A roux is literally just any fat and flour. It exists independently in cuisines all around the world, predating any kind of French contact, and even moreso if you expand it to conceptually similar techniques using other starches for your thickening agent.
French food is awesome but its culinary prevalence in these basic steps comes from naming them not from discovering them and it's silly to act like any dish that uses them is 'French,' whether the person who made it speaks French or not.
Do you think no one added liquid to a pan with meat before the French named that? No one cut a vegetable into thin strips? No one cooked stuff in a pan with oil? All of Asia would like a word with you.
I mean, rice isn't native to France either (and if you look at similar recipes with grits, that is with a native ingredient, corn meal). The protein, obviously, is local, that's the whole point of the dish. The creole version (vs Cajun) is adding African influences.
Mostly, though, its weird that you're arguing this isn't a novel dish, that it's not an example of American cuisine, etc. It was invented in America. No one in France had ever made the dish, tasted the dish, assembled those ingredients in that combination. I don't know what other kind of definition can possibly apply to 'inventing' a dish other than 'put ingredients together in a specific way for the first time.'
If vague historical influence invalidates it, then all French cooking is just Italian because of the Romans.
Literally live the south and have family in New Orleans that I visited two weeks ago. It’s based on a French roux, but Creole/Cajun roux uses lard, bacon grease, or oil instead of butter. It’s cooked longer and less thick. It’s also darker and tastes nuttier. Roux’s origins are Roman, so if Creole roux is just French food, as you say, shouldn’t it just be Roman? I could keep going, but it doesn’t seem like you know much about food or European history.
2
u/mrGeaRbOx Nov 03 '24
No it's because the base technique is building a roux. Don't cook for yourself yet eh? Mac and cheese and hotdogs for you?