Somebody—I can’t remember who; it’s a long way back—called my recipe for quick-and-dirty okra gumbo atrocious, or some such words. Harsher, I believe. I agree with him, from a purist’s standpoint. I much prefer the slow simmered version that takes half a day to get right. I just don’t always have half a day, and sometimes I am willing to settle for an approximation when I can’t get the real thing. A point to consider. When I make a pot of this, I always think of how often I can have lunch from it, but I never get to finish it myself. Everybody in sight lines up with their bowls as soon as they know I’m making it. Might tell you something, don’t you think?
I have to apologize, I fear, for my comments regarding file (pronounced fee-lay; I can’t put the accent in) and shrimp in gumbo. I happened to check Charleston Receipts, the wellspring of Charleston recipes, and among roughly half a dozen or so recipes for gumbo I found two that called for the use of dried sassafras leaf (file, to those of you who don’t know), and one that called for shrimp, oysters, crab AND fish. At least I can say that New Orleanois are pikers when it comes to stuffing seafood into gumbo.
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