ROUSES_JanFeb2019_Magazine

Gulf Coast

divided neatly into appropriate categories — soups, salads, appetizers, entrées and desserts. Among the traditional Creole restaurants in the Crescent City, there is a clear consensus. Antoine’s, Arnaud’s, Commander’s Palace, Galatoire’s and Tujague’s all list gumbo among the soups. Of course, since restaurants tend not to have a “stews” section, perhaps gumbo was placed among the soups strictly by default. While the soup vs. stew debate is an inter- esting jumping-off point for an explora- tion of the linguistic and culinary origins of gumbo, it’s a question that is unlikely ever to be settled conclusively. Perhaps the great lesson here is that language is often an insufficient tool to capture the vagaries and nuances of the culinary art.

than most Creole gumbos, they are also a bit thinner — more soup-like, if you will — than many of the gumbos found in New Orleans. In a multitude of Gulf Coast homes, gumbo is the first course of Thanksgiv- ing or Christmas dinner. Regardless of its relative thickness or thinness, its place as the opening course of a meal suggests that we are treating it like a soup rather than like a stew. How often have you seen a stew listed among the appetizers at a restaurant or in a cookbook? For the home cook, or the home diner, it matters little whether the dish being cooked or served is a soup or a stew. The people for whom this really matters are the people who have to write restaurant menus. In those texts, the offerings are

to improve the flavor of their gumbos or to tip the scales in the soup-stew debate.) The question of whether gumbo is a soup or a stew might well depend on where or by whom the gumbo was made. In New Orleans, the home of Creole gumbo, the dish tends to rely more on seafood than meats, and tends to be thin when compared to its cousin versions from Cajun country. Cajun gumbo, which often relies on a combination of sausage and fowl for its protein components, tends to be thicker and darker. But even those broad definitions can be misleading or inaccurate. Prejean’s in Lafayette features several different gumbos on its menu and, while they tend to be based on a darker roux

everyday JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019

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