FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Gumbo Ya-Ya

Gumbo is one of those amazing dishes that is a very personal affair; as with other such foods -- like chowder or chili -- every cook seems to claim her or his to be the best and most authentic, but there doesn't seem to be any single definitive recipe. Sure there are specific ingredients and methods needed in order to call a soup gumbo, but there is also much flexibility; there are probably as many gumbos as there are cooks who make them.

Thus, recently while contemplating the subject of gumbo, and having a trip to New Orleans planned with my cousin Roger, we decided to sample the dish at its source. Arriving hungry and still somewhat stunned from that odd feeling of boarding a plane in the snowy north and only hours later exiting into a rather tropical one, we began our "gumbo-quest" immediately. Asking a waiter for seafood gumbo he stated that this particular restaurant didn't have it to offer, and that theirs was basically a sausage gumbo. But curiously, when our gumbo arrived at table mine had two crab legs in the bowl jutting skyward while Roger's had none. Besides its inconsistency from bowl-to-bowl the gumbo was good, but not great; it hit the spot. Over the course of a long weekend we managed to sample a half-dozen gumbos in various restaurants, ranging in quality from good to great. And as presumed, during our entire jaunt we did not have a single disappointing gumbo.

Roy F. Guste Jr., fifth generation proprietor of Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans claims in his book, The 100 Greatest Dishes of Louisiana Cookery, that gumbo is the single most important dish in all of Louisiana cookery, and that anyone wanting to develop a repertoire of this cuisine should learn gumbo first. While gumbo is a dish that is often overly romanticized and can also be intimidating for a novice cook, it is also very simple to make. Pretty much anything edible can be made into gumbo. Besides the traditional sausage, chicken and seafood, there are recipes for gumbo based on such unlikely items as alligator, duck, venison and even squirrel.

New Orleans chef and poet Howard Mitcham, in his book Creole Gumbo and All that Jazz, states that there are no two gumbos alike, not even when made by the same cook. He also likes to equate making gumbo to that of an early jazz band -- "it's an improvisational thing." On the other hand, while there are many different types and versions of gumbo, the one item that is strictly necessary is roux, and not just any roux -- a Cajun roux.

Roux is a type of thickener that is common to French cuisine and is made by cooking together equal parts fat and flour until the flour is cooked to a desired color and consistency. While the French do use dark roux for various preparations it is still pale in comparison to the Cajun roux; one of the distinctive characteristics of a Cajun roux is its dark brown color. This dark color is obtained by heating oil to almost smoking then stirring in flour and cooking it until the flour browns. By toasting flour in this manner it will lend a dark color and distinctively nutty flavor to whatever dish in which it is used; roux is not only used for thickening, but also flavoring and coloring. Roux is such a ubiquitous component to classic Cajun and Creole cuisine that more often than not a recipe will begin by stating "first make a roux." The word roux is derived from the French rouge, referring to the reddish brown color that flour achieves when cooked.

There's also the question as to whether one should use file powder in their gumbo or okra. Purists say that it should be one or the other, never both. (In the past I've actually made gumbo that contained both okra and file and the world didn't end.) Interestingly, gumbo actually takes its name from the West African word gombo, meaning okra. To make things even more confusing, there's also a gumbo that contains neither file nor okra -- Gumbo Z'Herbs, or Herb Gumbo. It's not actually made with herbs, but with greens such as spinach, kale, etc., it's a vegetarian gumbo that is sometimes consumed during lent.