GUMBO

Years ago, before i had any inkling that it would be interesting to visit a place called New Orleans, i picked up a cookbook at a sale of "withdrawn" library books, called "The Original Picayune Creole Cook Book."  I'm not sure why THAT, of all the cookbooks offered, called my name, but i'm sure glad i snagged it.  As a reenactor and a tradition-inspired cook, it has come to be one of my favorite vintage recipe books.

It's a window on an important culino-cultural event ... if that's a viable expression.  Everyone KNOWS that French cuisine is one of the world's greatest, and in La Nouvelle Orleans time-tested traditions met a previously-unrealized array of novel ingredients to create a new world of great food.  This book speaks of the heritage of the city which i consider the best restaurant town i've ever gotten to know.

The arrangement of chapters is interesting:  just beyond the Introduction and "Suggestions to Housekeepers" is "Creole Coffee" -- over two small-type pages of description and instruction for that most important support of life and civilization.  Just how to make café noir, and to augment it to make café au lait....  From this MOST basic "necessity," the book continues to another primary foodstuff, upon which it would be easy to subsist -- Soup.  But not just one chapter on soup -- chapters two through seven progress from "Soups" through "Meat Soups," "Fish Soups," "Lenten Soups," and "The Bouilli" to "Creole Gumbo."  (Then it moves on to Fish, etc.)

Oddly enough the book doesn't define "gumbo" and the casual reader will puzzle over why the variations aren't simply incorporated into one of the other categories of soup.  It doesn't seem to be defined by any particular ingredient or combination of them; it doesn't always contain okra, or filé (powdered dried sassafras leaves), or seafood, poultry or sausages, but can contain a wide variety.  Nor is it always thickened with roux or other grain derivatives, though it generally seems to be.  The origin of the name is even in doubt -- some think it's from the Bantu word for okra (ki ngombo), and others from the Choctaw word for filé (kombo).  Whatever the case, Gumbo has become an institution.

So with this book as a reference, you will probably think it extremely perverse of me to base my favorite gumbo on an old vegetarian version i picked up many years ago -- but i just like the flavor!  I use stock as a base which i stash in the freezer after crockpotting beef or pork roasts or chickens, or after boiling bones.  I put in whatever meats i have hanging around the refrigerator or freezer, depending on my whim.  I feel that some vegetables are a sine qua non (like onions, tomatoes, celery and okra), and others are a desirable elective (squash and bell peppers).  Unless you're skilled at concocting creole/cajun dishes, i strongly recommend the "spicy" version of Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning -- it has less salt in it, so you use less of it and then salt the gumbo to taste.  Then of course the bottle of Tabasco or Crystal hot sauce goes on the table, for those who think my recipe isn't hot enough.  :-)  In the creole cookbook, it's recommended to put rice on the table SEPARATELY, then add a couple of spoonsful to each serving -- the convention of serving gumbo atop a big pile of the stuff probably originated in restaurants ... or poor families.  Naturally, when i make this recipe for myself, i don't cook rice for it at all.

GUMBO A LA LOUISE

2 c. chopped onions -- the "hot" kind, not those damned sweet things!
2 T. butter or drippings
6 cloves garlic, or to taste
1/2 c. sliced carrots
1 c. sliced celery
2 c. stock
large can crushed or diced tomatoes with juice
2-4 c. sliced okra -- i often use frozen ones
2 medium diced bell peppers -- i like to use yellow, or one green and one orange
1 c. diced zucchini or yellow squash
1 T. cajun spice (i like Tony Chachere's spicy version -- contains less salt
1 t. paprika
1 lb. peeled, raw (imparts more flavor!) shrimp/prawns
a couple of raw diced chicken breasts, or sliced andouille or chorizo sausage, or diced ham or ... whatever floats your pirogue  ;-)

Sauté onions in the fat, stir in the garlic, carrots and celery and cook a little longer.  Add the other veggies, seasoning, stock, and sausage or chicken (or both).  Simmer slowly till the carrots and okra are almost "done" then add the shrimp, and cook another five minutes.  This is one of those concoctions which only get better as time goes by, even if your vegetables kinda disintegrate with subsequent warm-ups....

A NOTE ON FILÉ POWDER:  Filé should NEVER be heated in the pot!!!  This turns it stringy, and when people say they don't like gumbo, it's frequently because they've had badly-handled filé.  The Picayune cookbook recommends adding it right before transferring the gumbo to the tureen, and i've seen elsewhere that the best way is to stir it into the individual bowl.  As for myself, i rarely use it at all -- but i have some in case a guest does want it!  :-)

just when you thought it was safe to come in from the holidays

Happy Mardi-Gras season!  As a one-time resident of the French Quarter, New Orleans, i LOVE this time of year, which has no "holiday obligations" dragging along like the baggage you thought you'd need on that trip, but which turned out to be superfluous.  ;-)  Traditionally it seems, MG was about getting back to normal after the Christmas revelry, and enjoying your remaining goodies before they become verboten during Lent.  Yes, you finished up the LAST of the eggs in your Shrove Tuesday pancakes, there where the high water table didn't allow you to have a root-cellar and where the chickens would probably be laying again at Easter.  But think of all the other things that might spoil in those six long weeks!  Gotta chow down so as not to waste them!  Remember -- people used to buy their wines from the Old Country in big casks and bottled them at home -- i'll bet they couldn't be relied on to "keep" as well as what we get today.  So, allow the rest of the keg to turn to vinegar during the lenten season???  Sacrilege!

Sadly (and ironically), the local restaurants we came to love for "everyday" actually simplify their menus during higher-tourism times.  When my daughter and i visited on the weekend before Halloween -- which used to be a "locals'" holiday -- we found ourselves hampered in our hedonistic pursuits.  We concluded that THAT weekend is becoming overly patronized by outsiders to the point of not being able to get reservations at favorite places, and facing long lines at joints that are almost empty under ordinary situations.  Need to choose another time of year next time, i'm afraid....

"Mardi Gras food" doesn't HAVE to be the carbfest that NOLA's is.  The first year we were there, yeah, we DID get a real king cake from the place J's coworkers described as the best there is.  That year is when i fell off the LC wagon and gained quite a lot of weight (the bread in N'Orleans is out of this world)!  I also learned to love the Hurricane and to respect the HandGrenade, to enjoy alligator for starters and deplore the fact that it was cooked so unhealthfully, and to begin my continuing affair with raw oysters.  :-D  I tried the famed beignets, and ya know what?  they were fry-bread, nothing more.  A REAL beignet is pate a choux -- the stuff that cream puffs and eclairs are made of -- and you can get a much better one in St. Louis....

REAL Mardi Gras food is mostly low-carb, actually!  Butter and eggs.  MEAT.  You know -- "rich people's food" in the bad old days.  Lenten food would probably be considered good diet food by mainstream dieticians these days -- plain potatoes, butterless veggies, peasant bread.  What is "soup maigre" but the cabbage-soup diet in vegetable stock?  Pfui!

The celebration HERE will be a melange of tradition and modernity.  We'll start today and enjoy the hell out of all those self-indulgent fleshly (AND fleshy) dishes that cause ascetics everywhere to swoon, appalled and envious simultaneously (they know who they are, but they won't admit it).  We'll whoop it up till Ash Wednesday, then we'll whoop it up some more because OUR gods believe we should enjoy their bounty rather than pull a long face.  ;-)  I WILL order a small king cake to be sent to the grandkids, because they get such a kick out of it ... but just a small one.  With extra beads and masks.

The second MG season we were in NOLA, i made a cream-cheese-filled almond-flour coffeecake and sprinkled it with colored xylitol for our own delectation and whaddaya know -- it satisfied our attraction to something sweet and special, and we didn't hate ourselves in the morning.  I think i'll do it again.

a speculation or two

[chuckle]  Well, i always DID know i was "different"....

In the comments over at Sidereal's place, Wooo describes more-or-less how i differ from a more classic hypothyroid.  However, i'm very discontented with the state of the science.  I want me a couple of dozen hypothyroid people to experiment on for a few years ... and that isn't a possibility in THIS life; maybe in my next one...?  ;-)

For instance, i KNOW that inappropriate levels of certain micronutrients (especially if i can lump O6 in this category) make me feel like hell -- or in balance, wonderful -- with absolutely no change of diet to act as a confounder.  When people get hypothyroid symptoms from taking carnitine, for ONE thing ... how do their diets and supplement regimens differ from mine?  I was all ready to speculate that carnitine spares thyroid when it binds to receptors and does the donkey work of ferrying in FAs for burning.  That's exactly what seems to happen in my case.

I really feel like a lot is misunderstood about thyroid function by those who should know better.  I feel that they THINK they have it down pat, and so have been taking a lot of things for granted.  WHY are there so many more hypothyroid people in the world than there were a few decades ago?  Like so many other categories of the not-quite-well, i think a lot of hypothyroidism is NOT derived from mysterious genetic or "god-sent" causes, but MALNUTRITION.  I'm probably alone in this belief, but that doesn't make me wrong.

happy anniversary to me (and my blog)

Who'd'a' thunk it!  I've been here a year and had more page-views than i ever would have expected.  Time to make plans to better myself, i think.

I've been giving credit to carnitine and pregnenolone for a lot of the improved energy i've had lately, but i don't want to undervalue the also-recently-added "dopa mucuna" for my sense of well-being.  For me to sort out WHY these supplements are so helpful, it's gonna take some time and reading, of course!  Specifics like WHICH hormones derived from the pregnenolone are making me feel good....

Another subject i want to explore and experiment with is that of GOITROGENS.  Often we're told that certain foods are bad for thyroid function because giving them to healthy people and then measuring their hormone output shows a lower concentration.  But my experience has been that a lot of things which are said to lower FUNCTION actually seem to cause the body to REQUIRE LESS thyroid.  I believe that dialing back on one's need for thyroid is a good thing!  This should be possible to test -- get on a consistent roll of feeling well-supplemented and then eat a lot of cruciferous vegetables, for example....  I often get a strong sense of being "under-powered" when my body is producing less hormone.  Testing things like fruits will be a little trickier, having their burden of sugars (and my minor fructose intolerance) to confound reactions.

Well, that should occupy me for awhile.  Keeping my fingers crossed that TIME will be kind to me in 2013....  It's no secret that as one ages, time seems to go by MUCH more quickly!  I've heard various rationalizations for it, even including the hypothesis by an engineer friend that time ACTUALLY DOES go more slowly or swiftly -- wish i'd made a point of remembering his reasoning on the subject!  ;-)  It sounded good at the time, anyway.

yum

It almost makes me wish i had a cold, to get the full benefit!  :-)  Chicken broth made with FEET!  Here it is this morning, in all its cold gelatinous beauty!

...'Cause, yeah -- i DO believe that when you eat animals snout-to-tail, you get all the nutrients you need, and when you eat only the hygenically-correct, shrink-wrapped, antiseptically-soaked, never-et-a-bug chickens that are FDA-approved for a healthy low-fat diet, you end up anything BUT.  Bon appetit!

[evil grin]

(No wonder older women became the targets of witch-hunters in previous centuries....)

if it doesn't work

... it doesn't work!

SO much drama recently, in the LC/WAP/paleo blogosphere!  Frankly, i find it almost as intellectually stimulating as broadcast television.

It doesn't matter how elegant a rodent laboratory experiment is, or how clear-cut the results.  IF YOU DON'T SEE THE SAME RESULTS WITH REAL PEOPLE IN REAL-LIFE SITUATIONS, YOUR TRIAL MEANS BUPKIS.

Seems like i've heard this conclusion before.  Makes sense.  Why, then, do people fight it so hard?  ...Must have something to do with egos.

[sigh]  Damned if i don't wish the world HAD ended last week.