Creole or Cajun??? (New Orleans, Lake Charles, Natchitoches: homes, live in, rich)

[bustaduke]

Originally Posted by pirate_lafitte

My mother sometimes made Cajun food.

That's great, I cook Cajun food all the time and love it. We are boiling shrimp as we speak and I don't think I could do that without Cajun and Creole influence and I love that about my little place in the world.

busta

[truckmen]

Hi all!

Have you any good Cajun and/or Creole recipes?

[hdwell]

Originally Posted by bamba_boy

I had a creole (at least she SAID she was) friend here in Houston, coincidently with the name Metoyer that was mentioned earlier. The way she described it Creoles and Cajuns both have a French connection. However, the difference is that Cajuns were more "country French" and Creoles were more the "city-French" who settled New Orleans in the 17th and 18th century. Some people also include Spanish colonial settlers who ruled New Orleans for a short period. The Cajuns, far from aristocratic colonialists, were basically religiously-persecuted protestants who were thrown out of France and settled in Arcadia (up in the maritime provinces of what is now Canada) by the aristocratic Roman Catholic French. Well, when the Brits took over Canada, they , dang-it, had to pack up and move again. They wisely chose one of the toughest places in America to survive, the swamps of central and southwestern La. and have been pretty much left alone for two or three hundred years, except by the oil companies doing seismic surveys and exploration & production drilling.

My friend also, as is common with Creoles, was a olive-skinned beauty with slightly exotic features - the result of an Octoroon-ball hook up with a young rich French Boy, no doubt. I think it's generally more common for the Cajuns to stick with fellow white Cajuns while the Creoles cover all points on the color spectrum.

My cousin married a "Cajun" who, while everybody in Lafayette and New Iberia probably consider them Cajuns, really is yet a third category. He's the grandson of a middle-class French guy who moved to America in the 30's or 40s, well past the colonial and Arcadian-exodus period, and moved into a cajun town to be an auto mechanic, speaking fluent French and having a French name. He's actually a "French-American" rather than either Cajun or Creole. There are probably a lot of "Frenchies" in La that are in such a nebulous category as well. Everybody understand now??

I don't think the Cajuns have ever been anything but Catholic. You may be thinking about another group called the Huguenots from France. They settled in the colonies along the east coast.

Additionally, as I have read this, protestants and Jews were allowed to settle in Louisiana before it was acquired by the US, but were not to worship in public or to build places of worship. Only the RCC was permitted such.

[Kurt]

Yes, Cajuns were Roman Catholics from Acadia in Canada. That area is now called Nova Scotia or the Maritimes in general. The Huguenots were persecuted in France and Protestants. Many settled in South Carolina.

George Washington Cable, a New Orleans author, wrote alot about the Creoles. Technically, Creoles are the old Spanish and French. But over the years the admixture of African--mostly Octoroon (1/8 Black) and Quadroon
(1/4 Black) is accorded Creole status. Many would say the admixture of white to black does not matter. The Creole category is even given to Native American mixture with the old Spanish and French population. And to make it even more confusing, the mixture of Mexican as well. In the Zwolle area you will find those of Mexican descent that may be mostly Spanish but can include old Mestizo (Meso-American Indian like Toltec, Mayan, and Aztec)with Spanish and possibly African.

So, the term creole has become considerably broadened over the years. Cajuns were more isolated, along Bayou Teche and surrounding area, and tended to not intermix with other ethic or racial groups.

That's my two cents worth. All-in-all it is a fascinating admixture of people--and as one poster noted--produced some really beautiful people both physically and culturally.

[Innotech]

I always thought of it like this. the southwestern part of Louisiana is predominantly Cajun. This is where the more traditional French Acadian music and culture originates and permeates. Lafayette was first settled as Vermillionville, which was as traditionally Cajun as you can get. This IS Cajun country. There are Creaole influences here as well, but you are more likely to run into Cajun. Now, New Orleans and the WEstbank, that is Creole. The music has a different sound, the cities are larger and the area is much much more african and caribbean influenced. It is more diverse and far reaching. Creole food is also very influenced by the carribbean. Those are the main differences I have come to recognize. A lot of people though tend to brand New Orleans as Cajun, and again while theres Cajun influence there also, its not as prevalent. Its two vaguely similar but definitely unique cultures that coexist in the same region that leads to the confusion. But go to Lafayette or go to NEw Orleans and I promise you will feel the differences.

[Kurt]

Good post, Innotech. You have it down pretty good. The area along the Mississippi is where the really big sugar and cotton plantations were during antebellum times and there were many well-established Creole families here. Out in Cajun land it was still more like the frontier and the Cajuns clustered in the more watery bayous back in the swamps in south-central and southwestern Louisiana. Most cajuns were hunters, trappers, small farmers, and fishermen.

The bigger plantations along the major river bottoms were mostly occupied by Creoles or Anglo-Americans. Old Creole families of wealth shuttled between their plantations and New Orleans on a regular basis. Innotech also mentioned the Caribbean influence. After the slave revolt and subsequent independence of Haiti in the early 1800s, many French sugar planters relocated to southern Lousiana, swelling the population of Spanish creoles. Sugar was big business throughout the Caribbean and people, including slaves and free blacks, were drawn to New Orleans.

New Orleans was one of the few areas in the antebellum South were larger numbers of free blacks were tolerated and able to develop and maintain their African culture without it being diluted by other influences. And it was here that the Quadroon and Octoroon communities made their mark. Roman Catholics, Voodoo, free thinking Jazz and Blues, Latin Carnival--the old Crescent City took all of it in.

[Innotech]

Originally Posted by Kurt

Good post, Innotech. You have it down pretty good. The area along the Mississippi is where the really big sugar and cotton plantations were during antebellum times and there were many well-established Creole families here. Out in Cajun land it was still more like the frontier and the Cajuns clustered in the more watery bayous back in the swamps in south-central and southwestern Louisiana. Most cajuns were hunters, trappers, small farmers, and fishermen.

The bigger plantations along the major river bottoms were mostly occupied by Creoles or Anglo-Americans. Old Creole families of wealth shuttled between their plantations and New Orleans on a regular basis. Innotech also mentioned the Caribbean influence. After the slave revolt and subsequent independence of Haiti in the early 1800s, many French sugar planters relocated to southern Lousiana, swelling the population of Spanish creoles. Sugar was big business throughout the Caribbean and people, including slaves and free blacks, were drawn to New Orleans.

New Orleans was one of the few areas in the antebellum South were larger numbers of free blacks were tolerated and able to develop and maintain their African culture without it being diluted by other influences. And it was here that the Quadroon and Octoroon communities made their mark. Roman Catholics, Voodoo, free thinking Jazz and Blues, Latin Carnival--the old Crescent City took all of it in.

I do think NEw Orleans is one of the most culturally tolerant cities in the nation. Pretty much anything goes there. Hell just two months after Katrina I went to visit New Orleans to see how it was recovering and there were shirts on sale like "I stayed in New Orleans for Katrina and al I got was this lousy shirt, a new Cadillac and a plasma TV". This city wont even hesitate to make fun of itself and I love that about it.

[SacalaitWhisperer]

I am about as Cajun as you can get and I just consider myself an American.

Soon enough LA will revert back to Spain if current trends continue.

Que?

[Kurt]

We had Juan Carlos and his wife Sophia here in Pensacola to dedicate an historical marker this Spring. They were very polite but needless to say did not stick around too long--off to bigger places and fancier digs I presume.
Maybe they stopped in New Orleans to sign a deed of transfer? They (the Spanish) did sail in here with one of their full-sail ships crewed by the navy a few years ago. That was pretty impressive.

[Anole]

Back in 2-5-09 I made a post about a show on the New Orleans PBS station which was about the Cane River Creoles. It was very informative. The show did go into detail about the hardships these folks had to endure and how things changed over the years as the Louisiana went from French to Spanish to finally the Americans.