Creole cuisine revolves around influences found in Louisiana from populations present in Louisiana before the sale of Louisiana to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The term Creole describes the population of people in French colonial Louisiana which consisted of the descendants of the French and Spanish upper classes, and over the years the term grew to include native-born slaves of African descent as well as those of mixed racial ancestry. Like the people, Creole food is a blend of the various cultures of Louisiana garlic butter sauce Orleans including West African, French, Spanish, Caribbean, and Native American, among others.
The Picayune Creole Cook Book has been described as “an authentic and complete account of the Creole kitchen”. It was published in 1900 during a time when former slaves and their descendants were moving North. The recipes published in the cookbook were compiled by an unknown staffer at the Daily Picayune, who said the recipes came directly from “the old Creole ‘mammies'”. Since its initial publication it has been released in 16 subsequent editions with few alterations to the original recipes. Creole cuisine is stereotypically considered more “city food” while Cajun cuisine is considered simpler “country food.
Sugar first arrived in Louisiana from Santo Domingo in the mid-1700s. Sugar began to replace cotton as the local cash crop and by 1840 the state was home to over 1,500 sugar mills and by 1860 over 300,000 slaves worked in various aspects of sugar production. Slave labor was needed not only in the fields, but also supported agricultural activities in other skilled roles like carpentry and metalworking. One of the tradition southern desserts of the antebellum era was Sally Lunn bread.
