Term applied to various culinary preparations which usually contain rice.
Creole cooking, a cuisine employing lots of shellfish and spices, grew out of the French, East Indian, and African cultures thrown together in the West Indies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The word originally referred to the descendants of Spanish settlers who were born in the Caribbean, but later was also used to refer to the descendants of French settlers in Louisiana. In the early seventeenth century, English adopted the word Creole from French, which had derived it from the Spanish term, criollo; in turn, criollo probably developed from the Spanish criado, meaning breed or offspring, which evolved from the Latin creare, meaning to create. The Latin creare is also the source of the word creature, and is even related to the English crescent (a crescent moon grows in size, just as a creature does) and to the French croissant (a crescent-shaped pastry).
This dish has its roots in the Creole cuisine, which is a blend of French and Spanish cooking styles, and it is commonly known as a term used for various rice dishes, sauces containing ripe tomatoes and green bell peppers, as well as delectable desserts coated in chocolate.