In the present day is Nationwide Gumbo Day, which implies it’s best to completely go discover or make some gumbo as a result of, nicely, it is GUMBO and it is DELICIOUS!
The Nationwide Day Calendar describes one in every of my favourite dishes:
Originating in southern Louisiana throughout the 18th century, Gumbo usually consists of strongly-flavored inventory with meat or shellfish, a thickener, and seasoned greens. The seasoned greens might embrace celery, bell peppers, and onions. In Cajun delicacies, the trio is called the “holy trinity.” Most individuals serve Gumbo over rice. Gumbo additionally falls into completely different classes primarily based on the next sorts of thickener used:
And New Orleans native and author, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and cookbook writer Lolis Eric Elie describes his mom’s gumbo which, after all is all the time the perfect gumbo (in my case, my grandmother’s gumbo was the perfect gumbo, sorry mother!):
My mom’s gumbo is made with okra, shrimp, crabs and several other sorts of sausage (the onions, garlic, bell pepper, celery, parsley, inexperienced onions and bay leaf go with out saying). My mom’s gumbo is a delightful brown shade, roughly the colour of my pores and skin. It’s barely thickened with a roux, that combination of flour and fats (be it vegetable, animal or dairy) that’s French in origin and emblematic of Louisiana cooking. When served over rice, my mom’s gumbo is roughly the consistency of rooster and rice soup.
My mom’s was not the one gumbo I ate after I was rising up. However my description of her gumbo may simply be utilized to many of the gumbo made by our associates and family members. Or, to place it one other manner, I used to be conscious of a spectrum, a continuum alongside which gumbo existed. A correct gumbo would possibly include extra of this or much less of that, nevertheless it by no means ventured too removed from that core. With one notable exception. My elders acknowledged the existence of two sorts of gumbo: okra and filé. Filé, the bottom sassafras leaves that the Choctaw contributed to the state’s delicacies, thickened and flavored gumbo. By the point I got here alongside, okra could possibly be purchased frozen year-round. So when you actually needed to make an okra gumbo within the useless of winter, you possibly can. However in my mother and father’ day, filé gumbo was wintertime gumbo, made when okra was out of season. Since filé powder wasn’t seasonal, it was usually added to okra gumbo on the desk for added taste. Wieners, rooster meat and giblets—this stuff appeared in some individuals’s gumbos and maybe they favored them there. However I aways seen them as components, cheap meats used to stretch the pot.
Gumbo for me and my sister meant hours peeling shrimp or chopping seasoning a day or two earlier than a significant vacation. It meant the primary course of Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. It meant an appetizer as filling, wealthy and complex as the numerous programs that adopted it. Gumbo meant that God was in His heaven and all was proper with the universe.
Nevertheless you make it—so long as it isn’t TOO far off the standard path (verify this hyperlink for recipes NOT to make)—it is sure to be scrumptious. Take pleasure in!
One other model of gumbo: turducken gumbo with roasted turkey, stewed rooster, smoked duck, smoked turducken sausage, and a duck fats roux. “It is two complete days of labor however price it.” Picture and gumbo by Greg Gaspard
One other scrumptious gumbo. Picture by Sonni Mun.
Cooking up some gumbo! Picture by Mark Johnson.