If "Cajun-style" only makes you think of spicy chicken sandwiches and popcorn shrimp, you need to join us in the Big Easy this episode, to meet the real Cajun flavor. Cajun cuisine and its close cousin, Creole, were born out of the unique landscape of the Mississippi River delta, whose bounty was sufficient to support large, complex Indigenous societies, without the need for farming or even social hierarchies, for thousands of years. Europeans were slow to appreciate the wealth of this waterlogged country, but, as waves of French, Spanish, and American colonists and enslaved Africans arrived in Louisiana and the port of New Orleans, they all shaped the food that makes it famous today. But it would take a formerly enslaved woman turned international celebrity chef, a legendary restaurant that's hosted Freedom Riders, U.S. presidents, and Queen B, and a blackened redfish craze to turn Louisiana's flavorsome food into a global trend. Come on down to the bayou this episode, as we catch crawfish and cook up a storm to tell the story of how Cajun and Creole flavors ended up on home-cooking shows, in Disney movies, and at drive-throughs nationwide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Twist the tail off, suck the head, hold it.
Twist that first layer off like this.
Pull it, pinch the bottom and tail.
Pull it out, dip it in here.
Eat it.
Twist, pull, pinch, suck.
Sounds like your average weekend evening in the club.
Zero comment.
But we had met up not in the club, but actually in New Orleans and the region and around it for food experiences just like this one.
We, of course, are gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history.
I'm Cynthia Graeber.
And I'm Nicola Twilley.
And New Orleans was our destination because New Orleans has quite the reputation when it comes to food.
When you think about New Orleans, you just transport it somewhere else.
It doesn't feel like anywhere else in America.
And I think that's a good thing.
That's why we love it.
There is no other place on earth even remotely like New Orleans.
Don't even try to compare it to anywhere else.
No last call at bars.