Southern Gumbo Trail (2006)
southernfoodways.org
southernfoodways.org
this organization is part of the center for the study of southern culture. a humanities-based academic discipline that a lot of tech folks might think is worthless.
"Because most of you will become engineers. And as engineers, you need to understand that not all problems can be solved."
all the commenters on the Detroit land-tax article need to understand this.
There is no magic bullet that will solve that particular problem, no matter how high up the abstraction ladder you go.
I would say they are hard because they are not falsifiable.
I've got a few facts and opinions on gumbos for the uninitiated.
If you would like to make a gumbo but you are afraid of roux-making, you have options. While diehard white guys will tell you that you have to make a roux by hand with flour and oil / drippings, you can buy either the jarred version or the powdered version of the stuff and make a perfectly fine gumbo, and anyone who tells you that they can tell the difference is a liar. You will save a half hour to an hour to boot.
The gumbo you get in a New Orleans restaurant is a "show gumbo." You can certainly make gumbos that thick at home, but these tend to be heavier on the roux or okra than what you'd normally find in someone's home. These tend to be smaller than average portions with a much heavier emphasis on the meat and veggies and more rice than normal.
Cajuns tend to not mix meats when making their gumbo (well, except for duck and oyster), while creoles tend to have less rules. Again, it's purely a preference and expectations thing. Do what you like.
File' is both a thickening agent and a flavoring agent. It is perfectly fine to eat a gumbo with roux and toss some file' in for flavor.
The easiest way to differentiate between a creole and cajun gumbo (and most foods for that matter) is the inclusion of tomatoes. Cajuns didn't have access to them early on and they do not feature much in the cuisine. I prefer the cajun style of gumbo and I've detested every creole jambalaya I've ever eaten. The tomatoes add nothing to the dish but sour flavors and wetter rice.
Anyone who tells you to put thyme in a gumbo is trying to be fancy. Gumbo ain't fancy.
The proper rice to serve with a gumbo is long-grained rice from Louisiana. You can use Jasmine in a pinch, but for the best experience, you'll want to avoid basmati, short grained rices, par-boiled, etc, etc.
Many people will make a mustard based southern potato salad and layer their bowl like this: potato salad on top of rice on top of gumbo. You're not looking to soak the potato salad in the gumbo, you're just allowing the gumbo to touch it and absorb some flavor.
> anyone who tells you that they can tell the difference is a liar
I tried jarred once and there was a distinct difference. Maybe it had gone bad, I don't know, but it was enough for me to swear it off. Besides, roux is part of the process that I thoroughly enjoy.
> The tomatoes add nothing to the dish but sour flavors and wetter rice.
We grew up on Cajun food, but my dad (who was already the black sheep) would add tomatoes to everything. I do this as well, so I might be a bit of a heretic. The only meat mixing we do is with the sausage.
The tomatoes thing was mostly just me remembering what Kenji did to jambalaya on Serious Eats here https://www.seriouseats.com/creole-style-red-jambalaya-chick.... That pot would be laughed out of any football game south of I-10. It's so wet that it's gross.
I'm from south Louisiana and everyone in my family uses roux from a jar. Do yourself a favor and get the dry roux (without the oil). It doesn't go bad and makes a delicious gumbo.
Oh, and the thought of tomatoes in a gumbo is hideous and nasty. Don't do that.
you will definitely fuck it up a few times while learning, so i'd not try this on a day when you want to eat gumbo. try it the day before so you can fuck it up, try again, and then put the successful attempt in the fridge to use the next day.
What chef Paul is showing is not a recipe, it's just literally how you make roux, and it's a poor demonstration honestly. Most people are afraid of cooking a roux over high heat, and his technique is exactly why. They use a wire whisk instead of a wooden spoon or wooden spatula, and the result is that flour gets caught in the corner of the pan or gets stuck and you end up with burnt bits which ruin the roux. Granted, chef Paul was a pro and knew how to handle his equipment, but... his momma would probably have slapped him had she seen him with that whisk.
i will stop here, because it feels like i unintentionally hit a nerve and arguing with peoples' opinion about roux is akin to arguing about a programming language.
[1] Example: https://www.seriouseats.com/cajun-gumbo-with-chicken-and-and...
The reason for this is you generally use a blonde roux for thickness, or a dark roux for flavor. I like okra and file but not everyone else does, so to get the thickness and flavor both, we use the two step.
We had a Hoity Toity restaurant downtown that made a $22 seafood gumbo that tastes great, but was offensive due to the cost...it was never meant to be Haute Cuisine
nice snark, but no. i'm in birmingham, and a cajun restaurant three doors down from me had a shipment of fresh seafood this morning. and fresh leidenheimer bread.
they used to feed my cat their old shrimp so i know how fresh it is.
Being from Georgia where we didn't really have a unique BBQ identity (mostly a mix of SC and Western NC styles) but living in Eastern NC now i can appreciate all the styles.
My preference is for BBQ though. Style: yes!
Interestingly, the cheapest and most expensive restaurants around here all get their seafood on the same Jet flights.
I've both made my own roux, and bought it in a jar. There wasn't a huge taste difference, but the jarred stuff was almost TOO thick. Whereas in making my own, I got impatient at the "milk chocolate color" stage and didn't wait until the "dark chocolate color."
Once you get the hang of making roux and realize you don't have to get it the color of black coffee to make good gumbo, it's just not that hard. And it's 10 cents worth of ingredients, not us$10 for a jar. But then, I'm a white guy so unworthy to comment.
A lot of cajuns frown on mixing meats. Chicken and sausage is fine. Chicken and shrimp is not. I don't really care as long as I don't see tomatoes floating around.
Gumbo - as I was raised - doesn't include seafood. It's chicken and sausage. I do acknowledge 'seafood gumbo', and enjoy it heartily but when we teach it we teach the non-seafood gumbo first. I was told seafood in gumbo was a Northern influence, because we have other dishes like shrimp etoufee and jambalaya where seafood is well represented. I would say gumbo made with a roux is most common nowadays. I didn't know the file-based gumbo was probably how it originated based on seasonal availability. Sassafras grass, wow. :) I didn't know.
In the beginning, there was ogombo from Africa, an okra stew made with tomatoes... and kombo, which was a native American dish made with sassafras. I've made gumbos with all three, but I tend to leave the okra gumbo to the true professionals who have done it long enough that it's no longer slimy... which is the exact opposite of what you want from the unadulterated African version of the dish.