African Diaspora Cooking

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Kwame Onwuachi's Jambalaya is a thrilling expression of a Creole classic

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By Leslie Brenner

Jambalaya was not in the cards when I recently visited New Orleans, but it was definitely front of mind when I came home.

This was the perfect excuse to dive into Kwame Onwuachi’s acclaimed cookbook, My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef, and start cooking. Since publishing it two years ago, Onwuachi has made a gigantic splash at Tatiana, the Afro-Caribbean restaurant he opened in New York City’s Lincoln Center 16 months ago. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a bigger splash: Tatiana topped the New York Times’ list of the 100 Best Restaurants in the city. Last fall, he was profiled in The New Yorker.

Jambalaya is not on Tatiana’s menu, but it does sit, as Onwuachi explains in his recipe’s headnote, “at the heart of Creole cuisine.” Generically, it’s a one-pot dish of rice with meats (often andouille sausage and chicken), vegetables (Louisiana’s “holy trinity” of onion, celery and bell pepper) and often shrimp or other seafood. Unlike gumbo, it’s not soupy or stewy. While gumbo (the ingredients of which are tatooed on Onwuachi’s arm, according to The New Yorker) is served with rice, jambalaya is a rice dish.

Every family has its own way of making it, writes Onwuachi in My America:

“Some use roux, some don’t. Some add andouille; others stick to seafood and chicken. Some families use short-grain rice, in a nod to paella; others use long."

The dish carries deep meaning for the chef, who grew up eating his mother’s jambalaya; she’s Creole, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. His father is from Nigeria (where Kwame lived as a youth); the chef draws a comparison between Creole jambalaya and Nigerian jollof, another one-pot rice dish.

“Jambalaya, however, hails from Louisiana, where many Africans worked the rice fields the two continents shared. They brought with them not just the knowledge of how to grow but also how to prepare rice. Once in Louisiana, proto-jollof incorporated whatever proteins were available: andouille sausage, abundant shrimp from coastal waters, and chicken, another economical choice. Also added were influences of from the Spanish settlers who yearned for the paella of their home; and the French, the masters of roux.”

Although jambalaya is known as a one-pot affair, you’d need to haul out quite a few extra pots were you to follow Onwauachi’s recipe verbatim. There’s a second pot for the shrimp stock (for which you’d need a full pound of shrimp shells). You’d need a third to make chicken stock, and a fourth to make Louisiana-Style Hot Sauce, which requires a batch of Pickling Spice — in a fifth pot.

In a restaurant kitchen, making each of those ingredients from scratch in large quantities makes sense, but I don’t know many home cooks who’d comply.

That’s why I took the liberty of creating a few shortcuts. I hope that if chef Onwuachi ever sees this story and my adaptation of his wonderful recipe, he’ll find it in his heart to forgive me. My motive (a pure one to be sure!) is to make the recipe accessible to readers who may or may not own five pots, but in any case probably aren’t inclined to fabricate two stocks, a sauce, a brine and a spice mix before beginning to cook. Shortcuts notwithstanding, I daresay the resulting jambalaya is still pretty magnificent — and I think pretty close to the effect Onwuachi is hoping you’ll get.

RECIPE: Kwame Onwuachi’s Jambalaya

If you love the dish as much as I do, you’ll want to purchase the book — especially if you’re a seasoned and devoted enough cook that you might already have some shrimp stock laid in the freezer, or you’re actually eager to make your own hot sauce, or you to know how to create your own shortcuts. It’s an inspiring and beautiful volume.

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The ‘queen of all gumbos’ is a glorious way to eat your greens (or observe Lent)

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Gumbo z’herbes from Toni Tipton-Martin’s ‘Jubilee’

By Leslie Brenner

It’s the time of year, in Louisiana and areas adjacent, for gumbo z’herbes — a greens-forward bowl of goodness that reflects the West African, Native American and European influences of the region.

Two years ago, Cooks Without Borders’ friend Chloé Landrieu-Murphy wrote about the dish in one of our favorite stories. Here’s how she characterized it:

“Often referred to as “the queen of all gumbos,” its name is a Creole dialect contraction for gumbo aux herbes, meaning “gumbo of greens.” (It’s also known as “green gumbo.”) Earthy, delicious and comforting, it is built like other gumbos, but it also includes an entire garden’s worth of leafy greens.” 

The dish has a fascinating background. The name gumbo z’herbes (pronounced gumbo zairbz) is a Creole contraction of the French gumbo aux herbes, so called because it contains multitudinous greens. It comes out of a Southern Louisiana tradition of cooking and eating green gumbo during Lent, the 40 days leading up to Holy Thursday. During that period, many observant Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays, and many gumbo z’herbes are vegan. But not all are; the one shown above, from Toni Tipton-Martin’s 2019 book Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, is chockablock with brisket, ham and sausage.

RECIPE: ‘Jubilee’ Gumbo Z’Herbes

If you happen to live in New Orleans (or are headed there for a visit) and you’re lucky enough to snag a table, you can experience the most famous rendition of the dish in the universe. That would be the one served at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, the beloved Tremé landmark presided over for more than 70 years by the late great chef Leah Chase. Yep, the Queen of Creole Cuisine, as chef Chase was known, conceived the queen of all gumbos.

The restaurant, which began life in 1941 as the sandwich and lottery ticket shop of her parents-in-law, Emily and Edgar “Dooky” Chase, Sr., has been serving green gumbo on Holy Thursday for eons. On that day it drops its regular menu in favor of gumbo z’herbes, fried chicken and cornbread muffins, inevitably drawing a huge crowd. (Interested? Call and have your name added to the waiting list for April 6.)

Gumbo des Herbes made from a recipe adapted from ‘The Dooky Chase Cookbook’

Dooky Chase’s gumbo z’herbes is loaded with greens, of course (usually nine, including including mustard greens, collards, turnip greens, carrot tops, beet greens, spinach, cabbage, lettuce and watercress), as well as a whole lot of meat — two kinds of sausages, smoked ham, beef brisket and veal brisket.

Like most green gumbos, it also includes filé powder (powdered sassafras), a traditional Choctaw ingredient. In that way it is distinct from okra-based gumbos. (Okra is only in season in Louisiana from June through the first frost.) Interestingly, etymologists disagree about whether gumbo gets its name from kombo (the Choctaw word for filé) or gombo (the word for okra in several West African languages).

Gumbo z’herbes always starts with a mountain of greens.

Happily, you can make an outstanding gumbo z’herbes at home; Tipton-Martin’s recipe is a great introduction. Or dive in full-force and make the one from Leah Chase’s The Dooky Chase Cookbook. The restaurant’s current chef, Edgar “Dooky” Chase IV (Leah’s grandson), gave us permission a couple years ago to share the recipe, and he helped me find a substitute for one of its ingredients, hot chaurice (a fresh sausage), for our adaptation.

RECIPE: Dooky Chase’s Gumbo des Herbes

Some gumbo z’herbes start with a roux; others don’t. Most contain Louisiana’s “holy trinity” — chopped onion, green bell pepper and celery. (Dooky Chase’s contains onion and garlic instead.)

What all gumbo z’herbes have in common is a prodigious amount of leafy greens: Count on a lot of washing, trimming and chopping. Once they’re braised (save the pot liquor!), they’re either coarsely chopped (as in Tipton-Martin’s) or puréed (Dooky Chase’s).

Vegan versions go both ways, too. The one our friend Chloé created for CWB leaves the greens roughly chopped, which gives it nice texture.

Chloé Landrieu-Murphy’s vegan gumbo z’herbes

RECIPE: Chloé’s Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes

Whichever way you go, consider this: It is said that the number of different greens you use in your gumbo z’herbes represents the number of friends you’ll make in the coming year, and an odd number is good luck.

Wishing you many new friends this year, a delicious green gumbo and an armful of four-leaf clover’s worth of good luck!

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Captivating, versatile and rich with meaning, okra is an intrepid citizen of the world

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Quiabos Tostados com Pimenta — Brazililan Chargrilled Okra with Chile

By Leslie Brenner

Simmer it in a savory gumbo. Capture it in a pickle. Roast it to show off its depth. It’s the height of okra season, and there are endless delicious ways to treat the fascinating, polarizing pod.

You can shallow-fry it as Indian-spiced rounds that highlight its captivating geometry. Halve it lengthwise and grill it to smoky goodness. Cook it with tomatoes and onions, stir in olive oil and herbs and serve it as a tangy, cool Levantine salad.

Food historians disagree about okra’s origins. Most, including Jessica B. Harris (author of The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent), pin it as Africa. “The mucilaginous pod is the continent’s culinary totem,” she writes. “From the bamia of Egypt to the soupikandia of Senegal, passing by the various sauces gombos and more, this pod is used in virtual continent-wide totality.” Others say it comes from South Asia or Southeast Asia.

What’s indisputable is that okra has long since become a citizen of the world.

In Asia, it appears in various guides from India to Vietnam to Japan. A sour fish soup from Vietnam, canh chua cá, features okra, tamarind and pineapple. The late Shizuo Tsuji gave a recipe for okura wasabi-jōyu — a simple okra salad with wasabi, soy sauce and mirin — in his landmark 1980 book Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art. And in India, okra is popular quick-fried till crispy.

Crispy Sumac Okra from Anjali Pathak’s ‘The Indian Family Kitchen’

Intrigued? Try this crunchy, addictive version of Crispy Sumac Okra, adapted from Anjali Pathak’s The Indian Family Kitchen.

In Africa, Egypt has bamia (okra made sweet and sour with honey and lemon); Ethiopia has bamya alich’a (okra simmered with tomatoes, onions, garlic and spices); Benin has sauce bombo (okra simmered with tomatoes and chile, served on rice); and Nigeria has akara awon (bean-and-okra fritters). Recipes for all four, and more, can be found in Harris’ The Africa Cookbook.

Out of Africa, okra dishes appear all over the Levant, and in Afghanistan, Armenia and Kurdistan. In Turkey, okra are dried and later made into a soup, banya corbasi. Lebanon is home to a lamb and okra stew called bamya bel lameh, and also a delightful braised okra and tomato dish served cool or room temp, as part of a mezze — bamieh bi zeit. Glossy with olive oil, it’s particularly nice this time of year, as tomatoes and okra are both in high season. Claudia Roden offers a wonderful version in her classic 2006 book Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon. Our adaptation takes her up on her suggested variation of using tangy pomegranate vinegar in place of sugar in the recipe.

Bamieh Bi Zeit — Lebanese Okra and Tomato, served cold as a salad

And then there are all the African diasporic dishes. These are the okra dishes that, over the centuries, have become extraordinarily meaningful for the communities descended from enslaved people, from South America to the Caribbean to the United States.

READ: “Okra, now at peak season, may be the most meaningful and expressive vegetable for this singular American moment”

In the American South, okra appears in gumbos and other soups and stews — often with tomatoes (as in Lebanon and all over the Levant) and/or shrimp. BJ Dennis, a Charleston, South Carolina chef with roots in the low country Gullah-Geechee community, has a magnificent recipe for Okra & Shrimp Purloo in Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora, edited and curated by Bryant Terry and published last year. From Dennis’ headnote:

“Okra is a vegetable that is dear to many of us throughout the African diaspora. And of course there’s shrimp, which is vital to our culture. This is a dish of pain, resilience and celebration. It’s the story of our existence in the so-called New World. If you were to give me one final meal to eat, it would be this.”

BJ Dennis’ Purloo with Okra & Shrimp, from ‘Black Food,’ edited and curated by Bryant Terry

Recently Dennis helped the International African American Museum (slated to open in January 2023) develop a Gullah-inspired menu; the cafe, Dennis tells me, expected to open the following year. Meanwhile, here’s our adaptation of his marvelous recipe, which also features Carolina Gold rice, another low country food with deep meaning for Gullah-Geechee’s descendants of enslaved people.

Okra pods go by the name molondrones in the Dominican Republic, where they’re eaten as a stew (guisado de molondrones) or salad. Guisados starring okra are also popular in Cuba and Puerto Rico, where the vegetable is called quimbombó.

From Brazil comes salada da quiabo, an okra salad, and caruru — a shrimp and okra stew. The state of Bahia is known for the dish; in Pará — the country’s northernmost state — caruru is a shrimp and okra curry. There’s a delicious-looking recipe for it in Thiago Castanho’s 2014 book Brazilian Food. “The origins of caruru point to a divided authorship between native Indians and Africans,” writes Castanho in the headnote. “This typical dish of Bahia state is nowadays associated with the African-Brazilian religious ritual, Candomblé, and served as a main course, as here, or as part of a banquet.”

I haven’t yet cooked or tasted a traditional caruru, but I recently had the pleasure of tasting a fabulous spin at Meridian, a spectacular modern Brazilian restaurant in Dallas (which happens to be a client of my consulting business).

Grilled Jumbo Prawn Caruru from Meridian, a modern Brazilian restaurant in Dallas, Texas

In his Grilled Jumbo Prawn Caruru, Meridian’s executive chef, Junior Borges — who is from Brazil, near Rio de Janeiro — featured okra all kinds of ways: braised in the sauce, halved lengthwise and charred to top, raw as little round okra exclamation points. It was an okra tour de force — served with a Carolina Gold rice cake that’s deep-fried and dusted with ramp powder.

Chef Borges told me, when he featured the dish recently, that caruru has “deep meaning” for him and his family.

Much simpler than either chef Borges’ or Castanho’s caruru — and unlike those, a snap to prepare at home — is Quiabos Tostados com Pimenta (chargrilled okra with chile). Our adaptation is also from Castanho’s Brazilian Food. To make it, drizzle whole okra pods with olive oil, char them on a grill-pan, season them with aviú (tiny Brazilian dried salted shrimp) or other dried salt shrimp, plus thinly sliced fresh red chiles, lime juice and cilantro.

It’s absolutely transporting. And I love chef Castanho’s suggestion that if you can’t find aviú or other dried shrimp, you can use katsuobushi — Japanese bonito flakes — instead. The katsuobushi adds a similar aquatic umami note, while incontrovertibly proving that okra is, by any measure, a well traveled, adaptable, flexible, deliciously versatile citizen of the world.

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The 'queen of all gumbos' is a beloved New Orleans tradition in the days leading up to Easter

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Gumbo des Herbes, prepared from a recipe adapted from ‘The Dooky Chase Cookbook’ by Leah Chase

By Leslie Brenner

If you think of gumbo as a seafood-happy soupy stew punctuated with (and thickened by) okra, you’re absolutely right. In fact the word “gumbo” comes from gombo, which means “okra” in several west African languages.

But seafood gumbo is just one iteration of the dish, and gumbos don’t always include okra.  In fact, the “queen of all gumbos” — the one that New Orleans residents look forward to eating just once a year at the legendary Dooky Chase’s Restaurant — has neither okra nor any seafood in its long list of ingredients.

That one day — Holy Thursday in the Catholic calendar, which is always the Thursday before Easter — is coming right up this week. That’s when gumbo-loving New Orleaneans will be taking their seats at Dooky Chase’s, founded in 1941 by Emily and Dooky Chase, Sr., to enjoy a bowl of its famous Gumbo des Herbes. It’s the most celebrated version of the dish more broadly known as gumbo z’herbes.

The one served at the restaurant is thickly verdant, packed with nine kinds of greens, along with smoked ham, two kinds of sausage, beef brisket, veal brisket, onions, garlic and more.

Dooky Chase’s is “completely booked for dining in” on Thursday, says Tracie Griffin, granddaughter of Leah Chase — the matriarch who headed the Chase family and its restaurant until she died three years ago at age 96. “But take-out is available.” If you happen to be in the New Orleans area and want to partake, you can call the restaurant to pre-order.

Next best thing: Cook up a pot at home

If you’re not in NOLA, you can still enjoy the tradition. Invite your friends and family, help yourself to Dooky Chase’s recipe below, and cook up a big, delicious pot. Chef Edgar “Dooky” Chase IV generously shared with us the recipe from The Dooky Chase Cookbook, by his grandmother, Leah Chase.

Want to learn more about gumbo z’herbes and its history? Last year, Chloé Landrieu-Murphy wrote a fascinating story about it. As she explained, it’s an important dish in the region for Catholics who abstain from meat during Lent — the 40 days of reflection leading up to Easter.

READ: “In celebration of gumbo z’herbes, a gloriously green, soul-nourishing Louisiana Lenten tradition”

For that reason, there are myriad versions of vegan gumbo z’herbes — and Landrieu-Murphy created a fabulous one for us.

Chloé Landrieu-Murphy’s Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes

‘Jubilee’ Gumbo Z’herbes

We’ve also got an excellent recipe adapted from Toni Tipton-Martin’s marvelous book Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking.

Whether you’re vegan or omnivorous, Catholic, atheist or a food lover of any faith, do consider diving into a bowl of the queen of all gumbos. You’ll be glad you did.

RECIPE: Dooky Chase’s Gumbo des Herbes

RECIPE: Chloe’s Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes

RECIPE: ‘Jubilee’ Gumbo Z’herbes

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In celebration of gumbo z'herbes, a gloriously green, soul-nourishing Louisiana Lenten tradition

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Chloé Landrieu-Murphy’s vegan gumbo z’herbes / Photograph by Chloé Landrieu-Murphy

Chloé Landrieu-Murphy’s vegan gumbo z’herbes / Photograph by Chloé Landrieu-Murphy

By Chloé Landrieu-Murphy

Unless you’re from Southern Louisiana, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of gumbo z’herbes — an essential dish across the region, particularly for those who abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent. 

Often referred to as “the queen of all gumbos,” its name is a Creole dialect contraction for gumbo aux herbes, meaning “gumbo of greens.” (It’s also known as “green gumbo.”) Earthy, delicious and comforting, it is built like other gumbos, but it also includes an entire garden’s worth of leafy greens. 

Though traditional Lenten preparations of the dish don’t include meat, part of the appeal of gumbo z’herbes is the flexibility with which it is prepared, using any combination of greens, and optional meats. Meat versions may include ham hock, chaurice (a spicy Creole pork sausage), smoked andouille sausage, chicken, brisket and/or veal.

While the combinations of greens and meats that can be used are endless, tradition says that the number of greens included in your gumbo represents the number of friends you’ll make in that year, and that an odd number of greens should be used for good luck. Theories surrounding the symbolism of the greens vary, with some suggesting that nine varieties should be used as a representation of the nine churches visited by Catholics in New Orleans on Good Friday in remembrance of Jesus and his walk to crucifixion. 

A bowl of New Orleans’ most famous and sought-after version — the one served at legendary Dooky Chase’s Restaurant — earns the person eating it nine new friends, the late great chef Leah Chase told Southern Living magazine in 2016. “And I always hope that one of them’s rich,” she added. Chase died in 2019 at the age of 96.

Since 1941, the establishment — founded by Emily and Dooky Chase, Sr. (chef Leah Chase’s mother-in-law and father-in-law), and now run by Leah’s grandson chef Edgar “Dooky” Chase IV and her daughter Stella Chase Reese —  has served the city as a gathering place not only for Creole classics like gumbo, fried chicken and red beans and rice, but also as a vital space for everything from the arts to community organizing. Dooky Chase’s was a place where civil rights leaders, both black and white, came together for strategy sessions with luminaries including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the upstairs dining room.

Dooky Chase’s Gumbo des Herbes, prepared from a recipe in ‘The Dooky Chase Cookbook’ / Photograph by Leslie Brenner

Dooky Chase’s Gumbo des Herbes, prepared from a recipe in ‘The Dooky Chase Cookbook’ / Photograph by Leslie Brenner

Only once a year, on Holy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter, which falls on April 1 this year), does Dooky Chase’s serve its famous gumbo z’herbes. Featuring roughly equal parts meat (smoked andouille sausage, hot sausage, ham hock, chicken, brisket and veal brisket stew) and greens (collards, mustard greens, turnip greens, beet tops, cabbage, lettuce, watercress, spinach and carrot tops), it reflects the culinary traditions of the city’s Creoles of color.  

To achieve gumbo z’herbes greatness, chef Edgar boils the greens, then purées them. He then steams the meats, covers them with a quick roux, combines that with the puréed greens and their potlikker and simmers it all together before stirring in filé powder and serving it over rice. He generously shared the recipe with us; you can also find it Leah Chase’s The Dooky Chase Cookbook. 

Still, if you make it at home, there will be something missing. 

“You can put pretty much anything in it, if it’s green,” says Poppy Tooker, a New Orleans culinary ambassador and close friend of the late chef.  “But Leah had a secret ingredient, something you couldn’t buy in the store. Here in New Orleans, there’s a weed that grows wild in the levees and the medians called peppergrass. That was one of Leah’s secret ingredients, and there were some gentlemen who would walk the levees to gather the peppergrass for Leah to put in her gumbo every year.” 

While gumbo z’herbes is most certainly a gumbo, thanks to all those greens, it differs greatly in look and taste from more familiar gumbos. In her book Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at The New Orleans Table, Sara Roahen notes its uniqueness: 

“The only ways in which gumbo z’herbes resemble more common meat and seafood gumbos are that it’s eaten with a spoon, often crammed with sausage, and thickened with a roux —  and the latter only sometimes. In preparation, gumbo z’herbes is a multiplicity of smothered greens united in a communal pot likker. Its flavor and its origins are more mysterious: no two bites, or theories are the same.” 

So what makes gumbo z’herbes a gumbo? “You’ve still got a stock, you’ve still got a roux, you still have filé and you’re still adding all your meats and all that, so all that is the same base as a gumbo,” says chef Edgar. 

As with so many dishes in Louisiana’s culinary canon, the dish is reflective of a deep and complicated history with both West African and European influences. “All of this can be traced to the West African way with greens and to West Indian callaloo,” Toni Tipton-Martin explains in her 2019 cookbook Jubilee: Recipes From Two Centuries of African American Cooking, which also includes a wonderful version.

Toni Tipton-Martin’s gumbo z’herbes, from ‘Jubilee’ / Photograph by Leslie Brenner

Toni Tipton-Martin’s gumbo z’herbes, from ‘Jubilee’ / Photograph by Leslie Brenner

In The Welcome Table: African American Heritage Cooking, culinary historian Jessica B. Harris speculates that the dish could be a cousin of the West African stew Sauce Feuille. There could be some German influence as well; in his Encyclopedia of Cajun and Creole Cooking, author John Folse postulates that the dish came to Louisiana in the 1700’s with German Catholic settlers who traditionally ate a German seven-herb soup on Holy Thursday.

Today, while the Creoles of color in New Orleans generally reserve their meat-filled gumbo z’herbes for Holy Thursday festivities, few New Orleans restaurants besides Dooky Chase’s serve it, so it’s typically made at home. 

That said, you only have to look at two Holy Thursdays for a sense of how important the Dooky Chase’s gumbo z’herbes tradition is in the Crescent City: April 13, 2006 and April 9, 2020.  

Following the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding and closure of Dooky Chase’s, the tradition was put at risk. Restaurateur Rick Gratia opened the doors of his own establishment, Muriel’s, to chef Leah and her team, according to Tooker, who was by her friend’s side throughout. “He turned his beautiful restaurant on Jackson Square over to Leah so that the city of New Orleans wouldn’t be deprived of their Holy Thursday tradition.” 

In many ways, Holy Thursday of 2020 was even harder, Tooker explained to me. “It was the first year without Leah,” she says. On top of that, a week before Holy Thursday, Stella Chase Reese’s husband of 50 years died suddenly of Covid-19.  “But the Chase family still did Holy Thursday, and they did it as a drive-by pickup. There were police, there was traffic for a mile, and there were people lined up. It was a really big deal.”

While gumbo z’herbes is a direct reflection of the Catholic identity and traditions that are so deeply ingrained within Louisiana culture, it’s also a delicious, body- and soul-nourishing dish that can and should be enjoyed by all — which was my thought in developing my own recipe for a Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes.

“When you maintain traditions like gumbo z’herbes, it gives people a sense of hope, a sense of community and a sense of normalcy,” says chef Edgar. 

So if you can’t make it to Dooky Chase’s this year for Holy Thursday, why not bring the tradition into your own home?

🌿

Chloe Landrieu-Murphy is a recent graduate of New York University’s Masters in Food Studies program and a lover of all things food and culture related. This is her first story for Cooks Without Borders.

RECIPE: Dooky Chase’s Gumbo des Herbes

RECIPE: ‘Jubilee’ Gumbo Z’herbes

RECIPE: Chloé’s Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes

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Outstanding cookbook author Toni Tipton-Martin puts history at the center of the American table

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‘Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking,’ by Toni Tipton-Martin

By Leslie Brenner

Editor’s note: Women have a history of writing the best cookbooks. That’s why throughout March — Women’s History Month — we’ll be featuring cookbooks by our favorite female authors.

It is history itself that animates the books of Toni Tipton-Martin, a culinary historian, writer, editor and cook who has become a powerful force for amplifying, celebrating and honoring the voices of Black cooks throughout American history.

Toni Tipton-Martin / Photograph by Pableaux Johnson

Toni Tipton-Martin / Photograph by Pableaux Johnson

In 2015, Tipton-Martin published her award-winning The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African-American Cookbooks, which she followed in 2019 with Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking.

[Read more about Toni Tipton-Martin’s Jubilee.]

Its pages are filled with delicious recognition of the contribution of African American cooks and chefs — and include some of our favorite recipes of the last year. I’m forever attached to Jubilee’s Pickled Shrimp, to Tipton-Martin’s Country-Style Potato Salad and to her Pork Chops in Lemon-Caper Sauce.

Pickled shrimp prepared from a recipe in ‘Jubilee’ by Toni Tipton-Martin

Pickled shrimp prepared from a recipe in ‘Jubilee’ by Toni Tipton-Martin

Its historical depth is just as appetizing — for instance a deep dive into green gumbo — gumbo z’herbes — that inspired an upcoming Cooks Without Borders story.

In September, Tipton-Martin — who began her career at the Los Angeles Times, and later led food coverage at the Cleveland Plain Dealer as its food editor — was named editor in chief of Cook’s Country.

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Cookbooks We Love: Marcus Samuelsson’s ‘The Rise’ celebrates Black cooks in America

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The Rise Lede.jpg

By Leslie Brenner

The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food, by Marcus Samuelsson with Osayi Endolyn, recipes with Yewande Komolafe and Tamie Cook, photographs by Angie Mosier, 2020, Little, Brown, $38.

Backgrounder: A good deal has been written about The Rise — the cookbook super-chef Marcus Samuelsson published late last year. Most of the coverage came right around pub-time, in the form of new-title roundups or best-of-the-year cookbook stories (it made the Washington Post and New York Times’ lists, among others.) Samuelsson and co-author Osayi Endolyn gave an excellent interview to Food & Wine magazine shortly after the book was published.

Many of the universally enthusiastic write-ups did a great job focusing on Samuelsson’s goal for the book. As he expresses it in his introduction:

“Black food is American food, and it’s long past time that the artistry and ingenuity of Black cooks were properly recognized.”

Samuelsson, of course, is the Ethiopia-born, Sweden-raised chef with a nearly three-decades-long history in New York. He made his name in 1995 as the youngest chef to earn a three-star review from The New York Times when he was executive chef of Aquavit; he opened his own restaurant, Red Rooster Harlem, in 2010. The chef has since built an empire of dozens of restaurants in the U.S., Canada, Bermuda, Britain, Sweden, Finland and Norway.

What I haven’t found much of are reviews and stories that dig into The Rise’s 119 recipes (plus 48 Pantry recipes).

Why We Love It: Endolyn’s essays about the chefs, activists and cooks who have inspired the recipes in the book are wonderful, enlightening reads. Spinning through them is a fabulous way to understand something about the future, present and past of Black cooking in America. Endolyn sheds thoughtful light on who has done, and is doing, and will continue informing some of the most exciting cooking anywhere.

Meanwhile, Samuelsson himself is one of the most talented and accomplished chefs of our time, and his recipes — developed with Yewande Komolafe and Tamie Cook — are often thrilling.

Papa Ed’s Shrimp and Grits from Marcus Samuelsson’s ‘The Rise.’ The recipe was inspired by Red Rooster executive chef Ed Brumfield.

We wasted no time weighing in on Papa Ed’s Shrimp and Grits two weeks after the book was published. The dish, inspired by Ed Brumfield, executive chef of Red Rooster Harlem, is heart-breakingly delicious, literally the best shrimp and grits I’ve ever had. Unless you have access to frozen okra, you’ll have to wait till it’s back in season in order to taste what I mean.

Rise Sweet Potato Overhead Landscape.JPG

The very first recipe I took for a spin was the lead-off recipe in the book: Baked Sweet Potatoes with Garlic-Fermented Shrimp Butter. I’m a sucker for a roasted sweet potato in any guise, and as this is Samuelsson’s tribute to David Zilber — a Toronto-born chef who’s the former director of fermentation at Noma in Copenhagen — the recipe beckoned that much louder. It’s almost decadent in its lusciousness. The shrimp paste (which I keep on hand for Thai dishes) gives the avocado-butter a wild and wonderful funk.

Montego Bay Rum Cake, prepared from a recipe in ‘The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food’ by Marcus Samuelsson with Osayi Endolyn, recipes with Yewande Komolafe and Tamie Cook

Nor can I resist a boozy dessert, and this one — a vanilla cake soaked in dark rum and frosted with whipped cream — didn’t disappoint. Montego Bay Rum Cake is Samuelsson’s tribute to chef Herb Wilson, whose trail-blazing upscale Caribbean restaurant in New York City’s East Village, Bambou, was an early inspiration for him. As originally published, the recipe requires a stand mixer; I’ve adapted it so you can use a hand-mixer, if you like.

Roasted Cauliflower Steaks with Nola East Mayo, from Marcus Samuelsson’s ‘The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food.’ The recipe is Samuelsson’s tribute to New Orleans chef Nina Compton.

You’ve gotta try this: Dressed up with minced dill pickle, onion, sambal oelek, fish sauce, celery salt and paprika, the jazzy mayo that tops these roasted cauliflower steaks is worth making on its own. (What a dip for boiled Gulf shrimp this will be!) And slathering it on cauliflower steaks dusted with the Moroccan spice blend ras el hanout is out of this world. (I do wish there were a recipe for ras el hanout in the book. I didn’t have any on hand, and used this one from Paula Wolfert via the San Jose Mercury News.) The recipe honors Nina Compton — chef and owner of Compère Lapin and Bywater American Bistro in New Orleans. The ingredients in the mayo sauce reflect that city’s “diverse African, Haitian and French populations.”

Still wanna cook: Circling back to okra season, the moment those pods start popping into markets, I’ll make Leah Chase Gumbo. Chase — the legendary chef-owner of Dooky Chase’s in New Orleans, who died at in 2019 at age 96 — is one of the chefs to whom Samuelsson dedicates the book. (You’ll have to pick up the book to read the wonderful anecdote about what Chase did to President Obama when he sprinkled hot sauce on her gumbo without tasting it first.) Samuelsson’s tribute gumbo includes shrimp, andouille sausage and filé powder, along with the okra.

Asparagus season will precede okra season, though, and at that moment I’ll pounce on The Rise’s recipe for Shrimp Fritters with Bitter Greens and Grapefruit — a West African-inspired recipe in honor of Jonny Rhodes. Rhodes is the highly acclaimed young Houston chef behind Indigo, a neo-soul food restaurant “focusing on the history, culture, and social experiences that have shaped and guided African American foodways.”

There are many more enticing recipes besides — and all those cool essays.

Here’s a great way to celebrate Black History Month: Buy yourself a copy of the The Rise. While you’re at it, buy one for a friend interested in exploring the delicious, dynamic diversity that is Black American cooking.

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