Gumbo

Last Saturday night, my traveling companion and I ate at Cochon, a current, hot, favorite restaurant in N.O. I wrote a little about it in my previous post. I didn't mention our second round of food there: gumbo. More specifically, black-eyed pea and hamhock gumbo. Don't worry, I never heard of such, either. We sat next to two Cajuns from Lafayette, and we talked about it. Cajun One and I agreed that just because you use a roux when you make a soup from black-eyed peas and hamhocks, that don't make it a gumbo. Cajun Two said that Cajun One and I were too limiting in our definition of gumbo. Then my traveling companion interjects that, technically speaking, real gumbo required okra. Of course, Cajun One and I had a fit. No it don't. Okra is a choice. If you use okra, you don't need to file powder, a substance made from ground sassafras leaves which, sorta kinda, thickens the broth and, to my mind, makes an ordinary soup a gumbo, unless of course, you're making the soup from hamhocks and black-eyed peas. My problem with the "gumbo" served at Cochon was that it tasted too strong of hamhocks. I'm also very sensitive to the taste of salt, and if you add salt to a stock made from hamhocks, it's going to be too salty.

I was very attracted to Cajun One. He had a charisma about him that made him very attractive. He was the kind of man that if he couldn't be your best friend, you'd hope he lived next door, or just somehow knew for some reason. He was somewhere between 50 and 60, goodlooking --I wouldn't have called him handsome, just attractive, full head of hair, and the most pleasant of accents. I was afraid if I were anymore friendly in my reaction to him, he'd have thought I was coming onto him. Cajun Two saw exactly how attacted I was to his friend. It made him nervous. We didn't stay long enough to get in trouble or to embarrass anyone.

One last thing about Cochon. We also had fried boudin balls, and they weren't anywhere near as good as mine. In fact,, the only thing we had that was better than mine was the crawfish pie. I've never done piecrust all that well.

Oh, by the way, we're in Miami Beach now. I'll talk about it later.

Comments

[Crys]

I MISS YOU

[becklund]

I would have to agree, technically this is not gumbo.