Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen
In the early 1980s, Louisiana cooking was a curiosity and redfish swam unworried in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. That changed when Prudhomme burst onto the scene; first at his New Orleans restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, and then with this book.This book was the first shot of the revolution in Louisiana cuisine. In one sense, it is to blame for the appalation "Cajun" becoming synonymous in marketing for "spicy" (which it, most definitely, is not) but that's a small price for the good that came of it as well.
Prudhomme understood two things. First, you can find great Louisiana cooking pretty much anywhere in the state but it was sorely lacking a standard restaurant or style that could serve as an entryway for those not familiar with the manifold styles it encompassed. Thus, his approach at K=Paul's.
Second, to come up with a way to cook Louisiana dishes in a restaurant kitchen was vastly different than cooking in a regular kitchen. He went into a home kitchen to refine the recipes in the book. Moreover, until that time, most Louisiana cookbooks assume the reader understood the basics of the Cajun or Creole kitchen. Prudhomme did not.
Even today, more than two decades later, this remains an essential tome for anyone interested in Lousiana cooking.
more: Cookbooks | Louisiana Cuisine
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