Plantation Creole Cuisine: African and Indigenous Origins of Louisiana Cooking

The River Road corridor is the documented geographic origin of Creole cuisine, developed in plantation kitchens by enslaved African cooks who introduced okra (the basis of gumbo, from the West African word 'gombo'), filé powder (adopted from Choctaw use of sassafras), and rice-based dishes ancestral to jambalaya. This living culinary tradition is actively interpreted and practiced at venues including the Whitney Plantation and River Road African American Museum, and continues in the home cooking of descendant communities along the River Road.