Sharing the food, music, culture, and history at the heart of Cajun & Creole Country.

Christiaan Mader
Author
Christiaan Mader

When not waxing pompously about food and what should be in it, Lafayette native Christiaan Mader is writing and recording songs for his critically acclaimed band Brass Bed, a fixture of the south Louisiana music scene. He’s performed internationally with Sub Pop recording artist Shearwater, and written Ray Davies fan fiction for Vice Magazine. His music has been featured in publications like Spin, Entertainment Weekly, and The New Yorker, as well as on nationally syndicated radio programs and podcasts produced by NPR and KEXP. 

Gumbo

It’s no oversimplification to say that until my twenties, there was no concept of gumbo in my life other than what my mom made. This is not a pointed literary exaggeration, it’s a fact of life shared by pretty much every gumbo eater across Louisiana. Gumbo is what your momma made, a definition that…

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Ingrained - The History of Rice in Louisiana

Some time in 1960s, businessmen with the Japanese electronics company Hitachi flew to southwest Louisiana, specifically, we are told, to Ville Platte. Of interest to them were the curiously high sales marks of their rice-cookers across a region otherwise alien to their products. At the time…

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Green Gumbo

On a culinary spectrum that is typically understood to vary between brown and darker brown, gumbo z’herbes stands out as the lone shade of green. Generally associated with Lent in heavily Catholic southern Louisiana, the so-called “green gumbo” breaks most of the rules generally associated with…

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Okra Gumbo

Whether or not you agree that okra should go in gumbo, the vegetable is inextricably linked to gumbo’s birth in the cultural stews of New Orleans. Slaves arriving at port in the 18th century brought with them the slimy, seedy, furry, rich and hardy vegetable from West Africa, which they called…

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Gluten Free Shrimp & Egg Gumbo

Three weeks into starting a gluten free diet, Mandy Migues knew she had to get creative to keep eating what she loved. The limitations imposed by a strict gluten-free diet denied her the joys of her grandma’s Cajun cooking, an oral history of recipes she used to make a home menu of Louisiana…

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WIld Wood Duck Gumbo

During Acadiana’s winter gumbo season, it’s not uncommon to get party invitations that sound something like: “Come on over Saturday. I’m making a gumbo.” Making a gumbo, in this sense, is less about simmering seafood, chicken, or sausage in a roux-thickened stock, as it is spending an evening with…

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Boucherie

Preserve the Pig, Preserve the Man So much of my chat with folklorist Barry Ancelet feels like unraveling strings of history coiled around nostalgia. He takes long pauses as he scrolls through pictures of a pig roast populated with grandchildren, godchildren, friends’ children, nieces and nephews. A…

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Dip Into The Secrets of Sauce

There’s a ritualistic and sacred alchemy to the entire process of boiling crawfish. The table is the altar, the newspaper the vestments, and the crawfish the succulent sacrifice. Boil seasoning spices the air like incense, and the acolytes gather around the ruby red pile, imbibing their heady drinks…

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Crawfish 2.0

Counting the ways crawfish can be prepared can read like Bubba Blue’s monologue from Forrest Gump. Personally, I prefer to think of Harlan Pepper naming nuts in Best In Show, but the effect is more or less the same: There are a lot of ways to make crawfish. It’s a crustacean, after all, so most of…

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The Origin of Crawfish Étouffée

Dickie Breaux has probably told the story a thousand times. But with each retelling there remains something mysterious about the origin of crawfish étouffée. As a Breaux Bridge culinary legend, and owner of storied Cajun restaurant Café Des Amis, he’s often called upon as a keeper of crawfish lore…

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