"Of the varied ethnic groups which cooperated in creating Creole cooking, the French, the last to arrive, are generally accorded the major share of the credit, which they probably deserve (but perhaps not quite as exclusively as may person think). The first contributors to Creole cooking were of course the Indians. The Spanish arrived second, and the Negroes probably third, for slavery had already become well established before the Acadians, driven out of Canada and Nova Scotia, reached what with their aid was to become Creole territory in the second half of the eighteenth century.
The greater visibility of the Acadians accounts for the remark, in a generally knowledgeable book about Creole cooking: "Among the finest, and certainly the most famous [of Acadian dishes] is jambalaya," which is rather unkind, for while the Acadians have endowed this territory with any number of dishes for which they can be given credit, jambalaya is almost the only one which can be claimed by the Spaniards. It is easily reconisable by anyone familiar with Spanish cooking as a form of paella."
Eating in America: A History, Wavery Root & Richard de Rochemont [William Morrow and Company:New York] 1976 (p. 282)
