Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table


Book Description

“Makes you want to spend a week—immediately—in New Orleans.” —Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal A cocktail is more than a segue to dinner when it’s a Sazerac, an anise-laced drink of rye whiskey and bitters indigenous to New Orleans. For Wisconsin native Sara Roahen, a Sazerac is also a fine accompaniment to raw oysters, a looking glass into the cocktail culture of her own family—and one more way to gain a foothold in her beloved adopted city. Roahen’s stories of personal discovery introduce readers to New Orleans’ well-known signatures—gumbo, po-boys, red beans and rice—and its lesser-known gems: the pho of its Vietnamese immigrants, the braciolone of its Sicilians, and the ya-ka-mein of its street culture. By eating and cooking her way through a place as unique and unexpected as its infamous turducken, Roahen finds a home. And then Katrina. With humor, poignancy, and hope, she conjures up a city that reveled in its food traditions before the storm—and in many ways has been saved by them since.




Gumbo Ya Ya


Book Description

Gumbo Ya Ya, Aurielle Marie’s stunning debut, is a cauldron of hearty poems exploring race, gender, desire, and violence in the lives of Black gxrls, soaring against the backdrop of a contemporary South. These poems are loud, risky, and unapologetically rooted in the glory of Black gxrlhood. The collection opens with a heartrending indictment of injustice. What follows is a striking reimagination of the world, one where no Black gxrl dies “by the barrel of the law” or “for loving another Black gxrl.” Part familial archival, part map of Black resistance, Gumbo Ya Ya catalogs the wide gamut of Black life at its intersections, with punching cultural commentary and a poetic voice that holds tenderness and sharpness in tandem. It asks us to chew upon both the rich meat and the tough gristle, and in doing so we walk away more whole than we began and thoroughly satisfied. Excerpt from “transhistorical for the x in my gxrls” What I mean is, this country is mine if only because from my mouth I spit its loam and unspun a noose. I won’t exploit the only metaphor they gave us willingly, and instead hunt for other vicious things to make a muse. I earned this country. I owe it nothing. With my infinite, infant hand, I manipulated a death sentence into a compound-complex one. from the umbilical, I bled a life worth writing down and in a century’s time, there will be another word created still for the weeping magic of this same story: a Black gxrl’s first breath.




Mississippi Vegan


Book Description

Celebrate the gorgeous and delicious possibilities of plant-based Southern cuisine. Inspired by the landscape and flavors of his childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Timothy Pakron found his heart, soul, and calling in cooking the Cajun, Creole, and southern classics of his youth. In his debut cookbook, he shares 125 plant-based recipes, all of which substitute ingredients without sacrificing depth of flavor and reveal the secret tradition of veganism in southern cooking. Finding ways to re-create his experiences growing up in the South--making mud pies and admiring the deep pink azaleas--on the plate, Pakron looks to history and nature as his guides to creating the richest food possible. Filled with as many evocative photographs and stories as easy-to-follow recipes, Mississippi Vegan is an ode to the transporting and ethereal beauty of the food and places you love.




Grandma's Gumbo


Book Description

Rhyming text describes the ingredients that go into Grandma's gumbo. Includes a recipe for Louisiana gumbo.




Gumbo Love


Book Description

Incorporating stories from restaurateur Lucy Buffett's childhood growing up in Mobile, Alabama, adventures traveling the seas as a cook, time spent working as a chef in New Orleans, and her philosophy of relaxation, gratitude, and seizing the day, this cookbook entertains and inspires as it serves up recipe after recipe, each tastier than the last. "A delicious love letter to the Gulf Coast's vibrant food culture." Since she was a young girl, Lucy Buffett has believed in the power of gumbo-the stirring, the transformation of the roux, the simple ingredients cooking up into something much better than just the sum of its parts. It's only fitting that she signs her name "with Gumbo Love" and that she makes a living feeding people the most delicious, soul-satisfying food. Her new cookbook, Gumbo Love, is a labor of love and includes recipes from all over the Gulf Coast. The dishes incorporate Caribbean, Cajun, Cuban, Mexican, Old Florida, and Creole influences. Lucy proves through her collection of recipes that the Gulf Coast has its own distinct flavors and traditions that make it a coastal destination year after year. And with some of the best seafood and produce the country has to offer, the Gulf Coast-beyond just New Orleans-has a vibrant cuisine and culture, making it a treasured culinary destination in its own right. Lucy combines over one hundred new recipes with old favorites. She lives by her mother's philosophy: "Life is short-eat dessert first," so the very first chapter is filled with delectable sweets like Classic Southern Pound Cake with Strawberries, Buttermilk Orange Chess Pie, and Salted Butterscotch Blondies. Since you can't live on dessert alone, you'll find Gulf Coast favorites from Tailgate Shrimp and Crab Dip to Lucy's Signature Summer Seafood Gumbo, and Crab and Corn Fritters, along with dozens of other seafood appetizers and main dishes. And if you tire of seafood, Lucy shares her family favorites like Daddy's Fried Chicken, Beer-Braised Beef Brisket, Southern Fried Creamed Corn, and Greens and Grits.




Matzoh Ball Gumbo


Book Description

From the colonial era to the present, Marcie Cohen Ferris examines the expressive power of food throughout southern Jewish history. She demonstrates with delight and detail how southern Jews reinvented culinary traditions as they adapted to the customs, landscape, and racial codes of the American South. Richly illustrated, this culinary tour of the historic Jewish South is an evocative mixture of history and foodways, including more than thirty recipes to try at home.




Louisiana GUMBO Cookbook


Book Description

A 192-page hardcover book with more than 100 recipes for the Cajun and Creole gumbo dishes that have made south Louisiana food world-famous. Special sections on the history of gumbo and filé, plus instructions for making rice and gumbo stocks.




Go Go Gumbo


Book Description

A young girl describes how she and her grandfather make gumbo.




Gator Gumbo


Book Description

A new take on The Little Red Hen -- Cajun style Poor Monsieur Gator is getting old and is moving so slow he can't catch himself a taste of possum or otter, or even a whiff of skunk. Day after day those animals tease and taunt him until, finally, he decides to cook up some gumbo just like Maman used to make. But who will help him boil, catch, sprinkle, and chop? Certainly not rude Mademoiselle Possum, ornery Monsieur Otter, or sassy Madame Skunk. But when the gumbo is ready, they're more than eager to enjoy the result of Gator's hard work and as they run to get a taste - "Slurp! Slip! Plop! Them animals go into the pot." "Mmm-mmm," says Monsieur Gator. "Now, this is gumbo just like Maman used to make." Illustrated with wit and whimsy, this mischievous tale will have young readers laughing out loud.




Creole Gumbo and All That Jazz


Book Description

Seafood, folklore, and New Orleans jazz history combine in “a delightful book with excellent recipes” (Mimi Sheraton, The New York Times). A dazzling array of photos, recipes, and far-out folklore, spiced up with tidbits of jazz history and lyrics, comprises a seafood cookbook that celebrates the world-famous cookery of New Orleans. Howard Mitcham offers more than 300 enticing dishes, from crab gumbo and shrimp-oyster jambalaya to barbecued red snapper and trout amandine. As an appetizer, Mitcham traces the development of the cuisine that made New Orleans famous and the history of the people who brought their native cookery to the melting pot that makes New Orleans a living gumbo. For the main course, he puts together a cornucopia of local delights that are ready to prepare in any kitchen. Mitcham traces the development of sophisticated Creole cooking and its rambunctious country cousin, Cajun cooking, with innumerable anecdotes, pictures, and recipes as well as a list of substitutes for hard-to-find seafoods. “Creole Gumbo is more than a cookbook. It is a history book, a music lesson and a personality profile of great jazzmen.” —Today