orleans: a visitor's guide

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