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1. CHEF PAUL PRUDHOMME’S LOUISIANA KITCHEN Chef Paul Prudhomme all but single- handedly kicked off an international craze for Cajun food, introducing Cajun cuisine to the Creole restaurants of New Orleans before opening his own, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, in the city’s French Quarter. The pro- lific chef published many cookbooks, but if we have to pick only one, it’s this 1984 cook- book. The book includes the most famous of Prudhomme’s recipes, Blackened Redfish. Cookbook author and food writer — and regular contributor to our own Rouses magazine — Marcelle Bienvenu, a na- tive of St. Martinville, shares personal sto- ries and her time-honored recipes for the classic dishes of Cajun country. The book was so popular when it came out in 2006, Bienvenu wrote a sequel. Among her many books and cookbooks, Bienvenu co- authored Stir the Pot, which explores how Cajun cuisine was born. No one is more responsible for preserving Cajun food traditions than John Folse. Of- ficially named “Louisiana’s Culinary Am- bassador to the World” by the Louisiana legislature, Folse grew up in a family of great cooks on the German Coast of the Mississippi River in St. James Parish. This, his seventh cookbook, pays homage to Louisiana’s culture and cuisine. It features step-by-step directions for more than 700 recipes, plus the history and folklore be- hind them. 4. THE JUSTIN WILSON #2 COOKBOOK: COOKIN’ CAJUN Before there was Emeril and the Food Net- work, there was Justin Wilson on PBS. Jus- tin, pronounced JOOS-tain, was a Cajun storyteller and chef whose distinctive accent delighted viewers of his nationally televised cooking series, Cookin’ Cajun . A native of Amite, Louisiana, Wilson spun folksy Cajun stories while he cooked, usually punctuated by his famous catchphrase: “Ah gha-rawn- tee!'” He wrote five cookbooks. 2. WHO’S YOUR MAMA, ARE YOU CATHOLIC, AND CAN YOU MAKE A ROUX? 3. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CAJUN & CREOLE CUISINE

5. LOUISIANA COOKERY Originally published in 1954, Mary Land’s Louisiana Cookery is a comprehensive guide to the cooking history of Louisiana. Land got her start writing fishing and game recipes for the Louisiana Conservation Re- view, and the cookbook makes clear her love of the great outdoors. It features more than 1,500 recipes. 6. LOUISIANA LAGNIAPPE Many an Opelousas cook has a recipe box stuffed with yellowed newspaper clip- pings from Mercedes Vidrine, who regu- larly contributed to the Opelousas Daily World . Here you can find all four copies of her Quelque Chose cookbook series under one title — Louisiana Lagniappe — includ- ing the entire contents of the award-winning cookbook Quelque Chose de Doux avec une Demi-Tasse . The compilation cook- book was originally published in 1973 with a preface by Owen Brennan, famed New Orleans restaurateur. 7. COMMUNITY COOKBOOKS Those spiral-bound community cook- books produced by Junior Leagues and civic groups are deeply treasured recipe collections. Talk About Good! , compiled by the Junior League of Lafayette, is now in its 30th printing, with over 775,000 copies in global circulation. And the most popular of them all, River Road Recipes out of Baton Rouge, has sold a whopping 1.3 million copies since 1959. Also check out Pirate’s Pantry: Treasured Recipes of Southwest Louisiana from the Junior League of Lake Charles; Tell Me More: A Cookbook Spiced with Cajun Tradition and Food Memories from the Junior League of Lafayette; and Cajun Men Cook from civic group the Beaver Club in Lafayette. 8. REAL CAJUN: RUSTIC HOME COOKING FROM DON- ALD LINK’S LOUISIANA James Beard Award-winning chef Donald Link’s first cookbook from 2009 offers a glimpse into the kind of Cajun cooking he grew up with in Lake Charles, Louisiana and how it — and his family — influenced his cooking. The influence of French culture on Cajun cuisine is well documented, but German immigrants like Link’s great-great-

grandfather, who immigrated to Rayne with 40 other families from Geilenkirchen, Ger- many, in 1881, and settled in Roberts Cove, also influenced Cajuns with their knowledge of rice farming, crawfish farming and sau- sage-making techniques.

9. CHASING THE GATOR: ISAAC TOUPS AND THE NEW CAJUN COOKING

Chef Issac Toups grew up in Rayne, Louisi- ana, and this cookbook is a colorful tribute to the traditions of Cajun cooking and the Cajun way of life. The Top Chef celebrity favorite (and namesake of restaurants Toups’ Meatery and Toups South in New Orleans) shares time-honored family traditions, like hunting and fishing in the Atchafalaya Basin, plus how to make boudin. Sarah Savoy, the “Princess of Cajun,” is the daughter of master accordionist and world- renowned craftsman Marc Savoy and singer-musician Ann Savoy, and Sarah’s a great Cajun musician in her own right. Here she pulls together recipes collected from three generations of her family. 11. CAJUN CUISINE: AUTHENTIC CAJUN RECIPES FROM LOUISIANA’S BAYOU COUNTRY W. Thomas Angers’ 1985 collection of over 200 traditional Cajun recipes, including 11 different versions of gumbo, is a great introduction to Acadiana cuisine for the novice cook. 12. ACADIANA TABLE: GEORGE GRAHAM’S STORIES OF LOUISIANA COOKING AND CAJUN/CREOLE CULTURE South Louisiana food blogger and photogra- pher (and award-winning ad man) George Graham shares 125 regional recipes and observations on Acadiana must-visits, like Fred’s Lounge in Mamou. His cookbook was published in 2016. His popular blog, Acadi- ana Table, was launched in 2013. 10. THE SAVOY KITCHEN: A FAMILY HISTORY OF CAJUN FOOD

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