The steaming aroma of fresh caught crabs, shrimp, and oysters; the smell of butter and flour browning slowly in a large iron pot over an open fire; the sizzle of freshly chopped onions, green peppers, and "shallots- added at just the moment the flour and butter turn a rich brown; the scent of chicken or duck slowly cooking into the mixture of onions, vegetables, and roux; the taste of good fresh okra or exotic sassafras "this adds up to a good Louisiana gumbo, the favorite around my Grandma's house while I was growing up.
Gumbo seems to please everyone, perhaps because it blends and balances all the varied ethnic influences that have shaped present-day Louisiana cooking - the Spanish love of rice and spices, the Southern fondness for okra, the French technique of making roux, the Caribbean gift for combining seasonings. Readily available ingredients such as okra, file, and rice, along with whatever the hunter or fisherman catches, are used, all combined in a dish infinitely variable in its ingredients and adaptable in its uses. A simple Sunday supper, a one-course pot dinner, a fine first course - gumbo has remained a favorite of the rich as well as the poor. Today the most common gumbo ingredients are crabs, shrimp, chicken, sausage, and game. However, Cajuns happily use squirrel and armadillo. There are many varieties of gumbo, but each kind has four distinct categories of cooking to bring it together (the roux, the vegetables, the meats, and the seasonings). .
First there is the roux, a cooked mixture of flour and fat uses as a thickening agent in a soup or sauce. The roux is the blood of the gumbo. It circulates through every thing. Roux is derived from the French beurre roux, which means brown butter. The mixture of flour and butter slowly cooked to a rich brown gives gumbo much of its characteristic thick texture and smoky taste. .
The vegetables are the brain of the gumbo.
