Chicken Gumbo
This a noted Southern soup. Cut up two chickens, a year or more old, into convenient pieces and fry till brown in one-half a cup salt-pork fat. Then place all in a stewpan. Slice thinly a large onion and fry slowly for ten minutes in the fat just used. Add one quart of okra, finely cut (or one can of okra ), five sliced tomatoes and a couple of parsley sprigs. Fry all of these ingredients one-half hour, quite slowly, and place them in the stewpan with the chicken. Add one and one-half pint of boiling water, one-half teaspoon of pepper and two scant tablespoons of salt. Stew slowly two hours and then add one cup of cream and one of boiled rice. If seasoned to taste, boil up once and serve. Cayenne pepper (one-fifth of a teaspoon) may be used in place of white pepper if desired.
A large okra gumbo built on browned fowl rather than a roux, thickened at the end with cream and rice. Two points decide whether it works: the long slow fry of the okra, and restraint with the cream at the finish.
- Fry the okra properlyThe half hour of slow frying is the hinge of the dish. It cooks the mucilage out of the okra so the finished soup is silky rather than ropy; rushing it or adding the okra straight to the pot gives a stringy gumbo.
- "Chickens a year or more old"These are stewing hens, tough birds meant for long simmering; two of them would be something on the order of 8-10 lb of bird. Supermarket broilers of 3-4 lb will work but will be falling apart well before the two hours are up, so check at 45 minutes.
- Liquid is shortA pint and a half of water for two chickens gives a thick, stew-like gumbo rather than a soup. Chicken stock in place of the water improves it, and more can be added as it reduces over the two hours.
- SaltTwo scant tablespoons is a great deal by modern habit, especially on top of half a cup of salt-pork fat. Add a third of it at the start and season at the end, where the recipe itself says "if seasoned to taste."
- The cream"Boil up once and serve" means bring it just to the boil and take it off. Held at a hard boil with the tomatoes in it, cream will break.
- Okra quantitiesOne quart finely cut is roughly 1 lb of fresh pods, trimmed and sliced. Canned okra sizes varied, but one standard modern can is a fair substitute for the recipe's 'one can of okra.'
- RiceThe cup of boiled rice goes into the pot, not under the gumbo in the bowl as is now usual in Louisiana service. Cook it separately and add it at the very end so it does not disintegrate.
- White pepperThe half teaspoon of "pepper" is white pepper, per the note about cayenne replacing it. Black pepper works, but the flavor is coarser against the cream.
- YieldGenerous: 10 to 12 servings as a first course, 6 to 8 as a meal. It reheats well, though the rice will keep swelling.
Gumbo is the signature dish of Creole and Cajun Louisiana, and the word itself is generally traced to a West African term for okra — ki ngombo in some Bantu languages — which is why an okra-thickened version like this one has a strong claim to being the older form, with filé (powdered sassafras) and dark roux as the other two thickening traditions. What is striking about this version is how thoroughly it has been translated for a national audience: no roux, no filé, no shellfish, canned okra offered as a matter of course, cayenne demoted to an optional substitute for white pepper, and a cup of cream added at the end in the manner of the era's cream soups. Butterick sold dress patterns and household guides to women all over the country, and "This a noted Southern soup" is exactly how such books introduced a regional dish to readers who had never eaten one — a nod to authenticity, followed by a recipe pitched squarely at a Northern kitchen with a can opener.