Gumbo was, of course, invented by Hank Williams, I think sometime in the 18th century right before he was the president of Texas.
All right, enough misinformation for one recipe.
Gumbo is the official cuisine of Louisiana and it has many variations. Seafood, sausage, chicken, ham, and all sorts of things can find a good home in a Gumbo. Mr. Williams sings of a filé gumbo. Filé powder is a thickener added at the end of cooking made from the leaves of sassafras. The roots of sassafras contain something called safrole, which is considered a weak carcinogen. The leaves are thought to be safe, but generally speaking okra works just fine as a thickening agent.
Gumbo is often, but doesn't have to be, made with the holy trinity. This is the Cajun version of mirepoix. Mirepoix consists of celery, onions and carrots; the holy trinity is celery, onions and bell pepper.
1. Start by dissecting a stewing chicken into its useful components. A stewing chicken is an older more flavorful bird that requires slow cooking to be tasty. If you can't find one, a roasting chicken works well enough, but will require a little more fine tuning in the seasoning department.
2. Cover your chicken pieces in flour.
3. Brown the pieces in 1/4 cup bacon fat. You want to use a big pot or a Dutch oven for this. (I guess you can use salted butter in lieu of bacon fat, but you really ought to be saving your drippings.)
4. Pour in 4 cups of boiling water and simmer. Simmer the bird until it falls off the bone. (It'll take several hours, so I hope you weren't in a hurry.)
5. After the meat starts to separate from the bones, remove the chicken, chop it into bite size pieces, and set it off to the side.
6. Strain the bones from the stock and set your delicious chicken stock off to the side.
7. Now, in your soup pot, combine 2 cups of skinned tomatoes, fresh corn cut off from 1 or 2 cobs, 1 cup of sliced okra (it's gooey and a little gross), a seeded and chopped green bell pepper, 1/3 cup diced onion, 1/4 cup celery, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 cup rice and 5 cups water.
8. Simmer that for about 1/2 an hour, enough to get the vegetables tender.
9. Combine the vegetables with the chicken meat and stock.
10. Now season to your heart's content. Toss in some Tabasco, liquid smoke, salt, pepper, or whatever you think will make it taste better.
(If you do add the filé, now's the time to do it. Don't boil the soup after adding the filé.)
Now, while you make gumbo, you might be tempted to speak like Gambit. I don't recommend doing this thing. Gambit is the worst.
