Food
CAJUN COOKING
I like to cook. I'm not very good at it, but I can usually do
pretty good with "Cajun" dishes. Stews, gumbos,
jambalaya, etouffe', I can handle O.K. Anything else, I am out of
my field.
My mom died when she was 87 years old. Until her sudden death,
she cooked every day. She always cooked more than she needed and
sent me a dish cooked like the "old days".
As a boy, I
remember those wonderful aromas of mothers preparing meals for
her family. Cokking was done on wood burning stoves, usually in
iron pots. One aroma of meat frying always stuck with me. I could
never recapture that aroma or that taste. It puzzled me why I
could not duplicate that smell and that wonderful gravy and
taste. I accidentally stumbled on the answer.
In the old days, alot of people raised hogs and cows. The hogs were slaughtered and the fat was used as lard in daily cooking. If the family cow produced a bull calf, the bull was raised until it was big enough to be slaughtered, producing "veal".
By frying "veal" in "lard" in an iron skillet, that wonderful aroma resulted, and also a gravy that is out of this world. All three ingredients are needed: veal, lard and an iron skillet. I guess a wood burning stove helps also.
Today veal is scarce and people do not use lard very much. Iron pots are a thing of the past and wood burning stoves disappeared long ago. The art of cooking has changed, but, in most cases, Cajun dishes are as good as ever. The jambalaya cooks throughout the area still use iron pots. Most camp owners I know cook in iron pots and alot of them cook the "old way". "Burning" a new iron pot is an art known only to a few. Ask any good Cajun cook how to cook a certain dish and he will answer, "first you got to have an iron pot".
We probably do alot of things in those Blind River camp
kitchens that are not done "up front" anymore. Dishes
from garfish, choupique, alligator, ducks, "Beak
Crosse" and even nutria are prepared. I like to filet
choupique and cook it 
down into a stock with onions, celery and bell
peppers. I use alot of seasoning and make it into a sauce. I put
it in jars and use the stock as a base for catfish "court
boullion". People in South Vacherie and Kramer have always
done this. Try it. It's great!
If you do not own an iron pot, you should get one. Cooking can be fun if you do it the old way.
by Leonce Haydel from STORIES FROM THE RIVER ROAD
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