what was the diet for new orleans in 1770?

Question

looking to find out what the average cajun diet was at that time

Answer 1

The average diet in New Orleans depending on how long ago the animal in question had been caught or killed (and what it was.)

First, due to the marshy area, cattle were not that big here. They kept on sinking into the muck. But pigs LIKE the muck and thrived. So pork dishes were common. Chickens and ducks didn't mind the marshes so you might find thme in abundance. Fish and several varieties of crustaceans were also quite common. Gator tail is also edible if you cook it long enough. Otherwise it can be kind of tough. Chewy. Almost as bad as calamari.

But another factor counted heavily. Refrigeration didn't exist! So the first day, you might eat the pig, duck, chicken, or fish cooking by baking or broiling or something like that. A pretty traditional recipe.

The next day, the food was cooked but it was a little older. So it would get mixed with something that was a little spicier, to hide the flavor. This is where "Creole" and "Cajun" cooking start to come into play.

The third day (if there was anything left), you mixed in every old bit of meat you had with rice and added a lot of pepper sauce to make jamalaya. You cooked it so that everything got hot through and through, so the remaining meat would sizzle from its fat draining out of the meat chunks and into the surrounding rice, where you would get the benefit of the extra flavor of the fat.

So the basic principles were - indiginous food sources, add more spices the older it got, and don't ask how old it is. On the theory that if you had to ask, you didn't want to know.

As to veggies, we can grow lots of fruit and veggies in this south Louisiana soil. No biggie to do corn, beans, peas, tomatoes, etc. Okra was brought over with the slave trade because the seeds were used as hair decorations. The Swahili word for the okra plant is "gumbo" - and that is where that particular type of soup/stew gets its name.

Like jambalaya, gumbo is one of those "it's too old to do anything with it except boil the heck out of it" recipies. Of course, boiling the gumbo usually killed off the germs. But the truth is, that time predates the Pasteur germ theory. The REAL reason they boiled it is so the strong spices would dissolve in the cookpot.

Answer 2

sea food