Cajun food.

“…..stout provisions, cooked up with a lusty flair and smacking of salt air and hickory smoke…” thus wrote Mary Land in her groundbreaking book: Louisiana Cookery, published way back in 1954 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I have a love of many cuisines but few stir my heart like Cajun cookery.

The foodways of Acadiana encompass multiple states and countries as the rural prairies and swamps have embraced diasporas from France, Africa, Appalachia, New Jersey, Canada and lord knows where else. Ground zero is Lafayette, Louisiana where men like Wallace Johnson of Johnson’s Boucaniere continue practicing the prairie arts of smoking meat and stuffing hog gut casings with offal and rice. The finest foods on earth are being served in rural Louisiana in tumble-down shanties on the edge of a murky bayou, or a rusty-roofed lean-to with an old butane tank doing double duty as a hog smoker.

Details

Event: Scrumptious Chef Cajun Pop Up

Place: Three Little Pigs/East End Wines

Time: 11am

Date: Sunday October 21st 2012

It’s with a feeling of great responsibility that we task ourselves with cooking a Cajun feast for our latest Scrumptious Chef pop up event. It’s gonna be heavy y’all. For the last few nights I’ve been poring over Ms. Land’s book as it’s considered one of the bibles of Cajun cuisine.

As the week goes on, we’ll be riding around town loading up provisions from Fiesta, Longhorn Meats, Central Market, Wheatsville and lord knows where else. It’s all part of it. When the weekend hits, you will find us in the commissary blaring out some Nathan Abshire and stirring flour and butter in our old iron pots.

And we won’t be bothering with making any vegetarian or gluten free food. We gave it a shot and sold nary an item. Our crowd is 100% omnivore. While we have yet to firm up the menu be aware that we’ll have plenty handmade, pork belly boudin. That was the first item we chiseled in stone.