Cajun Seasonings
Cajun Cuisine is named for the people and local ingredients that make it. Cajuns are French Speaking Acadian (French descendants) of a mostly maritime nature. Their cuisine is often characterized as rustic, meaning dominated by locally available ingredients with simple preparations. Cajun meals usually consist of 3 parts, a main dish, a grain or skillet-made cornbread, and then a seasonally or plentiful vegetable. All of these are dominated by seasoning and spice combination which we refer to as Cajun seasonings. There are many styles of cooking within the Cajun culture, including slow barbecueing, charbroiling, braising and Étouffée (cooking within a meats own juices), and fricassée, or stewing.
The flavors in Cajun food come from the seasoning. It starts with their bases, often chicken or shellfish stock based, or a dark roux (a french legacy) based on oil/bacon fat. You can find many “Cajun spice” blends in stores, but this only captures a small taste of the style and presentation as most Cajun food preparation is done from scratch and to the taste. The blends you purchase are often a combination of hot sauce, some sort of seafood mix, persillade, and an evaporated mix of oil, brown sugar and citrus juice. It is more a BBQ rub when found in this form. True preparation of Cajun seasonings begins with some combination of the fresh versions of the following ingredients: bay leaf, bell pepper, bell peppers, cayenne pepper, celery, garlic, oregano, sassafras, sugarcane or thyme. A lot of natural seasoning comes from the local fruits and vegetables used in these delicious dishes. Some of those in addition to the ground Cajun seasonings are cucumbers, figs, pecans, squash, and tabasco peppers.
As you can see the possible combinations are many, so the next time you are having some Cajun seasoned BBQ, or Gumbo, or Jambalaya, think about the plethora of Cajun seasonings that go into your meal.
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