Customer Reviews

In a Cajun Kitchen: Authentic Cajun Recipes and Stories from a Family Farm on the Bayou

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

by Peggy Fallon, author Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts DK Publishing, 2007
This book travels between my nightstand--where I enjoy Terri's thoughtfully written prose and stories of her colorful family--to my kitchen, where I revel in her detailed recipes for fried chicken, grits, and gumbo. Lots of good food here, and I recommend this book to anyone interested in authentic Cajun cuisine.

The opening wording on the flyleaf of this book expresses a couple of points better than I can. 'When most people think of Cajun cooking, they thing of blackened redfish (or blackened nearly anything else) or, maybe, gumbo.'

No, blackened meats and a bunch of other dishes are the creation of New Orleans chefs preparing foods for the tourists. Note, I'm not saying that I don't like these dishes, they just aren't the kinds of foods that I grew up with in the swamps of South Louisiana.

This book talks about the kinds of things we really ate. We had things like etouffee, shrimp boil, jambalaya. Just like she says. But then I do find a few points with which I disagree.

For instance on page 225 she says that they usually use quick grits, which cook in just a few minutes, rather than stone-ground or old-fashioned grits, which take up to an hour to cook. The stone-ground are delicious, but very difficult to find outside of the South.

Terrible, terrible, sacrilege. Go on the web and you can find lots of places that sell 'real' grits. Just substitute them for her recipies that use grits. Incidentally I highly recommend her Baked Spicy Cheese Grits, page 223. Her recipie is a bit different than mine, I put in a bit of spicy sausage. She puts in eggs. You might also want to try varying the types of cheese you use: blue cheese is good, so is Velveeta. Try this at a pot luck, you'll be surprised at the result.

Try some of her Gumbos.

Try a lot of her recipies, you'll be glad you did.

Recipes are easy to follow and use ingredients easily found stocked in everyday grocery stores and personal kitchens. An added bonus was the personal angle of the stories about the originators of the recipes. There is gentle humor and good advice on almost every page. Best of all, the several recipes I tried not only looked good, but tasted wonderful. This book is NOT about burning your taste buds with "hot and spicy" but enjoying flavor bursting tastes. The book is everything I hoped for in a Cajun cookbook. I agree with the book reviewers!

This book brings joy to me everytime I open it or see. My daughter and I love this product. The recipe remind me of my Uncle Ed who is a great Chef in the south.

I bought this book for my husband; who grew up in Louisiana. He has not been able to put this book down. He has to have about 15 cajun cookbooks if I have to guess. He is very particular in the ones he orders. He says that this is his favorite one! He loves the lagniappe on every recipe. I did not know what that meant but apparently a lagniappe is a tip to help you out for each recipe. He reads the stories in the book & can not tell me enough how many recipes he can not wait to cook(if he'll ever put it down I guess we will enjoy the food). Thanks to author who can hold this man's attention. Hats off!

Real Cajun style cooking! It has great recipes along with great stories behind the recipes. A must have for the Cajun Style lovers.

It took me a little while to figure out what to write about this book. I am from and have lived my entire life in Houma, Louisiana and, consequently, have been immersed in what's left of Cajun culture since I was born. My extended family was in the seafood business, in fact. My dad's dad spoke only Cajun French until he started school...and started again as soon as he got out. My father worked in the Gulf of Mexico on oil rigs. And so on.

So it was with a squirming discomfort that I read this book. Not because of the recipes...they are passably authentic-looking. If the writer had just compiled Cajun recipes and published them, that would be fine. But there is a certain kitschiness to the book that serves only to underscore (in red pen strokes) how UN-Cajun the writer really is. Even if she hadn't been raised in California(!), the Lake Charles of her roots is culturally more like Texas than Louisiana. Has been for many years. My grandfather, who sold meat for Autin Packing Company used to say that French-speaking ended at Lake Charles. He said it was where Texas began. Anyone who was contrasting the place with, say, Mamou might be inclined to agree.

So, to me, this book is the work of a pretender, even if every drop of her biological blood is truly Cajun. And the fact that she publishes her family tree--complete with many Protestant-sounding last names--with a straight face tells me she is trying to justify her publishing this book at all, knowing full well that Half Moon Bay and Terrebonne Bay are two very, very different places and that someone who has to explain how she is Cajun at all probably has no business writing this cookbook. At least, not by herself.

But, to be fair, this book is probably good enough for someone not raised in Louisiana. But, of course, not good enough for those of us who were.