Guest post by Sylvia Wong Lewis
Cooking Genes is a blog series about family recipes and stories connected to them written by Sylvia Wong Lewis at her blog.
By now, revelers have calmed down from Mardi Gras. Translated as “Fat Tuesday” from Louisiana French Creole language, this holiday, like Carnival in the Caribbean and Brazil, is actually a Catholic tradition that builds up for weeks and months to the Tuesday (3/4/14) before Ash Wednesday. We are now in the Lenten Season –meaning no meat— (Ash Wednesday was 3/5/14) and a time to repent for sins by fasting for 40 days until Easter.
Recently this brought a memory to mind. I recall when the Simeone family moved across the street. It was 1960 and they were among several black families who moved to our block during the great migration of Southerners to the North. My parents went over to welcome them as they unpacked their car. The new family had just arrived from Louisiana. While my mom and I chatted with the wife and kids, we overheard my dad, a native of the Louisiana region, speaking a foreign language to the husband.
On our way home, Mom said to Dad: “Brother, I didn’t know that you spoke a foreign language. It sounded a little like French.” Dad replied jokingly: “Oh, that? That’s no foreign language. That’s just down home Creole talk.” I remember feeling so excited to learn that we were Creole, even though I did not know what Creole meant! While I am still searching for proof of my Creole ancestry, it seems like we have always eaten Creole food! It is amazing to me that historians are just beginning to recognize the Creolization of American cuisine—mixture of many cultures. For more information about Creolization click here.
Most people that I know especially from the Diaspora experience—African American, Latinos, Africans, Asians, and Caribbean—grew up eating Creole food! And what we all knew simply from visiting each other’s homes in Brooklyn was that there were many varieties of Creole cookery.
Here is my personal favorite, something I think of as the best Vegetarian Creole Gumbo Recipe. Gumbo is a Louisiana Creole soup-stew that blends regional Native American, French, Spanish, and African culinary traditions. For a short gumbo history click here. The word “gumbo” comes from “ki-ngombo” an Angolan word for okra. Filé gumbo is a seasoning made from ground sassafras leaves used by the Choctaw tribe to thicken soups and stews. Traditionally, gumbo is made with chicken, sausage, and seafood.
But my own family served a colorful vegetarian gumbo that can be assembled quickly if you have a few prepared ingredients on hand. Some Lenten gumbos include kale or collard greens. Gumbo usually features okra, the ‘Holy Trinity’- chopped onion, bell pepper, and celery— and the roux. But this basic recipe only scratches the surface of gumbo cookery! We use tomatoes and a small amount of roux in our recipe. But some gumbo experts would never use tomatoes in ‘real’ gumbo!
Roux first:
Most gumbo is traditionally made with a roux first, a French paste created by cooking butter and flour together. Roux deepens color, thickens and develops a toasty flavor for the gumbo. Some of my relatives use equal amounts of flour to grease— bacon or sausage dripping, lard, or shortening. Butter and flour is the traditional way. Roux Ingredients: To keep it vegan, I use ¼ cup flour and ¼ cup vegetable or Canola oil. Non-gluten flour does not work well for roux.
Roux Instructions:
Heat oil in a small non-stick skillet, sprinkle in flour in medium oil a little bit at a time, stir constantly until it turns medium brown and a toasty aroma develops. Be patient. This process can take up to 20 minutes. If it turns too dark and burns, get rid of it and start over. When done, put aside to mix in gumbo later.
Gumbo ingredients:
2 tbsp. olive oil, 1 medium red onion, diced; 1 medium shallot, diced; 1 cup of combined green, yellow, red bell pepper pieces, diced; 2 stalks celery, sliced, 4 cloves garlic, chopped; 1 quart homemade vegetable broth (or organic store-bought); 1 cup diced tomatoes (or canned organic diced tomatoes); 3 tbsp. tomato paste; 2 cups fresh or frozen okra sliced; 1 cup cut, fresh or frozen string beans; 1 lg. yam peeled, cubed; 1 cup pre-cooked pinto beans. Pre-cook 1 large mug of your favorite short or long grain Brown rice.
Gumbo Seasonings:
6 springs fresh thyme; 1 tbsp. Gumbo File powder (available online or in specialty stores); 1 tsp. each of sea salt, cracked black pepper, Tabasco hot sauce, to taste.
Instructions:
Saute onion, shallot, bell pepper, celery in olive oil over medium heat in a heavy soup pot or Dutch oven. Add the rest of the ingredients, except rice. Save some broth to thin out gumbo to suit your taste. Bring gumbo to a medium boil. Scrape in half of the roux into gumbo, keep stirring and tasting until all ingredients are settled for about 5 minutes. Lower the heat to simmer. Cover partially, and cook for approximately 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add additional roux or broth to adjust desired thickness. Serves four. Scoop generous portions of the gumbo over rice or add scoop of rice on top of a bowlful of gumbo, depending on your preference. Serve with corn bread or French bread baguette and salad greens. Tell me this doesn’t look yummy. Enjoy!
What did you give up for Lent? Do you have a favorite Creole vegetarian recipe? Do tell and be easy!
Cooking Genes welcomes comments about your family stories and recipes and guest contributors. Send via email with label ‘cooking genes.”
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