Cajun Culture Floats to the City

Cajuns settled Louisiana's bayous in the mid-18th Century

Cajun Jambalaya can be found in restaurants thoroughout the city

Despite a frequent misconception, the Cajuns are not actually a New Orleans people; their domain is south Louisiana from the parishes west of the city extending all the way to Texas. But their influence is so strong throughout Louisiana and their heritage so rich that the culture of New Orleans owes a debt to the presence of its Cajun neighbors.

The word “Cajun” derives from “Acadia,” a name used to refer to Nova Scotia and other Maritime Provinces in Canada where French immigrants settled during the early colonial era. The British often fought with the French for control of the colonies, gaining full power in 1713. Although the French Acadians stayed on for several more decades, tensions between them and the British administrators eventually forced them into exile—an event called le Grand Dérangement.

A few hundred Acadians ended up in French-speaking New Orleans ten years later. A rural people, they didn’t feel comfortable in the city, and they settled elsewhere in Louisiana. Thousands of Acadians, still looking for a new home, began arriving in waves. Intermarrying with German and other settlers, they worked as trappers, fishermen, and hunters in bayou country, and as farmers where the land wasn’t swampy. Their old traditions and language merged with the distinctive Louisiana landscape to coalesce into a new Cajun cultural identity.

While the Creole cuisine more often looks to Europe for inspiration, rustic Cajun cuisine is firmly rooted in south Louisiana. Gumbo, étouffée, and jambalaya are Cajun dishes found on restaurant menus and dinner tables everywhere in New Orleans. Adopting a Cajun tradition, New Orleanians love to hold crawfish boils with friends and family every weekend during the spring’s crawfish season.

Traditional Cajun music typically uses fiddle, guitar, and accordion, typically in a two-step or waltzing time signature and sung with French lyrics. While not strictly Cajun, Zydeco is a more modern, electrified form of the music that’s wildly energetic (except for the occasional ballad). Cajun and zydeco musicians frequently play at New Orleans clubs and festivals. The Fais Do Do stage at Jazz Fest is a local favorite. And just walking through the French Quarter, you can hear zydeco blaring out of the tourist shops that wish to evoke the life-celebrating spirit of the Cajun expression, Laissez les bon temps rouler!