Gumbo Is a Taste of Louisiana History — Here’s What to Know (and How to Make It)

A mouthwatering bowl of gumbo is not just an iconic dish, but an invitation to learn about the foodways of Louisiana. 

“I have to be careful about speaking in terms of specific rules [about gumbo],” says author, journalist, and New Orleans native Lolis Eric Elie, a former columnist for The Times-Picayune and script editor for acclaimed television series like Treme and Hell on Wheels. “I have a very dear friend from Cajun country who makes a very good dish he calls gumbo, but that’s not at all what I’d call gumbo.” 

Whether the gumbo you deem “authentic” is Creole or Cajun, thinner like at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant or thicker like the version served at Radosta’s in Metairie, Louisiana, and whether it’s thickened with okra or roux, it’s crucial to maintain a dialogue with the dish’s tradition, says Elie.

What is gumbo? 

At its simplest, gumbo is a savory one-pot stew made with various meats or shellfish, vegetables, and herbs, that lives at the intersection of African, Native American, and European cultures. It might be thickened with okra, filé powder (dried sassafras leaves), or roux (a combination of fat and flour). It often starts with the Cajun and Creole “holy trinity” of onions, bell peppers, and celery. 

The word “gumbo” has African origins, and variations of it are used in several branches of the Bantu language family to describe okra. When enslaved Africans were taken to the French colony of modern-day Louisiana starting around 1719, just after the founding of New Orleans, some brought okra with them and cooked it the way it had been passed down to them for generations. 

Sorting out gumbo’s origins is complicated. A wide range of groups have had a hand in the proverbial pot, including those whose contributions have been overlooked or erased. Elie has long criticized the tendency of food media to undervalue Black contributions to Louisiana’s cuisine and overemphasize the French influence. 

“When you look at many early historical references, people compared French bouillabaisse to gumbo, which is completely incorrect,” says Zella Palmer, the chair and director of the Dillard University Ray Charles Program in African-American Material Culture. “It was because of lack of historical references and lack of exposure to West and Central African culture and the Caribbean.”

“If you go to Nigeria today, they have a stew with assorted meat in Calabar, which was a major slave port,” she continues. “In Benin, West Africa, there’s an abundance of assorted meats that are used in stews with leafy greens.”

Although recipes for gumbo didn’t appear in cookbooks until the mid-1800s, historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall uncovered the first known mention of gumbo in a 1764 court document, according to writer Robert Moss. An enslaved woman named Comba was asked by New Orleans government officials if she gave un gombeau to another enslaved woman. 

In the early 1800s, gumbo and similar okra-based stews could be found in many regions in the U.S. that were home to enslaved Africans, not just in Louisiana, writes Moss. By the mid-1800s, the dish had become heavily associated with New Orleans and Louisiana cuisine. In the 1980s, the stew was further popularized with the interest in Creole and Cajun cooking that was sparked by New Orleans chefs like Justin Wilson and Paul Prudhomme. 

Creole vs. Cajun gumbo

Louisiana is home to large Creole and Cajun populations, whose influences can be found in the gumbo pot. 

The Cajuns, French colonists who were exiled from present-day Nova Scotia, settled in Louisiana in the mid-1700s. Finding themselves in an unfamiliar, rural, and subtropical climate, these exiled immigrants had to adapt to the foodways of this region. Among the diverse people they traded with and learned from were enslaved West Africans, Indigenous tribes, German and Irish immigrants, and later Haitians, following the end of the Haitian Revolution in the early 1800s. Creole culture evolved from people born to European immigrants and enslaved Africans in the New World. 

Creole and Cajun cultures are far more culturally related than many realize, says Palmer. “In Lafayette, Opelousas and all of Creole Louisiana, there was intersectionality between Afro-Creoles, Cajuns and Indigenous as well as European immigrants. It was survival of the fittest — using the best or the abundance of the Bayou to survive and thrive and work and make money.”

As far as gumbo is concerned, Creole and Cajun versions feature a few distinct differences. 

Elie grew up on the Creole, or seafood-and-sausage, gumbo of New Orleans, which is one of the best-known and best-documented types of gumbo. Two to three hours away to the northwest, Lafayette, Louisiana, is known as the capital of Cajun cuisine, where the gumbo starts with a dark, longer-cooking roux and is typically made with smoked sausage and fowl like chicken, turkey or duck, yielding a more robust and intense flavor that’s “more reminiscent of West Africa,” Palmer says.

Creole gumbo often includes tomatoes, while Cajun gumbo recipes leave it out. According to Elie’s mother, Gerri, “you put tomato in okra gumbo to keep the okra from ‘roping.’ Anything that was acidic would take care of the slime,” she says. “Tomato sauce goes in for that reason only.”

Filé vs. okra vs. roux

Gumbo can be thickened with filé, okra, or roux. The use of filé, or dried and ground sassafras leaves with thickening properties, was likely a contribution of the Choctaws and possibly other Native American tribes, as sassafras grows everywhere in Louisiana. According to Palmer, Native women would sell the ground leaves in the markets across rural Louisiana. As Elie learned in his Creole gumbo-adhering household, people traditionally used filé to thicken gumbo when okra wasn’t in season. 

Roux arrived later, with the Cajuns, who used it to thicken sauces, stews, and soups. But the use of flour was also a luxury until not so long ago, as Palmer says. “There’s different types of gumbos based on your budget, your access to these ingredients.” 

Most people agree that gumbo should be served with rice, although some Cajuns serve it with potato salad. C.C. Robin, a Frenchman who published a log of his travels in Louisiana in the early 1800s, reported eating gumbo that was served with corn meal mush.

Types of gumbo 

Contemporary gumbo encompasses countless variations, often including shrimp, oysters, and crabs. There’s also chicken-and-sausage gumbo, made with andouille sausage (a sausage that was foreign to Elie until he was an adult). Okra gumbos often include shrimp and okra or chicken and okra. Gumbo z’herbes, also called green gumbo, is made with a variety of greens and vegetables and was traditionally served during Lent in New Orleans’ Catholic communities. 

Here are 10 gumbo recipes that display the versatility and adaptability of this iconic stew.