What Is Gumbo? Plus 10 Gumbo Recipes

A mouthwatering bowl of gumbo is not only an iconic dish, however an invite to be taught in regards to the foodways of Louisiana. 

“I’ve to watch out about talking when it comes to particular guidelines [about gumbo],” says creator, journalist, and New Orleans native Lolis Eric Elie, a former columnist for The Occasions-Picayune and script editor for acclaimed tv collection like Treme and Hell on Wheels. “I’ve a really pricey pal from Cajun nation who makes an excellent dish he calls gumbo, however that’s under no circumstances what I’d name gumbo.” 

Whether or not the gumbo you deem “genuine” is Creole or Cajun, thinner like at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant or thicker just like the model served at Radosta’s in Metairie, Louisiana, and whether or not it is thickened with okra or roux, it’s essential to keep up a dialogue with the dish’s custom, says Elie.

What’s gumbo? 

At its easiest, gumbo is a savory one-pot stew made with varied meats or shellfish, greens, and herbs, that lives on the intersection of African, Native American, and European cultures. It is likely to be thickened with okra, filé powder (dried sassafras leaves), or roux (a mixture of fats and flour). It usually begins with the Cajun and Creole “holy trinity” of onions, bell peppers, and celery. 

The phrase “gumbo” has African origins, and variations of it are utilized in a number of branches of the Bantu language household to explain okra. When enslaved Africans have been taken to the French colony of modern-day Louisiana beginning round 1719, simply after the founding of New Orleans, some introduced okra with them and cooked it the best way it had been handed right down to them for generations. 

Checking out gumbo’s origins is difficult. A variety of teams have had a hand within the proverbial pot, together with these whose contributions have been missed or erased. Elie has lengthy criticized the tendency of meals media to undervalue Black contributions to Louisiana’s delicacies and overemphasize the French affect. 

“Once you take a look at many early historic references, folks in contrast French bouillabaisse to gumbo, which is totally incorrect,” says Zella Palmer, the chair and director of the Dillard College Ray Charles Program in African-American Materials Tradition. “It was due to lack of historic references and lack of publicity to West and Central African tradition and the Caribbean.”

“If you happen to go to Nigeria right now, they’ve a stew with assorted meat in Calabar, which was a significant slave port,” she continues. “In Benin, West Africa, there’s an abundance of varied meats which might be utilized in stews with leafy greens.”

Though recipes for gumbo didn’t seem in cookbooks till the mid-1800s, historian Gwendolyn Midlo Corridor uncovered the first recognized point out of gumbo in a 1764 court docket doc, in accordance with author Robert Moss. An enslaved lady named Comba was requested by New Orleans authorities officers if she gave un gombeau to a different enslaved lady. 

Within the early 1800s, gumbo and comparable okra-based stews might be discovered in lots of areas within the U.S. that have been house to enslaved Africans, not simply in Louisiana, writes Moss. By the mid-1800s, the dish had develop into closely related to New Orleans and Louisiana delicacies. Within the Nineteen Eighties, the stew was additional popularized with the curiosity in Creole and Cajun cooking that was sparked by New Orleans cooks like Justin Wilson and Paul Prudhomme. 

Creole vs. Cajun gumbo

Louisiana is house to giant Creole and Cajun populations, whose influences might be discovered within the gumbo pot. 

The Cajuns, French colonists who have been exiled from present-day Nova Scotia, settled in Louisiana within the mid-1700s. Discovering themselves in an unfamiliar, rural, and subtropical local weather, these exiled immigrants needed to adapt to the foodways of this area. Among the many various folks they traded with and discovered from have been enslaved West Africans, Indigenous tribes, German and Irish immigrants, and later Haitians, following the top of the Haitian Revolution within the early 1800s. Creole tradition developed from folks born to European immigrants and enslaved Africans within the New World. 

Creole and Cajun cultures are much more culturally associated than many understand, says Palmer. “In Lafayette, Opelousas and all of Creole Louisiana, there was intersectionality between Afro-Creoles, Cajuns and Indigenous in addition to European immigrants. It was survival of the fittest — utilizing the most effective or the abundance of the Bayou to outlive and thrive and work and earn cash.”

So far as gumbo is anxious, Creole and Cajun variations function just a few distinct variations. 

Elie grew up on the Creole, or seafood-and-sausage, gumbo of New Orleans, which is without doubt one of the best-known and best-documented sorts of gumbo. Two to a few hours away to the northwest, Lafayette, Louisiana, is called the capital of Cajun delicacies, the place the gumbo begins with a darkish, longer-cooking roux and is usually made with smoked sausage and fowl like rooster, turkey or duck, yielding a extra strong and intense taste that’s “extra paying homage to West Africa,” Palmer says.

Creole gumbo usually contains tomatoes, whereas Cajun gumbo recipes depart it out. In keeping with Elie’s mom, Gerri, “you place tomato in okra gumbo to maintain the okra from ‘roping.’ Something that was acidic would handle the slime,” she says. “Tomato sauce goes in for that cause solely.”

Filé vs. okra vs. roux

Gumbo might be thickened with filé, okra, or roux. Using filé, or dried and floor sassafras leaves with thickening properties, was doubtless a contribution of the Choctaws and presumably different Native American tribes, as sassafras grows in every single place in Louisiana. In keeping with Palmer, Native girls would promote the bottom leaves within the markets throughout rural Louisiana. As Elie discovered in his Creole gumbo-adhering family, folks historically used filé to thicken gumbo when okra wasn’t in season. 

Roux arrived later, with the Cajuns, who used it to thicken sauces, stews, and soups. However the usage of flour was additionally a luxurious till not so way back, as Palmer says. “There’s several types of gumbos based mostly in your price range, your entry to those elements.” 

Most individuals agree that gumbo must be served with rice, though some Cajuns serve it with potato salad. C.C. Robin, a Frenchman who revealed a log of his travels in Louisiana within the early 1800s, reported consuming gumbo that was served with corn meal mush.

Varieties of gumbo 

Modern gumbo encompasses numerous variations, usually together with shrimp, oysters, and crabs. There’s additionally chicken-and-sausage gumbo, made with andouille sausage (a sausage that was international to Elie till he was an grownup). Okra gumbos usually embody shrimp and okra or rooster and okra. Gumbo z’herbes, additionally known as inexperienced gumbo, is made with quite a lot of greens and greens and was historically served throughout Lent in New Orleans’ Catholic communities. 

Listed here are 10 gumbo recipes that show the flexibility and flexibility of this iconic stew.