Cajun Kitchen: Terri Pischoff Wuerthner

By JULIETTE ROSSANT With first annual commemoration of hurricanes Katrina and Rita raging in the Media, and with it memory of the destruction of life, property and culture along the Gulf Coast, a book like In a Cajun Kitchen (St. Martin's Press 2006) comforts heart and soul. Author and teacher Terri Pischoff Wuerthner reaches back to write the history of her clan, La Familie Labauve, in Lousiana, starting with her great-grandparents and their Home Place farm on the bayou, in the family for 120 years. She writes in the Acknowledgements: A portion of the profits from the sale of this book will be dedicated to recovery efforts of cultural institutions and archival repositories attempting to save and preserve the history and culture of Louisiana. (p. ix) Dr. I Bruce Turner writes in the foreward that much of Cajun life disappeared long before the hurricane hit, partly due to the government's supression of French Cajun culture, and partly because of the economic changes in the Gulf. Even the recent revival of Cajun music and cuisine, he mourns the loss of more traditional practices that are captured in this book: The author mentions her exchange of Christmas menus wiith a relative by e-mail. Unless international efforts are made to save that information and migrate it to new formats as technology changes, her grandchildren will never have access to that as she had access to her great-grandfather's letters. (p. xxii) The urgency of preserving the cultural heritage, especially the culinary heritage of the Cajuns becomes even more accute given the hurricane's damage. Terri imparts such childish wonder and anticipation in her description of getting her first cooking lesson from her Cajun Gransmother Olympe that you can't wait to find some beef and make a fricasse (p. 98). In a Cajun Kitchen is a story about Cajun pride, family, and food: "Remember you must get the roux dark, dark, dark for meat, but you need a golden roux for seafood." It didn't occr to her that a four-year old she'd just met, and an Irish lady who didn't really want to eat Cajun food, might not be interested in her light-roux-for-seafood and dark-roux-for-meat principle... I was starting to have doubts about what was turning into a very long lesson, when the most amazing aroma began to fill the kitchen. It smelled like a combination of toasted nuts, roasted meat, and fried bread. I loved it. We watched as she stirred this mixture in the hot pot. The roux turned into a smooth, rich, dark-dark-dark brown and entered my senses to remain there forwver. Thus began my lifelong love affair with Cajun cooking. (p. 87) Terri starts provides a geneology of her family, a description of the Cajun pantry, and even details about how to make an expert roux. Her reconstruction of her great grandmother's courtship, marriage, and life at Home Place is wonderful, despite all the holes in the historical record (thieves stole the family photographs, furniture, and even the cast iron pans when they ransacked Home Place). The recipes rely heavily on Gulf Coast ingredients like oysters, crab and crawfish, and andouille and the dried sasafrass leaves called filé. Many of the recipes come from Terri's relatives, like her Aunt Lorna, Lorna's Chicken Gumbo (p. 45) and Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo (p. 34) in which the head note describes her grandfather and grandmother cooked the soup together. A few recipes in the book come from other older cookbooks, like Real Cajun Cornbread (p. 150) which comes from Frances Parkinson Keyes Cookbook (via Aunt Lorna). Then there is the wonderfully titled dessert, Mrs. Bodin's Fudge Cake (Very Old Recipe)(p. 257) given to Terri by the indispensible Aunt Lorna (who is quoted throughout the book). The cake contains pitted cherries and is baked for 1 1/2 hours at 300 F. There are notes to the recipes throughout the book, called Lagniappe, which means something extra or a bonus in Louisana. These provide background to the Cajun techniques, history of ingredients, or simpified steps. Terri was brought up in San Francisco, so in a way In a Cajun Kitchen is her very real attempt to gather the remains of of her Cajun roots before they disappear like the dilapidated Home Place. Her family, so many of whom she did not know directly, come alive in the pages as she shares their love of food. Book details: Publisher Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Previous articles: [Hurricane Katrina - complete] [Cookbook Reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to superchefblog