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Gumbo life : tales from the Roux Bayou / Ken Wells.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : W. W. Norton & Company, independent publishers since 1923, [2019]Copyright date: ©2019Edition: First editionDescription: xxv, 259 pages : map ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780393254839
  • 0393254836
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Roux awakening -- Academic gumbo: it's a swamp out there -- Gumbo gets going : Hank, Ted Kennedy, and the Great Wall of China -- Gumbo Inc. -- The meaning of "T" : man in the land of a zillion chefs -- Feasting among the poule d'eau cookers -- Moby gumbo -- Ready, set, cook! -- Creole gets its Cajun on -- Gumbo hunting in Treme -- My gumbo life -- The glory of gumbo's pantry -- Gumbo as destiny -- Serpents on the Roux Bayou -- Bayou black today -- The gumbo highway and gumbo life converge.
Summary: In this culinary memoir, Ken Wells delves into the history and culture of gumbo, a dish that reflects the diversity of the people who cooked it up: French aristocrats, West Africans in bondage, Cajun refugees, German settlers, Native Americans. Wells travels his native Louisiana to spend time with chefs cooking gumbo, at gumbo contests, at a gumbo factory, and at an iconic New Orleans restaurant.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 641.813 W454 Available 33111009324936
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A sprightly, deeply personal narrative about how gumbo--for 250 years a Cajun and Creole secret--has become one of the world's most beloved dishes.

Ken Wells grew up in the Cajun bastion of Bayou Black, eating his French-speaking momma's gumbo and living what he calls the Gumbo Life--where the rhythms of the day cling to rituals of a previous century and gumbo begins with a chicken chased down in the yard. He later would roam the world as a journalist but never forgot his roots.

In Gumbo Life , Wells returns, taking readers on a lively tour that includes visits to a coot-cooking gumbo group, a factory producing gumbo in insane quantities, and Commander's Palace, an iconic restaurant where high-style Creole cooking and reenergized Cajun cuisine merged to change the culinary landscape. Along the way, Wells explores the soup's global profile--including how it got to China and who won New York City's Gumbo War. A lively travelogue and moving memoir, Gumbo Life is a celebration--of a place, a dish, and the cultures that created it.

Includes recipes.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Roux awakening -- Academic gumbo: it's a swamp out there -- Gumbo gets going : Hank, Ted Kennedy, and the Great Wall of China -- Gumbo Inc. -- The meaning of "T" : man in the land of a zillion chefs -- Feasting among the poule d'eau cookers -- Moby gumbo -- Ready, set, cook! -- Creole gets its Cajun on -- Gumbo hunting in Treme -- My gumbo life -- The glory of gumbo's pantry -- Gumbo as destiny -- Serpents on the Roux Bayou -- Bayou black today -- The gumbo highway and gumbo life converge.

In this culinary memoir, Ken Wells delves into the history and culture of gumbo, a dish that reflects the diversity of the people who cooked it up: French aristocrats, West Africans in bondage, Cajun refugees, German settlers, Native Americans. Wells travels his native Louisiana to spend time with chefs cooking gumbo, at gumbo contests, at a gumbo factory, and at an iconic New Orleans restaurant.

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