Southern Regional Cookery: Expansion

By the mid-eighteenth century, other parts of the South were being populated. New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and Mobile, Alabama, were being settled by the French, whose culinary influence was felt all along the Mississippi River, with its mouth in New Orleans. New Orleans maintains its distinctly French flavor, even in its Creole cooking, which was influenced by Africans, West Indians, Spanish, and Native Americans. No other American city can claim a culinary heritage as rich as that of New Orleans, at least partially maintained by the early and continual presence of restaurants—another French contribution. Roux, a cooked paste of flour and fat, thickens and flavors many dishes in New Orleans and in Acadiana, the Louisiana bayou country settled by the exiled Canadian Catholics called “Cajuns.” Throughout the state are innumerable foods that are considered truly regional (as well as culinary standards): oyster po’boys, andouille and boudin (two local sausages), jambalaya, beignets, crawfish étouffée, filé gumbo, bread pudding, café au lait, and the commercial brands of Tabasco (hot pepper sauce) and Herbsaint (an absinthelike, anise-flavored liquor). An increase in tourism in the late twentieth century encouraged a proliferation of even more restaurants, and both Creole and Cajun foods have gained international favor.