The Creole buffet on board

What Creole means

Creole cooking in Louisiana grew up locally and mixes West African, French, Spanish and Native American traditions with the wider cooking of the American South. The word Creole first named the people of French colonial Louisiana with French and Spanish ancestry, and over time it came to take in Acadians, Germans, Caribbean islanders and others.

A city known for its food

Wikipedia describes New Orleans as renowned for its distinctive music, Creole cuisine, dialects and festivals, and calls its cuisine distinctive and influential. It says New Orleans food combined local Creole, haute Creole and New Orleans French cooking, and that French, Spanish, Italian, African, Native American, Cajun, Chinese and Cuban traditions combine to produce a recognisable flavour. A buffet on a jazz cruise is a small, convenient taste of that, rather than a full survey of the city's restaurants.

Creole and Cajun

Both Creole and Cajun cooking draw on French traditions adapted to Louisiana's resources. Creole cuisine is stereotypically considered more city food, while Cajun cuisine is considered simpler country food. A Creole dinner in New Orleans is therefore the city's own cooking, which suits a cruise that starts in the French Quarter. The two traditions share ingredients and methods, and the difference is mostly one of setting.

How the buffet works

Dinner is an add-on to the same sailing: a Creole buffet cooked fresh on board, with coffee and iced tea included. You choose it when you book the evening cruise. The company says its menu shifts with the seasons and with what is available, so read any menu you find online as an idea of the food, not a fixed list.

Dietary needs

The kitchen is shared. The company says all menu items are prepared in a common kitchen, it is unable to prepare separate individual meals for dietary preferences or needs, it does not recommend the menu for guests with gluten-sensitive disorders, and it cannot certify gluten-free meals or guarantee vegan or kosher meals. Guests with serious allergies should contact the company before booking, or choose the cruise without dinner and eat ashore.

Drinks and the bar

Coffee and iced tea come with the dinner. Cocktails, beer and wine are bought on board, and the ticket highlights a seasonal cocktail menu and full-service bars on every deck. Guests must be 21 or older to buy alcohol, and servers may ask for photo ID. The company describes handcrafted cocktails and a signature cocktail to pair with the meal, so a drink at the table is part of how the evening runs.

Dinner or no dinner

Dinner suits a travel day with no other plans, a celebration, or anyone who would rather eat while the city passes. Skip it if you have a table booked ashore, if you follow a strict diet, or if you would rather spend on a drink at the bar. The sailing is the same either way: the same two hours, the same band and the same narration. If you are unsure, the booking page lets you add dinner when you pick the date.

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