Stranger in Louisiana-Cajun 101

~Blog post #3~

April 19, 2015

by Michael Lucarelli

One common ingredient in traditional Cajun cooking is rice. Rice is such an important staple in Cajun food because it would stretch the dish out longer. This was important for the early Cajun's because they where poor people, and stretching out their food fed the large family. Today rice is added because of its flavor and not to stretch out the food. Rice is not only good to stretch food out, but it is very healthy for you. Rice is sodium and cholesterol free, has trace amounts of fat, no trans or saturated fats, is an energy food, and regulates and improves your mood. Some dishes that include rice are dirty rice, rice and gravy, chicken jambalaya, all gumbo. In Lousiana rice is one of the few crops that will grow in the wet, silty ground, and is in a way industrialized similar to how corn in the Midwest is. The rice fields come with another bonus food for Cajuns.
This food is the crawfish. Lousiana produces almost 90% of the total crawfish in the US. If it wasn't for the crawfish in the rice fields many farmers would go out of business. This is due to rising costs of fuel, international competition, and high farming costs. Crawfish have been in Cajun's diets since they first settled the bayous, they where already used to seafood being a staple in their diet. They used their knowledge of catching and eating lobsters, and supplemented crawfish for the lobster. Until the 1960's crawfish where considered a "poorm

an food"and eaten in the more rural areas. The people out in these areas lived off of the land, and with the abundance of the little crustacean in the slow moving waters if the bayou it was an important food item. The most popular way to eat crawfish is boiled.

Works Cited

Black, Camille. "The History of the Crawfish in Louisiana | NewOrleans.Me." The History of the Crawfish in Louisiana | NewOrleans.Me. N.p., 4 Mar. 2013. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

LaBranche, Vanessa. "Cajun Food History A Cuisine Known For Country Cooking." Cajun Food History A Cuisine Known For Country Cooking. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

Thier, Dave. "In Louisiana, Growing Rice to Trade on Some Creatures That Eat It." The New York Times. The New York Times, 05 Dec. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

"Top 5 Reasons to Incorporate Rice into Your Diet." Cajun Country Rice. Cajun Country Rice, 17 Mar. 2015. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.