Cajun food has become a popular "ethnic" food throughout America during the last decade. This fascinating book explores the significance of Cajun cookery on its home turf in south Louisiana, a region marked by startling juxtapositions of the new and the old, the nationally standard and the locally unique. Neither a cookbook nor a restaurant guide, Cajun Foodways gives interpretation to the meaning of traditional Cajun food from the perspective of folklife studies and cultural anthropology.

The author takes into account the modern regional popular culture in examining traditional foodways of the Cajuns. Based upon her meticulous field research, this book includes detailed descriptions of ingredients, dishes, cooking aesthetics, and events that center on Cajun food. The author describes and analyzes "crawfish boils" and other special Cajun food events and explains how foodways are enlisted in the expression of ethnic identity. As this study shows, Cajuns claim to be unusually food-oriented, unusually talented in preparing of foods, and unusual in their ability to enjoy food. Cajuns' attention to their own traditional foodways is more than merely nostalgia or a clever marketing ploy to lure tourists and sell local products.

The symbolic power of Cajun food is deeply rooted in Cajuns' ethnic identity, especially their attachments to their natural environment and their love of being with people, both Cajuns and non-Cajuns. Foodways are an effective symbol for what it means to be a Cajun today. The reader interested in food and in cooking - Cajun or otherwise - will find much appeal in this book, for it illustrates a new way to think about how and why people eat as they do.

1. What Goes into Cajun Food
2. Cajun Cooking
3. Cooks and Kitchens
4. Cajuns and Crawfish
5. Catching, Cooking, and Eating Crawfish
6. The Meaning of Crawfish
7. Boucheries, Mardi Gras, and Community Festivals
8. Cajun Food and Ethnic Identity
Bibliography
Index