Cajun and Creole spices waft through the air. The table is stocked with oysters, shrimp, sausage and crawfish. On the stove simmers some gumbo, dirty rice and roux.

This isn’t an afternoon in New Orleans, but it’s the next best thing: Cooking hour at the Metropolitan Market in Federal Way. This week’s lesson is on food for Mardi Gras.

More than two dozen people are crowded around the kiosk — some standing, some sitting — as they listen to Chef Surtida Shelton begin her weekly cooking class.

This week, she is cooking classic Louisiana food. She said she feels guilty calling it Mardi Gras food because she hasn’t been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. However, Louisiana food is its own course in cooking school.

After a brief history of New Orleans cooking (see our Web site for video of Shelton’s explanation), it’s time to cook. For the students, it’s also time to sample.

Up first is a stewed okra, served alongside a dirty rice, which is so named for the chicken livers cooked with it.

“Don’t ever tell me I don’t feed you,” Shelton joked.

Almost all Louisiana food is made up the “holy trinity,” as Shelton calls it: Onions, bell peppers and celery.

The most important lesson of the night is how to make a proper roux — a mixture of half fat, half flour. The fat in this particular roux is vegetable oil. The longer the roux thickens and cooks, the darker the mixture becomes. Foods like gumbo require a red roux, which has to cook for a while. It’s important to keep stirring the roux; otherwise it can burn and become bitter.

The roux is then mixed with the shrimp, oysters and andouille sausage as well as other spices for the gumbo.

Last up for tasting is the paczki, a Polish version of a beignet, a fried bread dessert.

“I thought it was very tasty,” Federal Way resident Deborah Abington said. “Very informative. It was a taste of the whole Creole flavor.”

Art of cooking

Shelton teaches these art of cooking classes from 6 to 7 p.m. each Wednesday at the Metropolitan Market, 1618 SW Dash Point Road, Federal Way.

Ken Przepiora and his wife, Lorraine, have attended the classes for about six weeks.

“She’s wonderful,” Lorraine said. “We’ve learned so much. We’ve broadened our palate.”

Topics change each week and each class is free. It can get crowded around the demonstration kiosk quickly, so it’s best to show up early.

For a list of scheduled classes and recipe ideas, visit www.metropolitan-market.com.