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MY
ROUSES
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MARCH | APRIL 2014
F
or the Madisonville-born Creole
chef Leah (Lange) Chase, who
operates the restaurant Dooky Chase,
preparing gumbo z’herbes is a Lenten
ritual, as automatic as fish on Fridays and
as reverential as Easter Sunday Mass. Holy
Thursday has been green gumbo day in
the Lange family for as long as she can
remember. Her sister in Mississippi still
cooks it at home every year, and Mrs. Chase
preserves that tradition for her restaurant
customers, some of whom reserve a seat at
her gumbo z’herbes table a year in advance.
Nine different kinds of greens — first
simmered in ham stock and then
pushed through a meat grinder
or puréed in a food processor —
commune with nearly as many
meat products. When I once
shopped for and made this dish
with her, she used ham, chicken,
beef stew meat, and three types
of sausage (including chaurice,
a fresh Creole hot sausage).
While green gumbo is versatile
“I can go to Rouses everyday
and find good fresh vegetables, good, fresh
meat, everything I need. They help me in
my kitchen to make a better menu for my
guests, and a fresher menu for my guests.”
—Chef Leah Chase
and can go vegetarian with equally stunning
results, Mrs. Chase’s version is hearty
and carnivorous, a meal to hold Catholics
through to Easter Sunday when they may
eat meat again.
In her published recipe,which appears in her
cookbook, “The Dooky Chase Cookbook,”
and her biography by Carol Allen, “Leah
Chase: Listen, I Say Like This,” Mrs.
Chase thickens and flavors her gumbo
z’herbes with a roux and filé powder. She
incorporates the latter just before serving,
taking care to mix it in slowly so that it
doesn’t “lump up,” as she once described
what can happen when filé is added too
quickly.These typical gumbo ingredients, in
combination with dried thyme and smoked
sausage, nudge the flavors of what turns
out to be a seriously foreign-looking soup
in the direction of, well, a gumbo. Gumbo
z’herbes (a contraction of the French
gumbo
des herbes
) may look like a damp forest floor
at dusk, but prepared by the hands of a
capable cook, it somehow tastes perfectly
like South Louisiana.
Mrs. Chase anticipates serving gumbo
z’herbes to 600 customers over the course
of three seatings this year. “I’ll do about 75
gallons,” she says. Last year she
sold 25 gallons for takeout alone.
This would be a significant feat
for any chef; for a woman who
turned 91 years old on Twelfth
Night, it’s a phenomenon.
Nothing could keep her from
working the gumbo pots on Holy
Thursday, she told me. And once
the crowds are fed, I bet she’ll be
working the dining room, too.
Good Friday, Good Gumbo
by
Sara Roahen +
photo by
Cheryl Gerber
Leah Chase, Dooky Chase Restaurant, New Orleans, LA
WHERE THE
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