"Give me a good round or seven steak with potato salad or rice dressing, that's Cajun cooking. I got to have that blue plate!" Chef Sonny Prather, Enola Prudhomme's Cajun Cafe.

If you want to eat the kind of country cooking that Cajun and Creole people have enjoyed for centuries, the best place to look is at humble diners and cafes around Lafayette. Forget the fancy eateries that have jumped on the Paul Prudhomme bandwagon and serve all manner of blackened, sauced a...