skinny girls & mayonnaise

My friends in the south and casual readers who stumble upon this post alike will forgive me if I seem a bit know-it-allish about southern cooking. I have, after all, long claimed to make the best gumbo anywhere. And my fried chicken, barbecue and mint juleps don’t suck either.

Gumbo z’herbes with Spanish rice

The other night, just home from a road trip and exhausted, I turned on PBS to discover a wonderful documentary called “Pride & Joy,” all about southern cooking. It was beautifully shot, with no narration, simply introducing you to the people making the food throughout the south — the toothless paddlefish caviar fishermen, the gentlemanly Kentucky bourbon distiller, the buttermilk maker who likens his product to Viagra and admits that he loves it so much it “sometimes embarrasses me,” the Georgia cattleman who likes to drink his 750 ml. “glass” of wine in his pasture at the end of each day, the Czech guys in Texas making kolache sour cream pastries, the squirrel hunters and the purveyors of pig ear sandwiches, the North Carolina pit master and the New Orleans oyster shucker — all in their own words.

One of my favorite of all the delightful characters was a 90-year-old African American woman in Louisiana named Leah Chase who was stirring a big vat of gumbo z’herbes — green gumbo — a tradition of Holy Thursday in the south. Rich in symbolism, Ms. Chase explained, green gumbo always incorporated an odd number of greens — 3, 5, 7, 9 or even 11 — for reasons she couldn’t recall, and the number of greens included would predict the number of new friends the cook/diner would make in the coming year.

Leah Chase serving up bowls of gumbo z’herbes in her New Orleans restaurant, Dooky Chase

Here was something I’d never heard of before — green gumbo! It seemed fit in perfectly with my new dietary world order of flooding my body with greens whilst attempting to retain the lavish decadence to which I’d grown accustomed.

I counted the number of greens in my fridge — five: kale, arugula, turnip greens, onion greens and Italian parsley. Fewer than I usually have, and the garden has gone fallow… so it would have to do. I’ve got plenty of friends, anyway.

I trolled around online for recipes and found many — including those from such recognizable names as Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray. I read approaches from obscure food blogs in the south, and from respected magazines and publications. And based on what I had at hand (always a good traditional starting point for any gumbo) devised my own version.

Starting with an andouillle sausage I had in the freezer, I built up the flavors over the course of several hours. I then cooled the soup and left it in the fridge for a couple days — a neat trick for soups or stews of this kind that make the result even better when you finally put spoon to bowl. The result, dashed liberally with Tabasco, was rich and smoky, layered and satisfying. The perfect soup for a cold autumn day, or — if your a traditionalist — a Holy Thursday.

Ms. Chase’s version, which I also found online, includes two kinds of sausage, ham, brisket and stew meat. Here’s my version, lighter on the meat. Add more greens for more friends in the coming year.

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Gumbo z’herbes
serves 4 – 8

4 tbsp. grapeseed or canola oil
1 andouille sausage
4 tsp. flour
1 carrot, diced
1 rib celery, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 quarts chicken stock
about 1 lb. mixed greens, chopped (kale, spinach, mustard greens, etc.)
1 bay leaf
1 large sprig thyme
1 tbsp. filé powder
salt & pepper to taste

Heat oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Cook andouille sausage for 5 minutes on each side, until crisp and browned. Remove from pot and set aside to cool.

Stir in flour until smooth, making a roux. Continue cooking and stirring the roux until it is the color of peanut butter — 10 to 15 minutes. Add diced vegetables and cook, continuing to stir, about 5 minutes. Cut andouille sausage to your tastes and add to pot. Add chicken stock.

Bring soup to a rolling boil and add in greens, bay leaf and thyme. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for one hour. Remove lid, pluck out bay leaf and thyme sprig. Stir in filé powder and season to taste with salt and pepper. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes, covered.

Serve over rice with Tabasco sauce to each diner’s taste.