Don't be using bouillon cubes in Louisiana

No city better encapsulates how food tells us everything we need to know about cultural change and the human capacity to adapt than the living smorgasbord that is New Orleans (NOLA for those of us that like to think we're now honorary locals).

NOLA's food, as much as its music, is marked by entanglements of movement, of enslavement and colonisation, and a geography of bayou, river and sea, and rather than reading its history I'd much rather eat it. So having already spent a day grazing through beignets and muffuletta, I found  myself first in line at the New Orleans Cooking School to take a class in Cajun cuisine. In terms of cultural differences I've noticed that being first in line means nothing in the Southern parts of the USA. Whether it's the queue for a table at the Atlanta Breakfast Club, a seat on a train in Birmingham, or the best tables in a NOLA cooking school, groups will get called out first and the singles just have to fit themselves around them. This sort of makes sense in the tetris school of seating arrangements, but I find my innate sense of 'don't even think about jumping the queue that I've been in since first thing this morning' fairness is hard to quell.

As the seating gods would have it I am finally allowed in and find space on a table with the two Texans I'd been chatting to in the queue and a couple of additional Tennesseens. The round table is crowded with spices and sauces to sample with the food as well as jugs of iced tea and water. There is fresh lemonade and coffee at a side table, and fresh biscuits (that's scones in America, not cookies) soon land on the table even before the cooking has begun, to be eaten with the ever present jug of corn syrup.

Ms Vivienne was our teacher, bringing a world of experience from working with chefs in Louisiana, West Africa and Europe. She also set up the now defunct (sadly) New Orleans Jazz Cafe in West London. Ms Vivienne demonstrated just how much she can multi-task by not only teaching us to cook a four course meal, with some capitalised, not shouting but definitely insistent, instruction, throwing in the history and culture of NOLA through its two main cooking styles, Creole and Cajun, while also illustrating how much the British and French empires have to answer for.

Creole food and the culture it stems from may be thought of by some as a bit 'boujie' (posh, bourgeois), coming as it does out of French colonisation from the 18th century and the idea that the Creole community were the 'first born' in the settlement. On the other hand, the Cajun community have the reputation of being as rough as the swamps they live in. But it's a complicated history of human mobility that has created these approximations of complex communities, running something like the following (which may not be 100% accurate so do your own research):

The First Nations people were violently displaced, then there were a few waves of European settlers from the 17th century. Louisiana was officially a French colony from 1699 and NOLA officially a French city from 1718, and with the Europeans came enslaved people from Africa. There were some German settlers also hanging out there. Louisiana became a Spanish colony in 1763 after France had lost a seven year war in Europe and needed some money, but Spain had rather carelessly lost Florida at this stage as well. 

The French and German settlers weren't happy about the Spanish so Napoleon re-bought Louisiana in 1800 and it became a French colony again, but then Bonney needed money for his crack at European domination so sold it to the USA using a British bank to transfer the money that he would then use to try to invade Britain (the famous Louisiana Purchase that involved a lot more land than the current Louisiana). The British later had a crack at occupying NOLA in 1815, because they were at war with America again. They lost, again. So Louisiana and NOLA have been part of the USA ever since. Meanwhile, Acadian exiles from Nova Scotia wanted to maintain their Catholic heritage rather than join the British empire as it took over Canada, so they migrated south in 1765 (ish) to French Louisiana. They preferred to live out of the city so were given land in the Bayou, and came to be known as Cajuns. 

NOLA today is still about 40% Catholic, with 'parishes' instead of counties, and a Catholic influence in cooking including the staple ingredients of onion, celery and green bell peppers referred to as 'The Trinity', garlic as 'The Pope', and the green onion garnish as 'The Blessing'. French language is now an encouraged part of the culture (when in the past it was beaten out of children), with growing numbers of bi-lingual and immersive classes in Louisiana schools. The French-based Louisiana creole and Louisiana French (they're different), with their inflections of African and European languages, are still spoken although the former in particular is declining with fewer than 10,000 speakers now.

The most important thing to know in terms of differences, however, between the Cajun and Creole communities, is that creole cooking uses a tomato sauce base while Cajun food is underpinned by a dark roux that handily disguises whatever meat you may be adding from the Bayou. Take, for example, the classic Gumbo we made (strictly speaking, Ms Vivienne made it; we watched and then ate it). Sausage and chicken is typical today, with duck and seafood also acceptable. Muskrat is a possibility if you fancy cooking a semi-aquatic rodent but it will be nicely coated by the sauce so noone will ever know ... it tastes like chicken.

We are under strict instructions to NOT use olive oil in the roux (nothing wrong with a bit of lard) and to COMMIT to its making: 45 minutes of stirring on slow to medium heat until the colour changes from blond to peanut to dark brown. Stock is added but NEVER, EVER bouillon cubes in Louisiana. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried but Ms Vivienne looked pretty stern about it so I'll do what I'm told. The stock should be based on bone and go easy on the salt, then the lovely sounding sassafras (or filé) is used to thicken the sauce if needed.       

Given the diversity of the USA, it's not only Louisiana that has cuisine marked by a history of mobility (just ask a Texan about the difference between TexMex, Southwest TexMex and actual Mexican food, and don't get them started on whether beans should go in chilli). But it is perhaps a sign of the polarised times that even suggested accompaniments to our Gumbo cause division around the table: the Texans are having none of the idea that it could ever be eaten with cold Potato Salad but the Tennesseens and I beg to differ.

Jambalaya (ham and rice) is next up, as is a local beer to help wash it down, and as the alcohol kicks in so does the conversation at our table which inevitably turns to the state of America. The Texans, from Hispanic heritage, are on the liberal side of the spectrum; the Tennesseens I wasn't sure about but Mrs TN managed federal government infrastructure and expressed the sentiment I had after spending hours sitting on an Amtrak train in a siding waiting for a freight train to pass and noone had any idea when that might be: America is falling apart at the seams. We talk guns, and immigration, and the number of vacancies around the country. There is the old trope offered that people won't work when they can get government handouts. I counter with the complications and that the Covid payments are now finished so something else is going on, but what that is disappears into a sugar induced haze as dessert production begins. 

Louisiana has its own version of bread pudding and today it's getting white chocolate added and a layer of 'Sweet Treat' topping (a ready mix of cinnamon and icing sugar) because a cup of cane sugar in the initial bake just isn't sweet enough. One of the reasons NOLA was so important to European empire was its trading port at the mouth of the Mississippi and the Gulf, bringing goods north to south and back again across the USA, as well as from the Caribbean to Europe. It was one of the busiest ports in the world in the 19th century and still generates an estimated $100 million annually, including freight and cruise liners (in some years over a million cruise passengers have docked there). One in five jobs in Louisiana is still related to the Port. 

Sugar cane was one of the first crops grown in Louisiana, produced by enslaved labour, turned into molasses and exported to make rum. A lot of sugar now gets turned into the local speciality prahline (don't say prayline unless you want a lot of eyerolling from Ms Vivienne), that the cruise ship and other tourists buy in bulk. This is another recipe that requires commitment and a lot of stirring specifically from the centre. The chemistry of cooking is not something I've ever really engaged with, so I have no idea why stirring must be done from the centre. A physicist will also have to explain to me why, because NOLA is mostly below sea level, it's too moist for accurate temperature measurements. I did wonder if this was somehow connected to the feeling of torpor when walking outside drenched in sweat as the wet bulb temperature reached its upper limits of human endurance. NOLA's weather in June has been unseasonably hot, like the rest of the world. In lieu of a thermometer, a spoon of mixture has to be dunked in cold water to see if it forms a soft ball (bit like me on entering a craft brewery after a few hours walking in a NOLA summer). If it does, then it's good to go. 

Like the food, and the communities that produced it, my recipe notes are all a bit mixed up after two and a half hours, but fully loaded and finishing on a sugar high we roll out of the kitchen into the store to buy our spices and ready mixes and recipe books. Ms Vivienne leaves us with what seems a lovely offer to contact her if we have any problems with our cooking when we get home. 'Seriously?' someone asks. Bien sur. Louisiana food is the pride of the state and they take it seriously ... don't even think about cocking it up. I have this feeling that if I try to throw in a bouillon cube Ms Vivienne is going to pop up in my kitchen in East London with some choice French creole.