A pair of Cajun seasoning companies whose names allude to domestic rough-housing are now preparing to scuffle in court.
The makers of "Slap Ya Mama" last week sued the entrepreneur behind "Punch Ya Daddy," claiming the upstart brand infringes upon their trademark. William Stagg, attorney for the plaintiff, says it's not what's in the cartons of Kirby Falcon's proprietary South Louisiana spice blend that concerns his client: It's the name and logo emblazoned on their labels.
"We don't really know what the recipe is, but we believe the packaging and image my customer has created for Slap Ya Mama is unique," Stagg says. "We believe this brand is calculated to capture our market."
Falcon's attorney did not return calls seeking comment.
According to a June story in Houma Today, Falcon developed his seasoning mix in 2007 while working the grill at his strip-mall lunch counter. He found a name for his product after his 4-year-old son yelped, "I'm going to punch ya, daddy." Punch Ya Daddy is now sold in more than 100 stores across Louisiana.
'New Orleans Classic Gumbos & Soups' Recipes from Favorite Restaurants Text and Photographs by Kit Wohl Pelican Publishing -- 2009 Buy it on Amazon
The best Creole-Cajun dishes are oft found in Louisiana: gumbos bursting with fresh seafood, sausages and chicken slopped together with rice, soups with an intense depth of flavor -- all representing comfort food at its best."New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups" showcases some of the best recipes from eateries around the region and brings them to home cooks in a non-intimidating approach.
Recipes like Tulane Chicken Andouille Gumbo and Red Bean and Sausage soup will keep you coming back to this book for the ultimate weekend dinners. Be sure to buy the freshest ingredients possible, especially seafood: It plays a key role in the outcome of dishes, and makes the extra effort well worth it.
See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.
Red Lobster this summer became the latest fast-casual chain to dip into the bayou for a promotional menu item, reflecting a mainstreaming of Louisiana flavors many experts attribute to the continuing diasporas of chefs displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Red Lobster, which has introduced many American landlubbers to seafood through its 600-plus locations, recently debuted a "New Orleans jambalaya," made with shrimp, sausage and "Creole seasonings." Earlier this year, O'Charley's tested a Cajun-spiced shrimp salad, while Chili's tried to lure customers by slashing the price of its Cajun chicken pasta. And Uno Chicago Grill set its sights south with a NOLA-beholden menu featuring a shrimp po' boy, bananas Foster and an andouille-sausage flatbread.
"Cajun-Creole is one of the most important regional cuisines in America, and more and more people are more educated about it than they've ever been," says Randy Cheramie, associate dean at Nicholls State University's John Folse Culinary Institute in Thibodaux, La.
Nothing tastes like a good blackening. And it's not even hard.
Many people shy away from blackened foods, thinking that blackening means charring the meat, the vegetable, whatever is being blackened.
Au contraire! Blackening refers to what happens to the Cajun spices! The spices get really hot and kazaam! They explode in the heat, turning black and infusing your fish, meat, vegetables or what-have-you with their flavor. Cajun, delicious, and a lot better for you than frying.
Check out instructions on how to make two seriously delicious blackened catfish fillets after the jump.
Most every country or region uses a trinity, or a basic mix of flavors (generally vegetable-based, spice-based, or a combination of the two) for a majority of their signature dishes which include soups, stews, sauces, or variations thereof. Though we have touched on this a few times in the past, I think it bears repeating - especially as to why these flavor combinations are so important for regional dishes.
The Szechuan trinity is a mix of ginger, green garlic, and chili peppers. In Lebanese cuisine, it is a combination of garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Italy has two - the first is tomato, garlic and basil, which is obviously used for anything with a tomato-based flavor, and the second trinity is olive oil, onion and garlic which is used for just about everything else. In France they use a combination of onions, carrots, and celery called Mirepoix. Admittedly, I make a fresh batch of Mirepoix twice a week and simply keep it in a Zip-lock bag in the fridge because I use it so often.
Over the next few days we'll be taking a look at a number of dishes that fall into the 'Cajun', 'Creole', and 'Southern' food categories. Though there are distinct differences between each style of cooking, for ease of posting I'm going to lump them into the single category of "Mardi Gras food".
I use a basic Creole spice in most of my dishes which I'll be referencing back to over the next couple of days. This is very similar to Emeril's "essence", though each recipe varies slightly. You can adjust the amounts to suit your own personal taste, though the mixture below will produce a nice blend of seasonings and spice that will accent and flavor your food without adding too much heat. If three-alarm is what you are looking for, by all means add more cayenne!
In this month's issue of GQ magazine, food guru Alan Richman took a glossy, 8-page look at the food of New Orleans post-Katrina. The idea sounds like a good one, so why is the article so controversial? The problem is that the piece was not gushing, not exactly sentimental and, in parts, not accurate about the city and its food.
To date, the vast majority of the pieces about New Orleans have been stories of survival and of working to restore the city to its former state. People rebuild their homes and lives. Restaurants struggle to clean up, reopen and attract customers. Richman writes some about the touching, uplifting parts and the grassroots movements of people to get their lives back in order, but does not write exclusively about the uplifting parts, in fact stating that "New Orleans shouldn't exist," referring to it below-sea level elevation right on a vulnerable coastline. In another controversial assertion, he says that Cajuns originated in Canada, which is true, contrary to what some of his critics have said. However, Richman also states that he doesn't think Creoles ever really existed, but the term applied to a definite and large group of people in the city. He explains his position in the GQ podcast, by the way.
It's Fat
Tuesday, and though you could probably entertain yourself at home with food and drinks, it's much more of a party if
you go out on the town. If you're in LA, here are a few suggestions for Cajun, Creole, and Southern cooking:
Bayou Grille, 1400 N. La Brea Ave., Inglewood, (310) 673-0824
Blue Bayou 1313 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim, (714) 781-4565
Bourbon Street Shrimp 10928 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, (310) 474-0007
Gumbo Pot at the Farmers' Market, 6333 W Third St, Los Angeles, (323) 933-0358, www.thegumbopotla.com
Harold and Belle's 2920 W Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles, (323) 735-9023
House of Blues 8430 W Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, (818) 761-4243, www.hob.com
Mardi Gras 10151 Riverside Dr, Toluca Lake, (818) 761-4243, www.lamardigras.net
New Orleans 140 Pier Ave, Hermosa Beach, (310) 372-8970
Gumbo is a very thick soup, almost a stew, that can be attributed to the Creole kitchen (it has
also been called "Cajun" but I'll let them experts fight that one out).
Gumbo likely began when French settlers in Louisiana made their native bouillabaisse, substituting
ingredients that were available to them locally. As settlers from different countries arrived in Louisiana and added
their influences, bouillabaisse gradually evolved into gumbo. The name "gumbo" is derived from the
African word "quingombo," which refers to okra, one of the primary ingredients in a proper gumbo.
The base for gumbo is a dark roux made from a 1:1 ratio of flour and oil. The roux acts as a thickener. Okra is
also added, and is what thickens the gumbo. However, when okra is not in season, cooks use only the dark
roux. File powder or gumbo file, made from
sassafras, was used at one time as a thickener as well, but is not as common today. If there is okra in the gumbo,
however, it is absolute sacrilege to add file powder.
Once the roux has darkened, cooks add the Holy Trinity (chopped bell pepper, celery, and onion) and stock made from
whatever ingredients will be in the final gumbo - chicken, sausage, or shellfish. The meats are added and the gumbo is
simmered on the stove top until the meats are cooked through.
Though gumbo is sometimes considered a thick soup, some gumbo purists argue that it must be ladled over plain white
rice.
I had my fill of gumbo at restaurants over the weekend, so I'll leave the home-cooking up to you:
Since Mardi Gras
is coming up on Tuesday, we've been making all kinds of Creole, Cajun, and purely-for-Fat Tuesday dishes in the Slashfood
kitchens this past weekend.
Jambalaya is a rice-based dish that is popular in the American
South, and is most often associated with New Orleans. If you've been paying attention to out study of Cajun vs. Creole cuisines, you know
that jambalaya is common to both.
It's not clear where the name "jambalaya" comes from. Some say it is derived from French word
"jambon" for ham, "a la," and an African word, "yaya," for rice. Personally, I think it
just means a "jumble" of rice, vegetables, and whatever chicken, pork, and crustaceans you have lying around,
because that's what it looks like in the pot and on the plate.
At the heart of jambalaya is rice, spice, and the "Holy Trinity," chopped onions, bell peppers,
and celery. From there, every recipe for jambalaya takes on the personality of its cook. It can be made on the stove
top or in the oven, it can be soupy or stew-y, it can have chicken or ham or sausage or crustaceans or all of the
above. It's all up to you.
As Mardi Gras approaches, and
many people might be entertaining over the weekend with menus inspired by New Orleans, let's take a look at the two
cuisines that many people mistakenly interchange: Cajun and Creole. The two are similar, which accounts for the
confusion, sharing some similar ingredients like file powder, a version of mirepoix made of onions, bell peppers,
and celery, and each even having their own versions of jambalaya, gumbo, and etouffe. Yet, the cuisines are
different.
The cuisine is a fusion of French and Southern cooking. The recipes use simple, local
ingredients, and are considered somewhat "rustic." The base for many of the soups and stews is a
dark roux made from flour and pork fat. There is a popular misconception that Cajun food is ragin'
spicy, but though Cajun cooks use a heavy hand with spices such as cayenne and black peppers, the food
is meant to have a balanced, not overpowering, heat. Another misconception is that Cajun cuisine includes
"blackened" fish and chicken, but most foods prepared in traditional Cajun home and restaurants don't do
this.
Cajun cuisine encompasses dirty rice, skillet cornbread, crawfish and other crustaceans boiled with
cayenne and salt, a lot of catfish, use of pork in the form of andouille, boudin and chaurice (similar to
chorizo) sausages, Tasso ham, gumbo, jambalaya, and etouffe.
Over the past weekend, my fiance and I had the
pleasure of making a dish for her company potluck. We decided to make those fancy looking balled up chicken drumettes.
The key to making these ball shapes is patience and a sharp knife. Here is a rough guide to making these
creations:
Grab the drumette at the skinnier end (which was originally connected to the wingette)
Use
your knife to cut away at the meat from the skinny end, while making a scraping motion downward.
Keep doing it
until the meat is all squished down to the fat end.
Using both hands, firmly pull the meat down over the fat
end of the drumette as tightly as possible. This will ensure a nice ball shape.
Nothing tastes like a good blackening. And it's not even hard.
Most every country or region uses a trinity, or a basic mix of flavors (generally vegetable-based, spice-based, or a combination of the two) for a majority of their signature dishes which include soups, stews, sauces, or variations thereof. Though we have 
Over the next few days we'll be taking a look at a number of dishes that fall into the 'Cajun', 'Creole', and 'Southern' food categories. Though there are distinct differences between each style of cooking, for ease of posting I'm going to lump them into the single category of "Mardi Gras food". 
In this month's issue of GQ magazine, food guru Alan Richman took a glossy, 8-page look at the food of New Orleans post-Katrina. The idea sounds like a good one, so why is the article 
It's Fat
Tuesday, and though you could probably entertain yourself at home with food and drinks, it's much more of a party if
you go out on the town. If you're in LA, here are a few suggestions for Cajun, Creole, and Southern cooking:
Gumbo is a very thick soup, almost a stew, that can be attributed to the Creole kitchen (it has
also been called "Cajun" but I'll let them experts fight that one out).
Since Mardi Gras
is coming up on Tuesday, we've been making all kinds of 
As 
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