Gumbo is history in a bowl. First, the French brought along their concept of fish stew or bouillabaisse. In Louisiana, they substituted shellfish for the Mediterranean fin fish. The Spanish added hot peppers, the Africans added okra and the Choctaws added the file powder (fee-LAY), a grayish-green powder made from the sassafras plant.
The origin of the word gumbo isn't certain, but it's thought to be derived from ngombo or kingombo, African words for okra, which is often a principal ingredient. Turkey, fish, crab, seafood, chicken, rabbit or squirrel could play a starring role. The hearty, well-seasoned stew is sometimes, but not always, thickened with a sprinkle of file. Gumbo is always served in bowls and topped with a mound of white rice to balance the heat of the peppery broth.
You can always tell Cajun chef-impersonators, because they think gumbo is just another soup and they almost always neglect to make a dark-enough brown roux. And at serving time, they don't bother to add the compulsory scoop of rice.
After crawfish and gumbo, probably the best-known Cajun food is jambalaya. The song of that name is considered the Cajun national anthem. Remember? "Jambalaya, and a crawfish pie, and a file gumbo. Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou." Like most Cajun dishes, jambalaya is economical and allows the cook to use up whatever is in the larder. Thrifty cooks combine modest portions of leftover seafood, ham, vegetables and rice in one satisfying dish.
While daily home cooking is strictly women's work, social cooking in Acadiana is male-dominated. Originally, traditional occupations found the Cajun men in the marshes and swamps and on boats in the coastal waters where they cooked out of necessity in their hunting and fishing camps.
Today, almost every Cajun home has some sort of outdoor cooking site. Most Cajun men build their own outdoor kitchens and barbecue pits in the back of the house where they reign as both host and entertainer. For a Sunday dinner with the extended family and for festivals and community events, the men take charge, cooking enormous quantities of indigenous foods. Men usually cook in full view of the guests, too, so that watching the cook becomes part of the entertainment. In Acadiana, cooking for a crowd is performance art.
Marlene Parrish writes for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a division of Tribune Media Services.