Nonkie Bé's Cajun Vocabulary Lessons

a spicy sausage made with pork, typically used in gumbos and other Cajun dishes.

a fried French donut covered in powdered sugar. Typically, beignets come in the classic square shape, but some restaurants in Baton Rouge will have them in long, thin strips called Beignet Fingers. 

a good friend

a combination of cooked rice, pork, onions, green peppers, and seasonings. The mixture is put into a meat grinder before being stuffed into a sausage casing. It is then steamed or heated.

Crawfish are freshwater crustaceans resembling small lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crayfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, mudbugs, or yabbies. 

a dish common in Cajun and Creole cuisine that consists of some type of smothered seafood stew served over rice. 

a thick, robust, roux-based soup prepared with seafood or game & sometimes thickened with okra or filé. 

French for “Fat Tuesday,” Mardi Gras is centered around the Catholic traditional holidays, Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday leading up to Easter. Usually occurs in late January, February and sometimes even March. For Louisianians, Mardi Gras is the biggest festival of the year.

Thank you very much

a sandwich that is always made with French bread, po-boys can be stuffed with fried oysters, shrimp, fish, crawfish, meatballs, smoked sausage and more. Gets its name from a historical  sandwich costing only 5 cents for “poor boys.” 

A smoked ham, spiced, and cured meat, a specialty of south Louisiana cuisine. In this case "ham" is a misnomer since tasso is not made from the hind leg of a hog, but rather the hog's shoulder. This cut is typically fatty, and because the muscle is constantly used by the animal, has a great deal of flavor.