Friday’s “Creole Cooking Extravaganza”--a fund-raiser for Pepperdine...

Friday’s “Creole Cooking Extravaganza”--a fund-raiser for Pepperdine University’s community arts program at 7 p.m. at Coogie’s Restaurant in Malibu, where Cajun musician Queen Ida will set her accordion aside and cook jambalaya--must be placed in the context of Louisiana history:

* 65 million B.C.: A comet smashes into the Earth and kills all the dinosaurs, except for a few that decide at the last minute that small is beautiful. They evolve into alligators.

* 1542: Hernando de Soto passes through on his way to discovering the Mississippi River, leaving behind a trail of campfire ashes and sooty lumps of food. Some say the Spaniards were trying--and failing--to invent the burrito, but others consider them the true originators of blackened redfish.

* 1755: The Acadians (later Cajuns) are uprooted by the British from their home in Canada and transported to these shores, now home to the Creoles, descendants of French and Spanish settlers. Some arrive wearing paper bags over their heads, though the New Orleans Saints won’t be invented for another 212 years.

* 1803: Napoleon sells the Louisiana Territory to Thomas Jefferson to pay off a poker debt.

* 1815: Erstwhile smuggler and pirate Jean Lafitte becomes a hero by helping Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans. Says Lafitte: “Sonovagun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.” Jackson gets his picture on the $20 bill. The alligators, who deserve most of the credit, are turned into purses.

* 1847: Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline” evokes the memory of the early Acadians. Evangeline and her lover, Gabriel, miss connections in heart-rending fashion and are reunited only on his deathbed, but not before she has invented crawfish pie and file gumbo.

* 1861-65: The Civil War frees the slaves, who immediately start inventing jazz while the Cajuns get a head start on zydeco.

* 1920s: The American public finds the music of Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong and others just as tasty as shrimp Creole. The word combo is born.

* 1930s: The Kingfish, Huey Long, makes a big splash but turns out not to be a keeper.

* 1967: The Saints finally come marchin’ in. They impersonate a pro football team for 20 years until, like Lafitte, they go legit under a Cajun quarterback, Bobby Hebert.

* 1980s: Chef Paul Prudhomme and others, taking up where De Soto’s camp cooks left off, convince diners across the country that black is beautiful.

* 1992: Queen Ida and chef Richard Tramonti won’t stop with the jambalaya. They’ll serve duck crepe with chutney and cucumber, andouille sausage in mild tamales, Creole timbale in chicken mousse base, crab cakes, brioche, corn fritters and bite-size desserts. Meanwhile, Pep and the Diners, a rock ‘n’ roll band led by Pepperdine President David Davenport on saxophone, will wail. Reservations: (310) 456-4594. Cost per person is $125, or six Andrew Jacksons and change.

Alligators get in free.