Gumbo weather!

South Louisiana cooks typically learn to make gumbo in the kitchens of their mothers and grandmothers, creating memories and recipes handed down between generations.
JoAnn Blanchard, manager of Café JoJo’s in Morgan City, learned to make gumbo watching her mother and grandmother.
“They both had different ways to make it. Some made it with roux and some with okra. I learned all the different ways to make it watching my mother and my grandmother,” Blanchard said.
She prefers to make hers with a roux, and her favorite is seafood gumbo with shrimp and crabmeat.
“I rather filé gumbo than okra gumbo although they both make great dishes. Gumbo was something we always had in the cold weather.”
It’s good comfort food, she said.
“It’s something you fix for the whole family. Everybody would come when you make gumbo,” Blanchard said.
As for the potato salad question — whether to have it on the side or in the bowl — “The men like it in the gumbo. The women don’t. In my family, that’s the way they like it,” Blanchard said.
Even potato salad has particular recipes.
“When children are little, they don’t like crunchy potato salad,” Blanchard said, so she kept the onions, pickles and celery out of hers.
“But you always have to have a little mustard in your potato salad,” she said.
She passed along the knowledge of making gumbo to her daughter, showing her “some of the finer points of doing it,” but noted that one of her sons is a chef.
“He makes his own stuff the way he likes it,” she said.
Duggie Acosta of Swamp People fame and a Stephensville resident, said he doesn’t cook gumbo; he just eats it.
“First of all, I’m not a cook by no means. If people invite me to eat it, I go,” he said.
Acosta said he enjoys sausage and okra gumbo but his favorite is a pouldeau — oyster gumbo that his mother and grandmother make.
Tanisha Lewis, 35, the granddaughter of Rita Mae Noel who owns Rita Mae’s Kitchen in Morgan City, said her favorite gumbo is chicken, sausage and shrimp with a medium roux.
“It’s something I prepare for my family during Christmas,” Lewis said.
She learned watching her mother, Kathy Landry, and grandmother make gumbo in their homes long before the restaurant opened 22 years ago.
Her two daughters, ages 16 and 8, have begun to learn how she makes gumbo, but she said the 8-year-old is more interested.
She said some people put their potato salad in their gumbo, but at Rita Mae’s it’s served on the side.
John Flores, Daily Review outdoor writer, said via email, “There is nothing — and I mean nothing — like a duck and Andouille sausage gumbo in my opinion. I’ve never made one, but I’ve watched my bride cook hundreds of gumbos over the years. It starts with a black iron pot and a roux, though good, not the kind in a jar. She stirs flour and oil until the black pot gives it a rich dark brown hue and provides a unique flavor when the duck and Andouille is added after being browned,” Flores said.
Growing up, he added, he was an upland bird wing shooter. “But, when I moved to Louisiana after Christine and I were married that all changed, when I had my first introductions to the marsh. … Duck and Andouille gumbo added purpose to my waterfowling excursions over the years,” Flores said.
Now, he said, he doesn’t worry about a limit of ducks as much as always hoping for just a few to clean and prepare “so Christine can make me this delicious gumbo. With every bite, my taste buds stir the memories of the hunt in my mind and I am satisfied,” Flores said.
Mary Grimm-Howard, school food service supervisor for St. Mary Parish Schools, said the schools do serve chicken and sausage gumbo that is homemade from standardized recipes but does use pre-prepared fajita-flavored chicken.
As for her personal favorite?
“I’m a North Louisianan, and I never made gumbo before I moved down here.”
She said she tried different things and came up with her “own little twist.” Her favorite is chicken and sausage and shrimp, but she doesn’t like crabs or other seafood in gumbo.
“Being a nutritionist, I don’t even like that much rice in my gumbo, but I do prepare it because it’s tradition.”
She said she never heard of potato salad in the gumbo, but does make it on the side as is tradition.
“One of my sons doesn’t even like gumbo and he was born here,” she said.
He’s 32 and hasn’t acquired a taste for it yet, she said.
“If he gets married to the right woman who puts the right gumbo on him he may change his mind,” Grimm-Howard said.