Customer Reviews

Lafcadio Hearn's Creole Cookbook

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As a true "cajun" who grew up on South Louisiana, I am interested in the history of cajun and creole culture, which is often centered around food. This book is a treasured piece of the history of creole cuisine in New Orleans. The text is sometimes hard to read, but the recipes are an authentic snapshot of what might have been the "standard" for New Orleans before the turn of the century. I am proud to have this book in my collection of early and historical Cajun and Creole cookbooks.

Anthony Bourdain often says that you cannot separate a culture from its cuisine. They are bound together, and to talk of a place without speaking about the food that is eaten there is missing a vital element.

This is exactly what Lafcadio Hearn was attempting to capture when he published two books, "La Cuisine Creole" and "Gumbo Zhebes" in 1885. These two books together, he felt, captured a secret street culture of the French Quarter, a place of folktales and hot food.

While Hearn is best known for his books on Japanese folktales and legends, he got his start in New Orleans, scraping by working for a newspaper doing articles and illustrations as he could. I did not realize he also owned a small restaurant, The Hard Times, specializing in nickel dishes of food for the poverty-stricken. His restaurant didn't last long, but he collected recipes with the same fervor that he would later collect folktales.

This lovely hardback, "Lafcadio Hearn's Creole Cookbook", brings together "La Cuisine Creole" and "Gumbo Zhebes", reproducing exactly the traditional recipes and folk sayings that Hearn loved so much. Preserving not only the original typeface and presentation, Hearn's illustrations are also included.

The recipes are as old fashioned as you can imagine, using measurements such as "a gill of oil" and giving cooking instructions based on a wood or coal burning stove. The book is a fantastic snapshot of how people cooked back then. There are recipes not only for delights like "Simple Okra Gumbo" and "Fricassee of Crab", but also on how "To Make Good and Cheap Vinegar" and "Superior Tomato Catsup". You couldn't just run down to the grocery store and pick these things up pre-made!

Because of the old-fashioned directions, the recipes can be a little hard to follow but not impossible. I have made a few now and they have all turned out well, so I am looking forward to trying some of the more complicated ones. One that was delicious and easy was "To Pickle Red Cabage" and I also quite enjoyed "A Delicious Omelet". There are recipes here for frog, turtle, deer, beef tongue and any kind of seafood imagineable.

Anyone interested in food history, or Creole culture, is going to love this book. Cooks looking to do some authentic Creole cooking will find it challenging at first, but invaluable. [...]

As usual, Lafcadio Hearn's meticulous description impressed me.
My wife tried one of Soup recipe, and we enjoyed the result a lot.
Kyo takahashi

There is a strange tradition of "don't ask, and never tell" in Louisiana among some food writers, and certain historians, who seem to believe that no one outside their "hierarchy" reads, or is aware of the fact that Louisiana Creole cooking began and was solidly rooted in colonial Louisiana long before its' later-to-arrive country cousin "Cajun" cooking! And, although these writers MUST admit "cross cultural pollination" they deliberately avoid acknowledging the evident "Creole" origin. This old treasure from 1885 New Orleans, solidly exhibits where gumbo, etouffee, courtbouillon and many more, so-called "Cajun" dishes really come from-the original Louisiana Creole menu established under the auspices of Bienville and his West Indian housekeeper, Madame Langlois, by name, and the local Amerindians, who taught her how to put the local herbs into the old French menu in combination with the West African tradtions (not Acadie, Canada!) and which the Spanish would also enhance further.
Since the 1970's mass-marketing has re-labeled our historic cuisine, (for less than noble reasons!) but Hearn's historic cookbook remains a firsthand witness to the oldest culinary tradition of our state and diverse people. Although antiquated, it is still full of remarkable culinary delights!

Lafcadio Hearn lived in New Orleans from 1877 to 1887. His observations on Creole life were published in the New Orleans Times-Democrat and the New Orleans Item. This edition is a combination of a his cook book La Cuisine Creole along with drawings and writings from those articles. It is a loving look at the city and a disappearing way of life. I lost my first copy of this book in the flood caused by the levee failure in the wake of Katrina which makes having it back all the sweeter.