Origins of Creole gumbo

Origins of Creole gumbo

Published: Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 10:19 AM Updated: Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 11:06 AM

By The Times-Picayune

(Editor's note: The following was taken from "The Picayune's Creole Cook Book," circa 1901 and content may be dated)

Gumbo, of all unique dishes of the New Orleans cuisine, represents a most distinctive type of the evolution of good cookery under the hands of the famous Creole cuisinieres of old New Orleans.

Indeed, the word "evolution" fails to apply when speaking of Gumbo, for it is an original conception, a something "sui generis" in cooking, peculiar to this ancient Creole city alone, and to the manor born.

With equal ability the older Creole cooks saw the possibilities of original and delicious combinations in making Gumbo, and hence we have many varieties, till the occult science of making a good "Gombo a la Creole" seems too fine an inheritance of gastronomic lore to remain forever hidden away in the cuisines of this old Southern metropolis.

The following recipes, gathered with care from the best housekeepers of New Orleans, have been handed down from generation to generation. They need only to be tried to prove their perfect claim to the admiration of the many distinguished visitors and epicures who have paid tribute to our Creole Gumbo.

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