What are Louisiana food traditions?
All the traditions of the Louisiana cuisine are embodied in a
single dish: gumbo. Everybody makes it. Nobody makes it the same.
Nobody has a recipe. The best gumbo is served at New Orleans
destination restaurants. The best gumbo is dished up in roadside
dives you are happy to visit and happier to leave before nightfall.
The best gumbo is waiting at your friend's kitchen table. All you
have to do is show up and dig in. The best gumbo is served to fans
of the opposing team from a tailgate at an LSU game. The best gumbo
ever was made two days ago, and I just now looked. It's all gone.
Gumbo stretches that cheap bag of rice. Gumbo does justice to
leftovers while obscuring their identity.. Seasonal seafood changes
the dish from one month into the next. Gumbo expands to accommodate
any number of unexpected guests. Use oil, flour, onions, celery,
bell pepper, gumbo file' (ground sassafras), whatever meat is
available - or not - then add patience, attention to detail,
recollections of how your mama did it, and her mama, then pour over
rice. Gumbo always comes out good, or at least good enough. Gumbo
is important to the entire nation because it speaks of a time and a
place and a people - almost all of whom are not Louisiana natives -
who maintain the tradition because the results are GOOD, exactly
like your own regional cuisine, which I make a deliberate effort to
experience when I land in your State. Yall stop by on the way
through town. Have a bowl of gumbo. You'll want to be back on the
road before nightfall, though.