SpiceLines

This traditional Louisiana gumbo is rich with shellfish, and seasoned with
thyme, black and cayenne pepper, and file powder from the sassafras tree.

I had an unexpectedly delicious gumbo last week.

In the Mardi Gras spirit, Guglhupf, an artisanal bakery and patisserie in Durham, N.C., was offering a spicy gumbo special. With some trepidation, I tried it--but I needn't have worried. The gumbo was great-- rich and savory, thick with tiny shrimp, chicken and spicy local sausage, and the chef, Mary Melies, had given it a truly authentic touch, seasoning it with file powder from the sassafras tree.

The gumbo was so good that I went home and pulled Mary Land’s Louisiana Cookery off the top shelf of the spice library. I stumbled across this wonderful 1954 cookbook at Faulkner House Books in Pirate’s Alley in the French Quarter in the balmy pre-Katrina days. Happily, the owners—Rosemary James and her husband, Joseph J. DeSalvo—reopened early last year, and are doing a thriving business in first editions of Southern literature and hard-to-find books about New Orleans. It also happens to be a repository of great Louisiana cookbooks.

Mary Land grew up on the Rough and Ready Plantation in the Red River Valley in the northern part of the state. The faded photo on the back flap shows a well-upholstered, sixty-ish woman not entirely comfortable with the camera: she’s gazing firmly into the lens, with a fixed demi-smile and a slightly rueful look in her eyes. Her hair is pulled back, topped with a small, close-fitting black hat, cocked to one side; a tweed jacket and over that, what appears to be a practical, short-haired fur complete the outfit. The blurb describes her as a “dedicated outdoorswoman” and indeed, a pack of Chatahoula leopard dogs and a shotgun could well be just outside the picture frame.

In the Forward, Land confesses that her father wanted a boy and “when I came along, he simply did the best he could with what he had.” This meant teaching her to tote a gun as soon as she was big enough, and to jab a fishhook into a worm “without fainting fits” at age four. From her cousin Gammon, she learned to play with baby alligators and “the more important maxims of life—to be free of fear and to do first things first.” (She was also a poet and folklorist. If you’re thinking they don’t make 'em like this anymore, you would be right.)

More importantly, from a cook’s perspective, Land developed a deep appreciation for “the groceries supplied by Mother Earth.” I suspect that she was a fine, confident cook. As she moved around the state, she made friends as easily with New Orleans chefs as bayou cooks; her intimate knowledge of Louisiana’s natural larder is staggering, and the mostly simple, traditional recipes give us a glimpse of an almost vanished culture. It is a snapshot in time, taken well before Prudhomme, Emeril and their cohorts began to dilute and, oddly, narrow our idea of Louisiana cookery.

Land’s five gumbo recipes include a Duck Hunters Camp Gumbo (using duck gizzards and livers) and a Creole Gumbo for Large Gatherings (105 pounds of raw shrimp, 52 minced onions, 115 pounds of crab meat, 3 bottles of Red Devil Sauce and so on.) But the recipe that caught my eye was just plain Gumbo, which she describes as “a pungent mixture, inherited from Africa and the West Indies.” Although any shellfish, fowl or game can be used as a base, you can’t go wrong with shrimp, crabmeat and oysters, the main ingredients in this one.

A few pointers about gumbo: To do it right, you must "first make a roux." This is the way countless Louisiana recipes begin. The roux--a mixture of slowly browned flour and butter--is what gives gumbo, stews and other dishes their rich flavor. It also serves to thicken the stock ever so slightly. You must, and I repeat must, make a roux in a well-seasoned cast iron pot or least a cast iron skillet. Otherwise, the flour will stick to the pan and burn before it turns the right shade of dark mahoghany. Stir with a wooden spoon and don’t try to hurry the browning. As Land remarks, “Every type of dish is cooked on a ‘slow’ fire. Time is meaningless, for Louisiana cooks know that qui va doucement va surement (going slowly is the secret of cookery).”

The stock that you use also contributes to the flavor of the gumbo—and here again, speed is not of the essence. Quoting a bayou cook, Land says, “Ma chere, the mo’slow the stock is cook the mo’bet’ it is,” But I cheated and used an aseptically packaged seafood stock which turned out to be full-flavored and nicely seasoned. You could also make a stock of shrimp shells—but for 2 quarts, you will need more than the shells from the one pound of shrimp in this recipe. In a pinch you could probably use homemade chicken broth.

As for the seafood, the recipe calls for shrimp, plus 2 cups of cooked crabmeat and a dozen oysters. The lump crabmeat I bought was so sweet and succulent that it almost overwhelmed the flavor of the other ingredients, so you might want to start with less and add more to taste. Unless you can lay your hands on some plump Gulf oysters, a dozen will not be nearly enough—I used close to a whole pint of smallish Chesapeake oysters.

The final touch is the file powder. First made by the Choctaw Indians on Bayou Lancombe, file (pronounced fi-lay) comes from the dried, powdered leaf of the sassafras tree. The word derives from the French verb filer, which means “to spin into threads” and describes the powder’s thickening action. File has a sweetish, aromatic taste which has been described as a cross between thyme and savory. It adds flavor and also serves as a thickener; you don’t need much—just a generous pinch or so.

Peppery Louisiana Seafood Gumbo
(adapted from Mary Land’s Louisiana Cookery)

To serve 4:

Ingredients for the gumbo:

4 large onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 stick of butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 quarts seafood stock
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 cup sweet green pepper, finely chopped
1 cup celery, finely chopped
3 bay leaves
4 teaspoons dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
Salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1-1/2 to 2 cups cooked crabmeat
1-1/2 cups fresh oysters
File powder, to taste (see note)
Cooked white rice

Method:

1. In a cast iron pot or skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions, and sauté until they are soft and translucent. Do not brown.
2. Slowly sprinkle the flour over the onion mixture and using a wooden spoon, stir it into the butter and onions. Continue to stir gently until the roux takes on a rich, dark brown color. This may take 20 to 30 minutes. Lower the heat if necessary to keep it from burning.
3. While making the roux, heat the stock until it is very hot. When the roux has acquired a dark brown color, pour in the hot stock (If you are using a skillet to make the roux, transfer it to a medium stock pot when it is done and then add the stock). Stir until the roux and the stock are combined.
4. Add the other ingredients except for the seafood, file and rice. Stir and simmer very, very slowly for 2 hours. Then add the shrimp and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Add the crab and simmer a few minutes. Toss in the oysters and simmer until their edges curl, just a minute or two.
5. Serve hot in a big bowl, as Land instructs, with “boiled rice piled high on one side.” Sprinkle with file powder to taste and serve. To accompany the gumbo you need nothing more than a crisp green salad, very lightly dressed in oil and vinegar, and a glass of wine.

Note: Zatarain and Rex gumbo file can be ordered from www.cajunsupermarket.com and it is also available at www.penzeys.com. Be sure you are buying pure ground sassafras leaf, as there are also flavored versions of file. Whole Food sells Gumbo File flavored with thyme, for example.

My 1986 edition of The Joy of Cooking, incidentally, states that file has been banned as a carcinogen by the FDA. Now we know that, although the roots and bark of the sassafras tree do contain the carcinogen safrole, the leaves do not. File is safe to use, especially in the very small quantities called for in this recipe. Under no circumstances use tapioca flour to thicken the gumbo as Joy suggests.