Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou

Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou
Author: Ken Wells
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2019-02-26
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0393254844

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A sprightly, deeply personal narrative about how gumbo—for 250 years a Cajun and Creole secret—has become one of the world’s most beloved dishes. Ask any self-respecting Louisianan who makes the best gumbo and the answer is universal: “Momma.” The product of a melting pot of culinary influences, gumbo, in fact, reflects the diversity of the people who cooked it up: French aristocrats, West Africans in bondage, Cajun refugees, German settlers, Native Americans—all had a hand in the pot. What is it about gumbo that continues to delight and nourish so many? And what explains its spread around the world? A seasoned journalist, Ken Wells sleuths out the answers. His obsession goes back to his childhood in the Cajun bastion of Bayou Black, where his French-speaking mother’s gumbo often began with a chicken chased down in the yard. Back then, gumbo was a humble soup little known beyond the boundaries of Louisiana. So when a homesick young Ken, at college in Missouri, realized there wasn’t a restaurant that could satisfy his gumbo cravings, he called his momma for the recipe. That phone-taught gumbo was a disaster. The second, cooked at his mother’s side, fueled a lifelong quest to explore gumbo’s roots and mysteries. In Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou, Wells does just that. He spends time with octogenarian chefs who turn the lowly coot into gourmet gumbo; joins a team at a highly competitive gumbo contest; visits a factory that churns out gumbo by the ton; observes the gumbo-making rituals of an iconic New Orleans restaurant where high-end Creole cooking and Cajun cuisine first merged. Gumbo Life, rendered in Wells’ affable prose, makes clear that gumbo is more than simply a delicious dish: it’s an attitude, a way of seeing the world. For all who read its pages, this is a tasty culinary memoir—to be enjoyed and shared like a simmering pot of gumbo.

Gumbo Life

Gumbo Life
Author: KEN. WELLS
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-10-15
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 9781958888384

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Straight from the roux bayou, a culinary memoir about how a centuries old Cajun and Creole secret―gumbo―has become one of the world's most beloved dishes. The product of a melting pot of culinary influences, gumbo, reflects the diversity of the people who cooked it up: French aristocrats, West Africans in bondage, Cajun refugees, German settlers, Native Americans―all had a hand in the pot. What is it about gumbo that continues to delight and nourish so many, in America and around the world? A seasoned journalist, Ken Wells sleuths out the answers. His obsession goes back to his childhood in the Cajun bastion of Bayou Black, where his French-speaking mother's gumbo often got started with a chicken chased down in the yard. In Gumbo Life: A Journey Down the Roux Bayou, Wells shares his lifelong quest to explore gumbo's roots and mysteries. He spends time with octogenarian chefs to make a gourmet gumbo; joins a team at a highly competitive gumbo contest; visits a factory that churns out gumbo by the ton; and observes the gumbo-making rituals of an iconic New Orleans restaurant where high-end Creole cooking and Cajun cuisine first merged. Gumbo Life, rendered in Wells' affable prose, makes clear that gumbo is more than a dish: it's an attitude, a way of seeing the world. This is a tasty culinary memoir―to be enjoyed like a simmering pot of gumbo. This edition includes recipe additions as well as a story about the author's quest for authentic Cajun Dark Roux, which involved a hunt for (thankfully scarce) bear lard.

Louisiana Gumbo

Louisiana Gumbo
Author: Robert Bennett
Publisher: Rebellion Books
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2016-05-26
Genre:
ISBN: 9780984046973

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Louisiana Gumbo: Tales from the Bayou State is a celebration of the great writing history of Louisiana. With works from noted Louisiana writers, this books is a celebration of the diverse culture and history of the state. Enjoy these tales and poems from the past and present, selected to provide a glimpse into life in the Bayou State.

Gumbo

Gumbo
Author: Jonathan Olivier
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 78
Release: 2024-02-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807182419

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Gumbo adorns menus from New Orleans to New York to New Delhi, appearing in variations such as chicken and sausage gumbo, gombo z’herbes, and seafood gumbo. Some cooks use roux, others okra, and adding tomatoes to the pot can provide extra flavor or start a fight. Within this spirit of diversity lies the beauty of gumbo. Two culinary creations—West African okra stew and Choctaw soup—helped birth Louisiana gumbo. The Choctaw ground up sassafras, called filé, while West Africans like the Bambara provided okra and rice. From there, Spanish Caribbean influences introduced hot peppers and spices, the Germans pioneered smoked sausage and andouille, and the French devised the roux. Gumbo traces the history of how colonization, slavery, immigration, industry, and seasonality all had an impact on which ingredients wound up in the gumbo pot.

Mosquito Supper Club

Mosquito Supper Club
Author: Melissa M. Martin
Publisher: Artisan
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2020-04-21
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1579658474

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Named a Best New Cookbook of Spring 2020 by Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, NPR’s The Splendid Table, Eater, Epicurious, and more “Sometimes you find a restaurant cookbook that pulls you out of your cooking rut without frustrating you with miles long ingredient lists and tricky techniques. Mosquito Supper Club is one such book. . . . In a quarantine pinch, boxed broth, frozen shrimp, rice, beans, and spices will go far when cooking from this book.” —Epicurious, The 10 Restaurant Cookbooks to Buy Now “Martin shares the history, traditions, and customs surrounding Cajun cuisine and offers a tantalizing slew of classic dishes.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review For anyone who loves Cajun food or is interested in American cooking or wants to discover a distinct and engaging new female voice—or just wants to make the very best duck gumbo, shrimp jambalaya, she-crab soup, crawfish étouffée, smothered chicken, fried okra, oyster bisque, and sweet potato pie—comes Mosquito Supper Club. Named after her restaurant in New Orleans, chef Melissa M. Martin’s debut cookbook shares her inspired and reverent interpretations of the traditional Cajun recipes she grew up eating on the Louisiana bayou, with a generous helping of stories about her community and its cooking. Every hour, Louisiana loses a football field’s worth of land to the Gulf of Mexico. Too soon, Martin’s hometown of Chauvin will be gone, along with the way of life it sustained. Before it disappears, Martin wants to document and share the recipes, ingredients, and customs of the Cajun people. Illustrated throughout with dazzling color photographs of food and place, the book is divided into chapters by ingredient—from shrimp and oysters to poultry, rice, and sugarcane. Each begins with an essay explaining the ingredient and its context, including traditions like putting up blackberries each February, shrimping every August, and the many ways to make an authentic Cajun gumbo. Martin is a gifted cook who brings a female perspective to a world we’ve only heard about from men. The stories she tells come straight from her own life, and yet in this age of climate change and erasure of local cultures, they feel universal, moving, and urgent.

The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous

The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous
Author: Ken Wells
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0300152957

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How a plucky coterie of Louisiana shrimp-boat captains faced down the most destructive hurricane in U.S. history--only to realize that the struggle to preserve their centuries-old culture had just begun With a long and colorful family history of defying storms, the seafaring Robin cousins of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, make a fateful decision to ride out Hurricane Katrina on their hand-built fishing boats in a sheltered Civil War-era harbor called Violet Canal. But when Violet is overrun by killer surges, the Robins must summon all their courage, seamanship, and cunning to save themselves and the scores of others suddenly cast into their care. In this gripping saga, Louisiana native Ken Wells provides a close-up look at the harrowing experiences in the backwaters of New Orleans during and after Katrina. Focusing on the plight of the intrepid Robin family, whose members trace their local roots to before the American Revolution, Wells recounts the landfall of the storm and the tumultuous seventy-two hours afterward, when the Robins' beloved bayou country lay catastrophically flooded and all but forgotten by outside authorities as the world focused its attention on New Orleans. Wells follows his characters for more than two years as they strive, amid mind-boggling wreckage and governmental fecklessness, to rebuild their shattered lives. This is a story about the deep longing for home and a proud bayou people's love of the fertile but imperiled low country that has nourished them.

Cajun Pig: Boucheries, Cochon de Laits and Boudin

Cajun Pig: Boucheries, Cochon de Laits and Boudin
Author: Dixie Poché
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2020
Genre: History
ISBN: 1467144460

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"Southwest Louisiana is famous for time-honored gatherings that celebrate its French Acadian heritage. And the culinary star of these gatherings? That's generally the pig. Whether it's a boucherie, the Cochon de Lait in Mansura or Chef John Folse's Fete des Bouchers, where an army of chefs steps back three hundred years to demonstrate how to make blood boudin and smoked sausage, ever-resourceful Cajuns use virtually every part of the pig in various savory delights. The author traverses Cajun country to dive in to the recipes and stories behind regional specialties such as boudin, cracklings, gumbo and hogs head cheese. From the Smoked Meats Festival in Ville Platte to Thibodaux's Bourgeois Meat Market, where miles of boudin have been produced since 1891, this is a mouthwatering dive into Cajun devotion to the pig."--Back cover.

Junior's Leg

Junior's Leg
Author: Ken Wells
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2001-09-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1588360245

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Fifteen years after he tormented fellow students at Catahoula Bayou School, Junior Guidry is broke, drunk, one-legged, and living in a wreck of a trailer on the edge of a snake-infested swamp. He's survived an oil-rig accident that would've killed most men but, with the help of a good lawyer, made him rich instead. But he's squandered his fortune on drink, blackjack, womanizing, and brawling, leaving a wake of wrecked cars and friendships, not to mention lost or stolen wooden legs. Then the mysterious Iris Mary Parfait enters his life. She's on the run from a tragic childhood and a bad, bad man. When news reaches Junior that a bar owner with Mob connections has posted a $100,000 bounty on Iris's head because she knows too much about him, Junior realizes he could regain his fortune—but at what cost? Narrated in Junior's unvarnished voice, Junior's Leg takes the reader on a singular journey through the mind of a troubled man. It is at turns unsettling, ribald, sexy, and poignant—a bold stroke of storytelling that ultimately plumbs the possibilities of love and redemption, even for as unlikely a candidate as Junior.

Devils Walking

Devils Walking
Author: Stanley Nelson
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2016-10-05
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0807164097

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After midnight on December 10, 1964, in Ferriday, Louisiana, African American Frank Morris awoke to the sound of breaking glass. Outside his home and shoe shop, standing behind the shattered window, Klansmen tossed a lit match inside the store, now doused in gasoline, and instantly set the building ablaze. A shotgun pointed to Morris’s head blocked his escape from the flames. Four days later Morris died, though he managed in his last hours to describe his attackers to the FBI. Frank Morris’s death was one of several Klan murders that terrorized residents of northeast Louisiana and Mississippi, as the perpetrators continued to elude prosecution during this brutal era in American history. In Devils Walking: Klan Murders along the Mississippi in the 1960s, Pulitzer Prize finalist and journalist Stanley Nelson details his investigation—alongside renewed FBI attention—into these cold cases, as he uncovers the names of the Klan’s key members as well as systemized corruption and coordinated deception by those charged with protecting all citizens. Devils Walking recounts the little-known facts and haunting stories that came to light from Nelson’s hundreds of interviews with both witnesses and suspects. His research points to the development of a particularly virulent local faction of the Klan who used terror and violence to stop integration and end the advancement of civil rights. Secretly led by the savage and cunning factory worker Red Glover, these Klansmen—a handpicked group that included local police officers and sheriff’s deputies—discarded Klan robes for civilian clothes and formed the underground Silver Dollar Group, carrying a silver dollar as a sign of unity. Their eight known victims, mostly African American men, ranged in age from nineteen to sixty-seven and included one Klansman seeking redemption for his past actions. Following the 2007 FBI reopening of unsolved civil rights–era cases, Nelson’s articles in the Concordia Sentinel prompted the first grand jury hearing for these crimes. By unmasking those responsible for these atrocities and giving a voice to the victims’ families, Devils Walking demonstrates the importance of confronting and addressing the traumatic legacy of racism.

Memphis

Memphis
Author: Tara M. Stringfellow
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2023-03-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593230507

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy. “A rhapsodic hymn to Black women.”—The New York Times Book Review “I fell in love with this family, from Joan’s fierce heart to her grandmother Hazel’s determined resilience. Tara Stringfellow will be an author to watch for years to come.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected. As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush. Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.