Rice, gravy, and corn-fed Cajuns

I have been told that a true Cajun raised on the prairies can look at a field of growing rice and tell exactly how much gravy it will require to cover the harvested crop.
If that’s so, it is an acquired skill. Cajuns came late to the rice field.
It’s true that rice has become a staple in the south Louisiana diet, but before we had large-scale rice production, introduced mostly by Germans, corn was the staple in Cajun cabins, and that was a choice pretty much forced upon them.
Before the exile, farmers in old Acadie grew wheat, barley, and a little bit of Indian maize to feed the hogs. But when the exiles finally settled in Louisiana, they found that wheat and barley didn’t do well in our climate. Instead, Louisiana officials gave them corn to plant.
The Acadians didn’t particularly like it, but it was all that stood between them and starvation. They planted it and learned to turn it into everything from cornbread to coush-coush. Today, if you do a computer search for Cajun corn dishes, you’ll even get one for Cajun corn dogs, whatever that might be. I don’t remember them as part of my grandma’s repertoire.
Rice didn’t push corn aside as the staple Acadian crop until Germans and Midwesterners came to the prairies and began to grow it in commercial quantities. Before that the Cajuns occasionally planted so-called “providence rice.” They threw some rice in a wet spot and let providence take over. They complemented their corn crop with large vegetable gardens and fruit trees.
On New Year’s Day 1786, Louis Judice, commandant in the Lafourche area, wrote that the Cajuns’ “principal crop is corn, very little rice, lima beans, [and] English peas,” and that they grew “several varieties of peaches” as well as plums, pecans, figs, pomegranates, pecans, and grapes.
When they settled in southwest Louisiana, practically every Acadian household kept a yard full of chickens, and eggs became a big source of protein in their diets. They also became important in their budgets because the eggs were bartered for coffee, flour, and other staples that they could not grow.
Most Cajun farmers also kept a hog or two, from which they harvested meat, lard, sausage, cracklins, or as they said, “everything but the squeal.” Wild game, old hens, and aging cattle also made up a big part of their diet — all of them tough and stringy, meaning that they had to be cooked “low and slow.” Cooking for a long time at a low temperature is still at the heart of many south Louisiana dishes.
Friday was fish day in Catholic Louisiana, and for folks who lived along the coast or next to a bayou, fish found their way to the table more often than once a week. Crawfish, turtles, oysters, and frog legs also sweetened the pot, helping to create the idea that “a Cajun will eat anything that won’t eat him first.” (My grandpa used to claim that the bravest person in the world was the one who first ate an oyster.)
When journalist Charles Dudley Warner visited a family living on the lower Vermilion River in 1879, he was given a meal that included gumbo, fried oysters, eggs, sweet potatoes, and black coffee.
In more recent times, a lot of other visitors have come to sample our cuisine, and have tried to imitate it — usually creating some sort of spicy abomination and telling unsuspecting diners that it is “authentic Cajun.” That usually means that they’ve made it as hot as their clientele will bear, which real south Louisiana dishes aren’t.
As historian Carl Brasseaux once pointed out, “The only link between corporate America’s products and actual Cajun dishes was usually cayenne pepper, which the imitators used to great excess.”
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.