You know, sometimes you can do a lot over the food In New Orleans, we do a lot over food. We meet and plan big things over food. Gumbos are good mixture of things, of food, and sometimes, I say, people. It takes all different kinds of people to make a good world. Just like it takes all kinds of things to make a good bowl of gumbo So what goes into a good gumbo? I'm Dr. Howard Conyers with another episode of "Nourish." I'm in New Orleans visiting 95 year old New Orleans chef, art and jazz lover, the legendary, Leah Chase, for a masterclass in cooking this famous, Louisiana dish. How ya doing, Mrs. Chase? I am fine. Dr. Conyers, I am fine. I'm happy to be here. It's a pleasure to be here at your restaurant, Dooky Chase's Restaurant. It's an institution in the New Orleans community. But thank you so much and I'm glad you're here. Wow! You know, Dr. Conyers, you'll find all kinds of gumbos here in the city, but you know I have not had a bad one. One thing. I have learned living here is New Orleanians are very particular about their gumbo. All over this country, all over, you think gumbo. What do you think about it? So, okra! Yes, that's the gumbo. I'm accustomed to in South Carolina, okra and tomato and corn and shrimp. No corn. Dr. Conyers, you don't put corn in gumbo. Mrs. Leah Chase is known as the "Queen of Creole Cuisine" and Dooky chase restaurant is famous in New Orleans especially for its gumbo. A Louisiana gumbo is a dish that represents three founding cultures African, Native American, and European particularly the Spanish and French. Gumbo is made from ingredients easily available in this part of the country, wild game, sausage, seafood, and vegetables. When you're cookin' you use what you have, you make due with what you have. There is a science to prepare this delicious concoction and a complicated history. Where did gumbo come from originally? Not the French as some people think. The name "gumbo" comes from a West African word for okra - pronounced "ning gumbo" or in a shortened form, "gumbo." Okra came with enslaved Africans who were brought to Louisiana in the 1700s and it formed a basis of this traditional stew. We do a special gumbo on Friday that we do just with okra, crab and shrimp, of course you can put meat in and whatever you like to put in it. When okra was not available, other thickening agents were used. And in here as the thickener, we have file. File is the Choctaw word for ground sassafras leaves used to season gumbo. Another type of gumbo thickener is known as a roux. It's flour browned in hot oil sometimes as light as cafe au lait Or as dark as chocolate. There are two main categories of Louisiana gumbo Cajun and Creole. Creole just a mixture of thing what I call the original mixture in New Orleans and that was the mixture of French and Spanish. Then you come down to my neck of the woods and you might have French, you might have Spanish but you got a lot of African, a lot of Haitian, a lot of that Island thing. And so that's our mixture here and we don't make it, the Creoles don't make a thick gumbo. They make one like this... It's more like a soup, but you can see there's everything going and I tell the customers, "It's just like going fishing. You get what'd you get." You get what you get? What'd you get? So you might get a piece of chicken. You might get a shrimp. You might get a sausage. You might get a little piece of veal stew. Now, I never knew why the Creoles put veal stew in. But then when I realize the Creoles of Color like meat in everything so I think the meat the veal stew was just to add so, when you eat a bowl of gumbo you have a hearty meal, so kind of like a beef stew. No beef, darling, veal! You know, the Creoles worked with veal. It picked up the flavor from all the other ingredients and that stew tastes so good when you get a piece of it. I'm gonna have to try that. And there's the type of Creole gumbo Mrs. Chase is famous on one day every year. We're gonna get crazy out there, real crazy. On Holy Thursday, the day before Good Friday and Easter this is the place to be. And I think you're famous, Gumbo Z'Herbes. Gumbo Z'Herbes. Oh, she's gonna correct me. Thank you. And that's all that served today is Gumbo Z'Herbes and fried chicken. Basically, it's greens. lots of them! Today, we have turnip greens, spinach, we have mustard greens, kale, swiss chard, you put cabbage in it. We.. Usually we used to put pepper grass in it. The Creoles would go around but you can't find the pepper grass anymore. So I use watercress and arugula to give it that little bite. You grind them all and boil them down with onions and a lot of seasons in it, spicy creole sausage, ham, chicken and stewed meat. It's a lot of work. But the real secret: it's a numbers game. You have to put uneven numbers... Even numbers, bad luck. So you put uneven numbers of green I say, you will acquire a new friend for every green I have in the pot. So if I do nine greens your going to get nine new friends and one of them will be rich. Well, hopefully I'm in that a pot one of one of your friends, but I dob't know if I'm the rich one. We get the rich friend. Oh, hello Jackie! But they come I don't care who you are, you come in on Holy Thursday and get that Gumbo Z'Herbes. It's a big deal in New Orleans. It's a big deal in this house. We served about 1,500 people 1500 people? On Holy Thursday. Wow! It's so much fun! The other main type of gumbo is Cajun gumbo. Cajun gumbo is most often made with a very dark roux. Both folk Cajun and Creole rely heavily on what's known as, "The Trinity," chopped and sauteed onion, celery, and bell pepper. Looking at this crowd it's hard to believe that Hurricane Katrina nearly destroyed this restaurant in 2005. Dooky Chase's has weathered lots of storms over the years. People came before integration because if they had to meet with black people, they either met in a church or they met here and then you see we'd get all the musicians when they get off. You know Ray Charles, this was Ray's place. Ah, when Pete Fountain would close, when Al Hirt had his place on Bourbon Street Lena Horne, always liked a fried chicken Sara Vaughn was a sweetheart, and she likes stuffed crabs. I love to eat. I love food. Love to other people eat. When you see people enjoy food, they are so happy enjoying that food and I think mostly that's why I like to cook. So how about this? We put some of your gumbo next to my whole hog. And what can we do? We can change the world. We can change the world, because you come over and we Invite you over to eat that hog and that gumbo, then we can talk about everything. We can change the world. Most definitely. This program is made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
this lady is the real deal. thanks for sharing!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Chase