It can be made with ham, chicken, sausage, fresh pork, shrimp and oysters, either separately or any combination thereof. It is one of the most popular fares at large public gatherings and everyone and his or her brother is an expert on it. It has a hard name to pronounce and even harder to spell.

It is jambalaya and boy, is it good.

According to The History of Jambalaya at kitchenproject.com, jambalaya originated in Southern Louisiana by Cajuns living on the bayous where food was scarce. The word is thought to be a compound word of “Jambon,” from French meaning ham, and “Aya”, meaning rice in African. Common belief is that it originated from the Spanish Paella, which was also become popular in the United States as Spanish Rice.

James Moreaux, left, and Matt Bertrand, members of the Krewe of Lou cooking team tend to a sausage, deer meat and pork jambalaya at the Halliburton Wild Game Bunch booth at the Boys and Girls Club of Iberia's fundraiser, Brudley's fifth annual Wild Game, Seafood and Jambalaya Cookoff in 2007 at the SugArena. - Bill Smith / The Daily Iberian Advertisement

In the Teche Area, no competitive cook is worth his salt unless he has a good jambalaya recipe. Exotic meats like emu or lobster, deer or alligator are cooked along side the traditional recipes such as chicken and sausage or seafood jambalaya.

Some recipes involve the use of tomatoes or tomato sauce and others use chicken stock instead. And, there are those that use both tomatoes and chicken stock. This type of jambalaya is more a New Orleans Creole-style “red” jambalaya as opposed to one made with only chicken stock, a more Cajun-style “brown” jambalaya. One author substitutes cooked pasta for the rice when preparing jambalaya.

Several schools and other organizations raise money with benefit jambalaya dinners. On Nov. 6, the Westgate High Tigerbackers will be selling jambalaya dinners to raise money for the boy’s football program. One selling point is the fact that the organizers are going to be delivering the dinners.

On Nov. 21, the Boys and Girls Club of Acadiana Iberia Unit will host its seventh annual Brudley’s Wild Game, Seafood and Jambalaya Cookoff. The contest has been named in honor of Brudley Kibodeaux, one of the cooking circuits most dedicated participants. Kibodeaux and his wife, Nancy, were killed in a tragic automobile accident in 2007.

The jambalaya recipes transform well from the small kitchen recipes for a family to the outdoors recipes for a large group. The favored cooking pot for jambalaya recipes is the black iron pot. Browning and not burning is the key to a good jambalaya, so stirring and scraping is essential to get the “gratons” or the browned pieces mixed with the rest of the ingredients, guaranteeing a flavorful result.