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Hot! Hot! Hot!

Pull up a chair to some Cajun cooking—and take in a few tips to keep it healthy.

When a good time needs a kick-start in Cajun country, it usually begins with some eye-watering, spicy food. Liberal sprinklings of ingredients native to Louisiana by Cajun cooks turn the heat up and tempt the tastebuds.

But before you sit down to some bayou-born grub, you need to know the difference between Cajun and its citified cousin, Creole.

Cajun vs. Creole
Surprisingly enough, the differences between the two cuisines and cultures started beyond Louisiana. The Cajuns originally lived in French Nova Scotia, Canada, in the 1500s and were forced out by the English government in the 1700s. Speaking a dialect of French, they moved to New Orleans because it was where other French colonists, the Creoles, had settled. However, the French-descended Creoles didn’t give the Cajuns a warm welcome to “their” city, so instead of staying in the city, many Cajuns took advantage of land grants and settled in swampy areas and bayous. It’s from these rural origins that Cajun cooking developed into the flavorful, spicy tradition that it is today.

“Some folks like to think of Cajun cooking as ‘country style’–using lots of heat and plenty of spices, while Creole cuisine has more delicately blended flavors,” says Saundra Green, a cooking instructor for the Cookin’ Cajun school, in New Orleans.

Unconventional Cuisine
Step into such a Cajun kitchen and you’ll smell the bold spices of cayenne and black pepper. And expect to eat some unconventional entrées. Cajuns relied on swamp hunting to provide the meat, which often included alligator, opossum, and crayfish.

“Cajun cooking is often big, one-pot dishes,” Green says. “All the ingredients will be tossed into a huge pot—the meat and a sauce along with onions, celery, and bell peppers, accompanied by garlic.”

A Cajun stew is usually served over rice. So much rice is made to accompany these dishes that the Louisiana town of Crowley is known as the rice capital of America.

Cajun Food, Healthified
While capsaicin, the property that puts the heat in nose-clearing hot peppers, may have some benefits, such as helping to decrease certain types of pain, other aspects of Cajun cooking aren’t as healthy. To help keep the spice but lose some of the fat and calories, Green shares these five tips:

Fish for dinner. Several Cajun dishes call for high-fat pork sausage. Either choose turkey sausage or swap in a variety of fish. Take a cue from the bayou and stir in some flounder, speckled trout, or shrimp and leave the sausage out of the jambalaya.

Go lean. Because the swamp was teeming with wildlife, the Cajuns would hunt and bring home lean game meat, such as venison and rabbit. To reduce the amount of fat in the meals, closely trim any meat before adding it to a stew, suggests Green, and cut the amount of meat by half.

Be fresh. Cajuns would often haul crayfish and other seafood out of the water the same hour they started fixing dinner. Cooking fresh food avoids the need for preservatives.

Go veggie crazy. From a Native American influence, Cajuns began using corn along with the onions, celery, and bell peppers that Green mentioned. Other veggies, such as tomatoes and beans, can add substance to those one-pot dishes without relying on more meat.

Hop out of the fry pot. While many recipes call for frying meat or cooking with lard, you can get some of the same Cajun taste by boiling or baking.