Before we start this page, I think we should determine just what is Cajun and what is Creole. Reduced to its simplest terms, a Cajun is a person who descends from Acadian exiles banished from Nova Scotia in the eighteenth century and - importantly -all the ethnic groups with whom those exiles and their offspring intermarried on the south Louisiana frontier (for example, French, German, and Spanish settlers). A Creole, however, is a native south Louisianian whose ancestry is black, white, or mixed-race (black-white, black-Indian, black-white-Indian), usually of French-speaking heritage
I personally think that while being Cajun, is being part of a whole culture, being Creole is more a ethnic / social / economical classification, then a true culture, although they do have their own ethnic music (Zydeco)food, and religious practices that have exerted a strong influence on Cajun culture (and vice versa).
Always a controversial and confusing term, the word Creole, to put it simply, means many things to many people. It derives from the Latin creare, meaning “to beget” or “create.” After the New World’s discovery, Portuguese colonists used the word crioulo (“raised at the home of the master, domestic”) to denote a New World slave of African descent. Eventually, the word was applied to all New World colonists, regardless of ethnic origin, living along the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana.
In the 18th century, the Spaniards governing New Orleans named all residents of European heritage Criollo, and during Louisiana’s colonial period (1699-1803) the evolving word Creole generally referred to persons of African or European heritage born in the New World.
By the nineteenth century, black, white, and mixed-race Louisianians used the term to distinguish themselves from foreign-born and Anglo-American settlers. It was during that century that the mixed-race Creoles of Color (or gens de couleur libre, “free persons of color”) came into their own as an ethnic group, enjoying many of the legal rights and privileges of whites. They occupied a middle ground between whites and enslaved blacks, and as such often possessed property and received formal educations. After the Civil War, most Creoles of Color lost their privileged status and joined the ranks of impoverished former black slaves.
All the while, however, the word Creole persisted as a term also referring to white Louisianians, usually of upper-class, non-Cajun origin, implying one of refined cultural background with an appreciation for an elegant lifestyle. Like the Creoles of Color, these white Creoles (also called French Creoles) suffered socioeconomic decline after the Civil War.
In Acadiana, newly impoverished white Creoles often intermarried with the predominantly lower-class Cajuns and were largely assimilated into Cajun culture. Many names of French Creole origin, like Soileau, Fontenot, and Francios, are now widely considered Cajun. And today Creole is most often used in Acadiana to refer to persons of full or mixed African heritage. It is generally understood among these Creoles that Creoles of Color still refers to Creoles of mixed-race heritage, while the term black Creole refers to Creoles of more or less pure African descent.
Ultimately, however, the word Creole remains murky, with some individuals (blacks, white, and mixed-race) futilely claiming the right of exclusive use. As the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture states, perhaps the “safest” course is to say that a Creole is “anyone who says he is one.”
Before we get started on the CAJUN CULTURE, I would like to tell you one of the many legends of Acadiana. When the Acadians left Nova Scotia for Louisiana in the mid-18th century, a gaggle of North Atlantic lobsters, as an expression of sympathy for them, followed them south to the bayous. Along the way, they molted repeatly, each time acquiring smaller shells. By journey's end, they had become crawfish. As to the truth of this legend, I will leave that up to you.
That compassion has not been reciprocated. Generations of Acadian cooks have tossed millions of crawfish into boiling cauldrons, stewpots, saute pans-even, in modern times, empty ice chests used as makeshift steamers.
The center of the crawfish universe is Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, site of an annual Crawfish Festival and birthplace of the most celebrated crawfish creation of all, Crawfish Etouffee-crawfish tails long-cooked in a lidded black iron pot with onions, cayenne and crawfish fat, among other ingredients. According to local restaurateur Dickie Breaux, the dish was invented here in the late 1920's, in the old Hebert Hotel, by Mrs. Charles Hebert and her daughters, Yolie and Marie. The Hebert sisters passed the recipe on to their friend Aline Guidry Champagne, who served the dish at her Rendez-Vous Cafe, also in Breaux Bridge. Champagne dubbed it "etouffee", French for " smothered", a reference to its long cooking in a lidded pot.
More to be added later.