My background is Grilling/Cooking; 35+ years of selling and demonstrating grills of all sorts; charcoal/wood fired grills, gas grills, pot & pan kitchen cooking. I am a very Proud Cajun man. Over those years, and performing thousands of cooking demo's in many states in the USA, I have come to believe that there has been and continues to be a grand deception or at best, misunderstanding of what "Cajun Seasoning" should taste like, what kind of heat does it bring, and all the other hard to describe zests. Let me try and explain. I can't tell you how many patrons would come up to my grill and say "oh, is that Cajun food? I can't eat Cajun food". When asked why..."do you have shellfish allergies, or something?" the common response is "...oh no, it's too spicy!!!" My rebuttal is always "....well, then you're not eating Cajun food!" Which brings me to the misconception or maybe a better way of explaining this phenomena is... "misrepresentation". When I urge them to put their past experiences aside and take a leap and taste my dish...and they do... their reaction is always identical: "WOW! This is delicious...not too spicy, full of flavor and certainly not what I expected". This is the reason my wife and I have decided to create "Xtra Cajun". I personally have eaten at many "Cajun Restaurants" all over our wonderful country...and some are really great. Most miss the mark...and it hurts me to my core to know that their customers are eating their food and believing that THIS is Cajun cuisine...and not very impressed, They think it is authentic and correctly prepared & seasoned. My grandfather was a wonderful cook. My dad is one of my culinary heroes, and my grandmother, mother, Uncles, Cousins, Brothers and Sister all are solid Chefs/Kitchen Masters. The older members of our family NEVER used prepacked/blended season all's; they didn't have it to choose from. They had all their individual spice bottles in the spice cabinet. As they cooked...they would taste, grab a bottle of "something"...sprinkle it in the pot...a dash of this, and a dash of that....cook down, taste...and back to the spice cabinet for another spice. They repeated this process until the "desired flavor profile" was achieved. Our goal was to replicate their spice leanings, the quantities, the perfect blend for the universal flavor achieved with old school Cajun techniques. We believe we have achieved our goal with Xtra Cajun. We know that there is not one seasoning blend that is good for every dish (I prefer just sea salt and ground black pepper on my steaks), however... if you are looking for a low sodium, 4 pepper blend that brings just the right level of heat, and blended with common powdered veggies and other key secret ingredients and the perfect Cajun Flavor....we urge you to try Xtra Cajun and see if it meets your desires. Thank you for stopping in, please let us know what you think, and may God bless you and your family!
Keith & Jennifer Guidry