Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
food. Welcome to Cajun Country, also called Acadiana for French settlers exiled from
L'Acadie (now Nova Scotia, Canada) by the British in 1755.
Cajuns are the largest French-speaking minority in the US - prepare to hear it on radi-
os, in church services and in the sing-song lilt of local English accents. While Lafayette
is the nexus of Acadiana, getting out and around the waterways, villages and ramshackle
roadside taverns really drops you straight into Cajun living. This is largely a socially con-
servative region, but the Cajuns also a have well-deserved reputation for hedonism. It's
hard to find a bad meal here; jambalaya (a rice-based dish with tomatoes, sausage and
shrimp) and crawfish étouffée (a thick Cajun stew) are prepared slowly with pride (and
cayenne!), and if folks aren't fishing, then they are probably dancing. Don't expect to sit
on the sidelines…
allons danson
(let's dance).
CAJUNS, CREOLES &…CREOLES
A lot of tourists in Louisiana use the terms 'Cajun' and 'Creole' interchangeably,
but the two cultures are different and distinct. 'Creole' refers to descendants of the
original European settlers of Louisiana, a blended mix of mainly French and Span-
ish ancestry. The Creoles tend to have urban connections to New Orleans and con-
sidered their own culture refined and civilized. Many (but not all) were descended
from aristocrats, merchants and skilled tradesmen.
The Cajuns can trace their lineage to the Acadians, colonists from rural France
who settled Nova Scotia. After the British conquered Canada, the proud Acadians
refused to kneel to the new crown, and were exiled in the mid-18th century - an act
known as the Grand Dérangement. Many exiles settled in South Louisiana; they
knew the area was French, but the Acadians ('Cajun' is an English bastardization of
the word) were often treated as country bumpkins by the Creoles. The Acadians-
cum-Cajuns settled in the bayous and prairies, and to this day self-conceptualize
as a more rural, frontier-stye culture.
Adding confusion to all of the above is the practice, standard in many post-colo-
nial French societies, of referring to mixed-race individuals as 'Creoles.' This hap-
pens in Louisiana, but there is a cultural difference between Franco-Spanish
Creoles and mixed-race Creoles, even as these two communities very likely share
actual blood ancestry.
Lafayette
The term 'undiscovered gem' gets thrown around too much in travel writing, but Lafay-
ette really fits the bill. The bad first: this town is deader then a cemetery on Sundays. The
rest: there's an entirely fantastic amount of good eating and lots of music venues here,
