Petunia's
817 St. Louis Street
New Orleans, La

            Cajun

                  Crepes    

                            Creole    

                                    Cocktails

Creole Cuisine vs. Cajun Cooking

    A Creole is anyone born in the colonies of European ancestry, French or Spanish or both. Creole cuisine developed in New Orleans from a mixture of traditions of many nationalities - the culinary arts of the French provinces, of Paris, of Marseilles, of Spain mixed with the American Indian influence, and all stirred together with the natural skill of the African. Cooking ingredients were plentiful; abounding seafood and wild game, wild herbs and vegetables, the best produce from upriver, spices from South America, worldwide imports into the country's second-largest port. By the 1850's tomatoes became an important food item to the world and were quickly adopted by the Creoles as a staple. Additional influences came with the German and Italian immigrations just before the turn of the century. The resulting food is called Creole.
    Cajuns originated in southern France, emigrated in the early 1600's and settled a colony called Acadia, when all of Canada was controlled by France.  In the mid-1700's the British drove them out when they would not swear allegiance to the King and renamed the the province Nova Scotia. Many of them migrated to Louisiana, where they were welcomed by the large French population. They settled primarily along the waterways of southwest Louisiana and turned to their traditional practice of fishing, trapping and farming for a living. Cajun cooking is old French cooking, usually in one big pot, adapted to the ingredients available, expanded by the herbs and spices growing wild in the area. Cajun food was the food of the isolated country people. 
    Today, in homes there is still a distinction between Creole and Cajun cooking. In restaurants, little distinction remains. Paul Prudhomme refers to them together - Louisiana Cooking.