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My mom was born Henrietta Toups in Thibodaux. Bonnie, as she was called, spoke Cajun French, could dance the two-step and cooked a mean Cajun gumbo. By specifying a Cajun gumbo, I mean a gumbo cooked with a roux, although her roux wasn’t always the same. Chicken and sausage gumbo meant a dark roux (and no okra). She made her seafood gumbo — always shrimp and often shrimp and crab — with a lighter roux (and always with okra). My mother had strict gumbo rules. If you didn’t make that roux, it wasn’t gumbo. She would never mix seafood in her chicken and sausage gumbo, and she never put meat of any kind in her seafood gumbo. Oh, and no tomatoes. Ever. And, yes, cher , use filé, but only at the table to jazz up an already cooked gumbo. Do not put filé in your gumbo at the boil (though my mother had heard, to her horror, that some people did). Oh, wait. Bonnie did sometimes break her no-seafood-in-her-chicken-and- sausage-gumbo rule if fresh oysters were available. She’d ladle them in at the very end, bring her gumbo to a boil, and then turn it off and let the oysters steep. Oh, my. The flavor memory lingers still.

MARCELLE BIENVENUE’S OKRA & TOMATO GUMBO Serves 6 to 8

Creole Feast: 15 Master Chefs of New Orleans by Nathaniel Burton and Rudy Lombard, published in 1978, features chefs and cooks from New Orleans restaurants such as Broussard’s, The Caribbean Room, Dooky Chase, Chez Héléne, Corinne Dunbar’s and the Bon Ton. Leah Chase’s Creole gumbo incudes hard- shell crabs, Creole hot sausage, smoked sausage, cubed beef, cubed smoked ham, chicken wings and shrimp. No tomatoes and no okra. Nathaniel Burton from Broussard’s made his okra gumbo with shrimp, okra and tomatoes. Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Cooking features Cajun seafood gumbo with Andouille smoked sausage — no okra and no tomatoes. His seafood filé gumbo has tomato sauce, crab, oysters and shrimp. In his recipe for shrimp, okra and Andouille smoked sausage gumbo, he includes okra, peeled and chopped tomatoes, Andouille and shrimp. So there you have it. There are many versions of all types of gumbos. As my good friend, the late Ella Brennan, explained to me while we sipped on Sazeracs, there are no rules for making gumbo, except one: It must be delicious. Marcelle Bienvenu is a cookbook author and food writer. A native of St. Martinville, in the heart of Cajun country, Bienvenu wrote Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic and Can You Make a Roux? and Stir the Pot: The History of Cajun Cuisine with Eula Mae Dora, and other books and cookbooks. She also co-authored five cookbooks with Emeril Lagasse.

This Creole gumbo uses a combination of tomatoes and okra as a thickener instead of a roux. If you don’t have fresh okra, frozen (unbreaded) okra will work. WHAT YOU WILL NEED: 4 tablespoons butter, separated 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme 1 bay leaf 1 large yellow onion, minced 1 red bell pepper, minced 1 tablespoon finely chopped Italian parsley 6 large vine-ripe tomatoes, peeled, cored and finely diced 6 cups seafood stock 1 pound fresh okra, trimmed and cut into -inch thick pieces 1 pint shucked Gulf oysters, and their liquor 1 pound Gulf shrimp, peeled and deveined Cooked white rice, for serving HOW TO PREP: In an 8-quart Dutch oven over medium- high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the thyme, bay leaf, onion and bell pepper; cook until golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Add the parsley and tomatoes; cook until tomatoes break down, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low; cook until the mixture medium-high heat, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter. Add the cut okra and cook until okra is tender and flavors have melded, 20 to 30 minutes. Stir in the shrimp and oysters with their liquor during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Add contents of the skillet to the tomato stock. Stir and season with salt and pepper; discard bay leaf. Serve with rice. is slightly thickened, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, in a 12-inch skillet over

- Ken Wells, The Gumbo Belt, Rouses Magazine , May/June 2019

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