"gumbo" news and stories

Happy National Gumbo Day!

Thought to have evolved from the similar bouillabaisse French fish soups, gumbo is a Creole specialty taking its name from the African word for "okra." Different varieties of the thick stew use a plethora of various ingredients -- some have even used owl or muskrat -- but one thing remains constant: They're all thickened with a dark roux, adding further depth of flavor to the mix of okra, tomatoes, onions, fish and meat.

For recipe guidelines for the New Orleans specialty, check out Emeril's Chicken and Smoked Sausage Gumbo. And feel free to adapt the ingredients according to your preferences -- we'd surely be throwing some fresh shrimp and gumbo in it.

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New Orleans is America's original foodie mecca. In the 1700s, there was already a 400 vendor farmers' market in the center of town (on the site of the current French Market). By the 1800s, cookbooks were being published here long before the rest of America, like the local newspaper's anthology recently reprinted as 'The Times-Picayune's Creole Cook-book'. "Our cuisine is 25% French, 25% Spanish and 50% African – the French and Spanish influenced the food, but it was the Africans who largely cooked it," explains Tom Fitzmorris, author of "Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans", "It's a creole cuisine in every sense of the word." (Creole is derived from the Spanish criollo or 'native')

Several different factors influenced the eclectic tastes of New Orleans. Firstly, it was a port city throbbing with newcomers from across the world. "People don't realize that in the 18th and 19th centuries, we had more immigrants coming through our port than they did in New York," food guru Poppy Tooker explains. Those new arrivals couldn't scatter into self-defined ethnic enclaves as they did in Chicago or San Francisco either. "Look at our geography, wedged between [Lake] Pontchartrain and the Mississippi river, there's not a lot of room to expand," notes Kelly Hamilton, who leads food tours around the city. Settlers clubbed together to cook and so produced hybrids of the foods they'd eaten back home.

Read our "only in New Orleans" list after the jump...

'Real Cajun: Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link's Louisiana.'
By Donald Link with Paula Disabrowe
Photographs by Chris Granger
Clarkson Potter 2009
Buy it on Amazon

Although Donald Link's restaurants, Cochon and Herbsaint, are located in New Orleans, these recipes are not the food of that city. Far from the touristy restaurants, his food comes from a place off the highways and byways that run along Louisiana's bayous. The book lives up to its title-serving Cajun food at its simple and rustic best. This collection is filled with family recipes that have been honed and perfected with the skill of chef but without losing site of how people cook at home.

In creating this book Link said he set out to "preserve a way of life and give people an idea of how it really is." He's repairing the misconceptions of Cajun food that came with the blackened craze that swept the country in the '80s, and his recipes demonstrate and explain the wide variations between Cajun and Creole.

Along with the recipes, he shares insight into Cajun traditions and the country cooking that can usually be made in just one pot and never requires any fancy kitchen gadgets. There are plenty of recipes that make wonderful week-night meals, such as the Post-K Meatloaf that separates the flavor base of brown sugar and a generous portion of bacon from the actual meatloaf. But the real magic happens in those recipes that call for hours at the stove-perfect for this time of year when the warmth of a simmering pot keeps away the chill.

Photo: Amazon.com

'New Orleans Classic Gumbos & Soups'
Recipes from Favorite Restaurants
Text and Photographs by Kit Wohl
Pelican Publishing -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

The best Creole-Cajun dishes are oft found in Louisiana: gumbos bursting with fresh seafood, sausages and chicken slopped together with rice, soups with an intense depth of flavor -- all representing comfort food at its best. "New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups" showcases some of the best recipes from eateries around the region and brings them to home cooks in a non-intimidating approach.

Recipes like Tulane Chicken Andouille Gumbo and Red Bean and Sausage soup will keep you coming back to this book for the ultimate weekend dinners. Be sure to buy the freshest ingredients possible, especially seafood: It plays a key role in the outcome of dishes, and makes the extra effort well worth it.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Gumbo is a very thick soup, almost a stew, that can be attributed to the Creole kitchen (it has also been called "Cajun" but I'll let them experts fight that one out).

Gumbo likely began when French settlers in Louisiana made their native bouillabaisse, substituting ingredients that were available to them locally. As settlers from different countries arrived in Louisiana and added their influences, bouillabaisse gradually evolved into gumbo. The name "gumbo" is derived from the African word "quingombo," which refers to okra, one of the primary ingredients in a proper gumbo.

The base for gumbo is a dark roux made from a 1:1 ratio of flour and oil. The roux acts as a thickener. Okra is also added, and is what thickens the gumbo. However, when okra is not in season, cooks use only the dark roux. File powder or gumbo file, made from sassafras, was used at one time as a thickener as well, but is not as common today. If there is okra in the gumbo, however, it is absolute sacrilege to add file powder.

Once the roux has darkened, cooks add the Holy Trinity (chopped bell pepper, celery, and onion) and stock made from whatever ingredients will be in the final gumbo - chicken, sausage, or shellfish. The meats are added and the gumbo is simmered on the stove top until the meats are cooked through.

Though gumbo is sometimes considered a thick soup, some gumbo purists argue that it must be ladled over plain white rice.

I had my fill of gumbo at restaurants over the weekend, so I'll leave the home-cooking up to you:

• Gumbo z'Herbes (Gumbo made from all green vegetables)
• Gumbo File with Crab from Gourmet
• New Orleans Chef Leah Chase's Creole Gumbo
• Gumbo Ya Ya from Emeril Lagasse