This difference is still evident in Cajun cuisine. The two groups developed some 70 miles apart, and Creoles have historically been known as the sophisticated city slickers while Cajuns were the rustic country folk.
Unlike Louisiana’s Creole population – a term encompassing the descendants of French, Spanish and African people born in colonial cities, like New Orleans – the Acadians settled in the swampy southern reaches of Louisiana surrounding Bayou Lafourche now known as Acadiana. Her meat and vegetables come from local farms herbs are grown in her garden and she chops, stirs, peels and prepares every dish patiently by hand from scratch – just like her ancestors did.Ĭajuns are the descendants of the Acadians, French colonists who were exiled from Canada’s Maritime provinces by the English in the 1700s. She catches her own soft-shell crabs and her son-in-law pulls shrimp and oysters from the bayou 100ft away. She’ll spend hours smothering onions down to create the base of each dish. Instead, she subtly seasons her dishes so as not to overpower them, creating a refreshingly light take on comfort food. Unlike most commercial Cajun cooking, nothing is fried, blackened or covered in heavy spices. While Alzina’s Kitchen may be simple, Toups’ Cajun comfort food is impeccably fresh and layered with sophistication. There’s no dishwasher, but after the last spoonful of bread pudding or walnut tart, guests often feel compelled to scrub their plates in the sink. When those run dry, Toups will kindly point guests towards the tap. After being welcomed by the white-haired lady in the apron, diners help themselves to her home-made dishes – which change each week but may include feathery light potato rolls, black-eyed pea jambalaya, shrimp fricassee and roux-less gumbo – and wash them down with pitchers of sweet iced tea and jugs of water.
There are no walls separating the dining room from Toups’ open kitchen, and guests sit at two communal tables under a picture of Pope Benedict XVI and several crucifixes tacked to the wall.
#In the heat of the night family secret portable
Toups only accepts one group of six to 22 diners at a time, and after patrons park on her lawn and swat away the mosquitoes, they shuffle into the fluorescent-lit shed where ceiling fans and portable air conditioners wheeze against the heat. But if you’re lucky enough to snag a reservation (and can find the place), you’re in for what celebrity chefs and culinary pilgrims from all over the world swear is one of the most memorable meals they’ve ever had.Įating at Alzina’s Kitchen blurs the boundaries between an informal family gathering and a fine dining experience. She doesn’t take walk-ins, only entertains one or two parties per week and is booked up until June 2019. The blue letters spelling ‘Alzina’s’ fell off the metal siding years ago. There’s no menu, no set hours and no website. Inside, a 91-year-old great-great-grandmother named Alzina Toups is quietly singing a prayer in French while she prepares a six-course meal for 22 people.įor the last 40 years, Toups has been using tightly guarded techniques passed down through a long line of Cajun cooks in her family at Alzina's Kitchen, a windowless restaurant that she runs by herself in her son’s former welding shop. Mist hangs in the cypress trees, sugar cane fields melt into a maze of marshes and the land and water blend together in the liquid summer heat.īut if you follow the bending banks of Bayou Lafourche 72 miles south of New Orleans, past the ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss and the slow glide of shrimp boats, you’ll find an unmarked shed in the tiny town of Galliano. It’s easy to get lost deep in Louisiana’s swampy south-eastern corner.
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