No. 231 - Cajun

I had never eaten bammy, the subject of yesterday's post. Ten minutes after writing the post my wife and I walked into a reception, which included a nice spread of food. I scanned looking for something good to eat and there it was -- bammy. Granted, we were in Jamaica so the probability was greater that it might be served there, but in my several trips to the country I had never seen, or eaten, it. It was very good with grilled chicken wings.

Today my wife told me I had to talk to a certain guy she met earlier, because she thought he was a wealth of knowledge and might provide me something interesting for my blog.

I met him and he described for me the origin of the word Cajun.

The word Cajun is usually used to describe the French people from south Louisiana. The people however originally came from Acadia in Canada. The word "Cajun" comes from the word "Acadian", just as "Injun" is a variant of the word "Indian."

The Acadians were French settlers who settled the area (now known as Nova Scotia) in the 1600's. In the mid 18th century, they were exiled by the British. Over the following 30 years, several thousand of the exiled Acadians made their way to south Louisiana.

Over the next 100+ years, the Acadians became the dominant culture in certain areas of south Louisiana. They retained much of their culture, and absorbed some of the other cultural influences. The German, Spanish, French, English, Indian and other cultures added to the Acadian culture to produce the Cajun culture.