Cajun restaurant first in Chch

Press, 21 February 1987, Page 15

Cajun restaurant first in Chch

By Tessa Ward "Ya'll should come on down” and try some Cajun cooking. Mr George Williamson, born in Louisiana, has extended this invitation with the characteristic ’ panache of the hospitable southerners from bayou country. In January, Mr Williamson asked in the Arts Centre about renting a small area to introduce the Christchurch palate to Cajun cooking. His timing was perfect The Arts Centre Trust Board had only that month been considering more commercial involvement.

One thing led to another, including a sample of Cajun dishes by the inquiring taste buds of the board, and a partnership contract was drawn up with Mr Williamson to launch the Jambalaya Restaurant

The . energetic proprietor has been busy organising extensive alterations to the Restaurant Sorbonne and hopes to open for business by the first week-end in March. Jambalaya is the name of a Cajun dish—a jumble of succulent seafood, chicken or sausage with a rice base. Most of the dishes which will be served are the product of a unique blend of cultures in Louisiana.

"Cajun” is a corruption of Acadian, a group of French settlers in Acadia, Canada. In 1755, Acadians who refused to swear allegiance to the British Crown were expelled from Canada.

By 1790 about 4000 Acadians had found their way to southern Louisiana.

Cajun cuisine owes part of its heritage to the Creole people. They were the descendants of a mixture of Acadians, Spaniards, Red Indians and black

Africans, said Mr Williamson. Gumbo is the most well known of Cajun dishes. It

i- is a rich soup with seafood, chicken, and sau11 sage in various combina[t tions. Among the other

dishes, virtually unheard of so far in Christchurch, are blackened Creole fish, oysters bienville, crawfish

pie, shrimp etoufe and pecan pie. Until recently, Cajun cuisine had been confined to the restaurants of Louisiana, making it a popular draw-card for visitors, Mr Williamson said.

"Now you find Cajun cuisine all over the United States and people seem to have developed an immediate taste for it,” he said. "I want to be the first person in New Zealand to provide authentic Louisiana culture and cuisine. One of . the first jobs will be to paint the restaurant in typical New Orleans colours like peach and accentuate the windows with green shutters.

“There will be a live jazz band at nights. Later I hope to extend the dining area into a glassedover area on the patio surrounded by attractive plants.”

Mr Williamson was born and grew up in Louisiana and has enjoyed Cajun cooking as a hobby ail his life. He and his wife, Angela, from Christchurch, live at Lyttelton with their baby daughter, Jessica. “All the foftd cooked at the Jambalaya will be subject to my discerning taste buds,” he said. “I have hired an executive chef from Singapore and a sous-chef from Switzerland and will teach them the art of cooking Cajun food.

“All my life I have wanted to open a Cajun restaurant and blend with it authentic southern hospitality, service, and even ’lagniappe’ (a little extra). So, as we say in Louisiana, ‘Ya’ll come down and Laissez les bons temps roulez (let the good times roll).”