Creole and Cajun seasoning are popular in Southern US cuisine, with ingredients such as cayenne pepper, hot sauce, and chili powder. Cajun cooking, which often involves the use of Creole seasoning, has become popular in the US due to cookbooks and TV shows. The cuisine is a blend of African and Caribbean influences and is often cooked in one pot. Unlike traditional French cuisine, sauces are mixed with the main course to avoid overpowering flavors.
Creole seasoning usually refers to any type of spice added to food that is popular with the Louisiana Bayou culture in the Southern United States and has elements of French cuisine as part of its ancestry. A term more commonly used to describe this style of food seasoning in the United States is as Cajun seasoning. Both the cooking terms Creole and Cajun are used interchangeably and are well known for their blend of spicy and barbecue flavors. The ingredients used in Creole seasoning often involve the use of cayenne pepper, hot sauces, and chili powder.
A popular type of Creole seasoning is the Creole marinade, which comes in many forms, but usually includes heavily flavored ingredients such as garlic, pepper, and other spicy components. It is used to marinate and season fish and shrimp while cooking and in popular Cajun dishes such as rice and meat mixture known as jambalaya. Cajun cooking involving the use of Creole seasonings of virtually any type has been popular in the United States. This is due in part to the promotion of such foods in many cookbooks and popular Cajun television cooking shows that have aired since the 1980s.
Cajun cuisine has been elevated to the level of gourmet cuisine, although it was originally considered food eaten only by the poor immigrant class in the southern coastal regions of the United States. This synthesis of Cajun style with Creole cuisine, which can be traced back to wealthy plantation owners in the southern United States, is also a blend of two distinct regions of the globe: Africa and the Caribbean. The hot summers of the southern United States led to these diverse immigrants and classes of people conducting much of their cooking on outdoor hearths. This developed over time into the use of Creole seasonings as a common element in outdoor barbecuing practice in the United States generally.
Another unique aspect of Creole and Cajun cooking is that many dishes are cooked together in one pot. This stems from the fact that Cajun kitchens were originally quite simple in equipment and design. Despite this limitation, Creole seasoning provides further support that the cooking style is quite varied, using a wide variety of meats, vegetables and flavorings to produce a wide range of complementary dishes.
Contrary to some of its historical origins in French cuisine where sauces are prepared separately, Creole and Cajun culture have learned to mix them with the main course as it is prepared. From a culinary point of view, this works well because most of the dishes are rice and red bean based, which absorb the flavors of the Creole seasoning as they cook. This keeps the strong flavors from overwhelming the entire dish, as would happen if traditional French cream-based sauces were used in the same way.
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