Gumbo
Put one tablespoonful lard into a pan. Slice two onions and fry them in it a few minutes. Have ready a chicken cut up, and fry it in the lard till it slightly browns, also one or two slices of bacon or pork, and three or four bunches parsley cut up.
Have a heaping plateful of ochra cu up; put that in the pan and let it wilt a few minutes (you must stir it), then add three or four tomatoes cut up. Then put the whole into a stewpan, pour hot water to it, not quite as much as for soup. Let it boil until quite thick. Season with pepper and salt, also red or green pod pepper.
It must be dished like soup and eaten with rice; the rice to be boiled dry and served in a vegetable dish; put one or two spoonfuls in a plate and pour the gumbo over it.--Mrs. G.
Gumbo.
Cut up two chickens, fry slightly with a little onion, and a few slices pickled pork.
Put in three or four quarts boiling water, together with pepper and salt, eighteen okras, one-half peck cut up tomatoes.
Stew one hour and a half.-Mrs. D. R.
Gumbo.
Take one chicken, frying size, cut up in hot lard; add one quart ochra chopped fine, and one good sized onion chopped fine, when the chicken begins to brown, stirring all the time until it ceases to rope and is a nice brown. Then put it into a deep vessel and pour on enough boiling water to make soup for ten or twelve persons, adding two or three tomatoes, skinned and sliced, two ears of tender corn, salt, and black and red pepper to the taste. Let the whole boil one hour.
Boil rice very dry and serve with it.-Mrs. P McG.
Three versions of the same okra gumbo from three contributors, none of them using filé or a browned roux. The thickening is entirely okra, which changes how you handle the first stage of cooking.
- Cook the okra until it stops ropingMrs. P. McG. names the hinge of the whole dish: fry the cut okra in the fat, stirring constantly, until it "ceases to rope" and browns lightly. That drives off the mucilage that otherwise leaves the soup slick and stringy. Expect 10-20 minutes of real attention over medium heat, not the "few minutes" of the first version.
- OchraSimply okra. A heaping plateful or a quart of cut pods is roughly 1 to 1 1/4 lb fresh. Frozen cut okra works but sheds more liquid and browns less willingly.
- Half a peck of tomatoesA peck is 8 dry quarts, so half a peck of cut-up tomatoes is on the order of 6 to 7 lb - a very tomato-forward gumbo. Two 28-oz cans of whole tomatoes, drained and chopped, is a reasonable stand-in out of season.
- A frying-size chickenMeant a young bird of about 2 to 2 1/2 lb, smaller and leaner than anything sold whole today. A 3 to 3 1/2 lb chicken cut into eight pieces is the closest modern match; a package of bone-in thighs also does well.
- Pickled pork and baconPickled pork is salt-cured, unsmoked pork belly or shoulder, still sold in Louisiana markets but hard to find elsewhere. Salt pork is the direct substitute; bacon works but brings smoke the original did not necessarily have. Salt the pot late in either case.
- Red or green pod pepperA whole fresh or dried hot pepper, added to the pot rather than ground. A cayenne or a couple of Tabasco-type peppers gives the right heat; fish it out before serving if you want the background warmth without the burn.
- Liquid and cooking time"Not quite as much as for soup" means a stew you can still ladle - start with about 2 quarts for one chicken and add more only if it tightens past pourable. An hour to an hour and a half of gentle simmering is right; by then much of the okra will have broken down into the broth, though some rings will still be visible.
- Yield and serviceThe second and third versions each state or imply 10 to 12 servings; the first, with one chicken, feeds about six. Rice is boiled separately and dry, passed in a vegetable dish, and the gumbo ladled over one or two spoonfuls in each plate - not cooked in the pot.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), edited by Marion Cabell Tyree, collected recipes from contributors in Virginia and neighbouring states, identified largely by initials, which is why three cooks' gumbos sit stacked here without any attempt to reconcile them. All three are okra gumbos rather than fil gumbos: the thickening comes from the pods themselves, cooked down until the mucilage breaks, a technique carried through the Atlantic slave trade along with the plant. The word gumbo is generally traced to a West African term for okra - ki ngombo in Kimbundu and related forms in other Bantu languages - and the dish is most associated with Louisiana, but okra grew readily in Virginia gardens. What is notable in these versions is what is absent: no roux, no fil , no seafood, and no bay leaf or thyme. This is a summer garden dish built on whatever ripened together - okra, tomatoes, sweet corn, hot pods - with a chicken and a piece of cured pork for body, served over rice boiled dry in the Southern manner.