Filé the Gumbo

I have been reading Rick Braggs’ new book. It is a memoir of his mother’s cooking entitled The Best Cook in the World. Not surprising that Rick Bragg would think this; many people feel that their mother is the best cook in the world. But in Margaret Bragg’s case, her son is an excellent writer. I am a big fan of his books and his ability to weave a magnificent story of which I am envious. However, reading this book reminded me of my mother teaching me how to cook, a cooking class that only lasted one lesson.

My mama could make the best chicken pot pie, roast beef and potatoes, fried chicken, fried oysters, chicken and dumplings and could lay out a table full of vegetables, corn bread, and chocolate cake that would be fit for a king. But her specialty was a once-a-year meal on Christmas Eve – filé gumbo. I’m not sure where she acquired this talent but we all assumed she learned it from her family “down on the bayou.” It was never written down anywhere except in her head. The time came when she decided that she would pass on the tradition and since I was her only child that would listen to her, she selected me for the honor. “It’s time you learned to make this gumbo so come over in the morning and I’ll show you,” sounded simple enough and I was all game. On Christmas Eve morning I arrived around 9:00 am and all hell broke loose.

She met me at the door, “I’ve been waiting on you for 3 hours; we should have had this made hours ago.” We were not going to eat the gumbo until early evening when the family arrived so I didn’t understand the rush. But I had started off on the wrong foot and we had work to do. She threw a big green thing at me and told me to chop the celery. I didn’t even know that celery look like this much less that one would need to chop it. I thought it grew in the garden in nice chopped morsels that could be thrown in the pot. “Don’t forget to pull the strings out of the stalks.” I would have never thought of that on my own. Mama started swinging a knife at onions, garlic, scallions, peppers and parsley so I thought I should chop celery somewhere far away. “All this should have been done by 7 o’clock; should have been here earlier.” In the meantime, I was trying to wipe the blood off the chunks of celery I had chopped, both of them.

At the end of our dicing frenzy, Mama pointed to a 50 pound iron skillet and told me to put it on the stove and start the roux. “Okay, should I know what a roux might be,” I asked straining to lift the pot. “Oil and flour, equal parts and stir. Move it, that roux’s not going to make itself.” As I put oil and flour in the pan, she handed me THE wooden spoon, only used on Christmas Eve and only used by Mama. Now the spoon was passed to me. I heated the mixture and after about 3 minutes, I asked if that was enough. Detailed instructions followed, “Stir constantly, down burn it, you’ll know by the smell, low heat and stir, stir, stir. It will turn dark brown and thicken, don’t let it start smoking, it will be ruined, just stir. Dark caramel color. It’ll take you about 30 or 40 minutes.” After an eternity, the roux was rouxed, and she started cooking the vegetables in the large soup pot. In went the onions, celery, green peppers, garlic and she sautéed these until tender and added the roux, chicken stock, okra, and tomatoes. Quantities didn’t seem to matter, we just added all that was there. When the brew started to boil, she lowered the heat to a simmer. She announced that we were ready for the seafood part.

“Get the two pound package of shrimp out of the fridge and de-vein ‘em.” “Sure, what’s a vein?” I had a quick lesson in deveining shrimp as she dumped crabmeat – real crab, not that imitation stuff they sell – in the pot and added salt and a ton of pepper. After some time passed, not noted by a clock, “you just know when,” we added the shrimp, and “the oysters go in last along with the juice.” A few of the raw oysters went into her mouth when she thought I wasn’t looking. “Now we just let it cook awhile.” Again, not exactly measured time, you just know. We put the rice on to cook and sat down for a cup of coffee. Mama went to the pot several times to see if it “smelled right;” she may have added stuff but I’m not sure.

“The last thing we add is the filé.” “Okay, do I need to chop it?” Mama finally laughed, she loved what she was doing. “No, its just dirt and comes in a jar.” I looked at the jar and sure enough it was filled with “dirt” – sassafras root. Only Cajuns would come up with this joke. But finally when the gumbo had cooked long enough, we added a “good wallop of filé on the top, “But not too much. Don’t stir it in, it just sits there and does it’s thing. Gumbo’s done.” I was as happy as her saying, “Santa’s here.” Later that evening, I believe I heard her say, “That’s damn good gumbo, if I do say so myself.”

Every year since then, I have made the gumbo and I always employ her dump method. Mama died in 1995, but the tradition goes on. Christmas that year was hard on my sisters and me, but the gumbo was salted with tears as I chopped, de-veined and stirred, stirred and stirred. Recently, my son asked that I teach him how Grandmother made chicken and dumplings. I was sorry to tell him that she never taught me how to make dumplings lighter than air. But she did tell me her little witch’s secret for potato salad, but I had to learn on my own that you can buy celery already chopped but it has strings in it.