The Gumbo Fairy

I moved to Louisiana many years ago. I lived for three years in the New Orleans area. I was young enough that I didn't really care about cooking for myself. I did, however, discover gumbo while I was in New Orleans. Its rich, savory flavors blended perfectly with an Abita (local brewery) Purple Haze. I ate much of it and gained the pot belly to prove it. ...then I moved to Baton Rouge to work for a different company.

The gumbo offerings in Baton Rouge restaurants were rather "meh," and I decided to try making my own after I'd been there a few weeks. So I went to the grocery store and bought a package of Zatairane's Gumbo Base, chicken breasts, some Italian sausage, a package of pre-made roux, and a pre-chopped container of the Trinity (bell peppers, onions, and celery). I brought it home to my gated apartment community and proceeded to throw it together. 

While it was cooking, I heard a hesitant knocking at my door. Jehovah's Witnesses were rife throughout the Baton Rouge area at that time, and they were actively visiting. I'd already had three visits in the three or four weeks I had lived there, and I assumed it was more of the same, so I ignored the knocking. A few moments later, it came again, much more insistent. I opened the door and looked out, and then down, when I didn't see anyone, initially. It was the tiniest adult woman I'd ever met. She was maybe 4'2" or so. Her skin was pitch black, her hair was almost completely white, and she was covered in wrinkles. I had never seen her before and didn't know her from Eve. I said to her, "Hi! What can I do for you?" 

She replied, "Are you cooking gumbo?" Her accent was thick and rich, and as Cajun as any I had ever heard. If she had said she was born, raised, and continued to live in a shack way back in the swamp, I'd have believed her. 

"Uh, yes," I said. 

"...and you're using a Zatairane’s box mix, aren't you?" 

"Uh, yes. How did you know," I asked? 

"'Cause I smelled it. Would you like to learn how to make real gumbo?" 

"Uh, okay," I replied. 

"Then throw away that s#!t you've got on the stove, and come with me. You're driving." 

"Uh, sure...?" 

I got her into my car, and she directed me out onto I-10, heading east toward New Orleans. We drove for nearly 50 miles, to Jacob's World Famous Andouille, in LaPlace, where she had me pick up freshly-smoked andouille sticks. Then we got back in the car and drove all the way back to Baton Rouge and beyond it by about 20 miles, to a farm that sold freshly-slaughtered chickens. Then we came back by another farm that sold all the ingredients of the Trinity, and fresh peppers as fresh as fresh could be. Then a quick stop by the grocery store for Mahatma long grain rice and filé, we drove back to my apartment. All told, it was nearly three hours in the car. 

Under her tutelage, I got the chickens boiling, and I cut up the veggies and peppers. We started a roux, and when it was perfectly done, we mixed the Trinity and the peppers into it. The veg and peppers cooked very quickly (they don't call roux "Cajun Napalm" for nothing!), and then we set that aside, off the heat. She showed me how to strip the chickens with a fork, since it was so hot after being freshly boiled. Then we started throwing stuff into the stock created during the boil. We dumped the roux in, and she had me heat the pan back up again while I sliced up the andouille. "Heating the andouille dry in the skillet helps bring out the smokiness, cher," she said. 

We let it simmer in the pot for a couple of hours, while we talked about inconsequentials. Then we started the rice. About 10 minutes later, we spooned some rice in to bowls, and ladled out some of the gumbo. 

The lady had a single bowl of the gumbo, said, "That's how it's done," and walked out of my apartment. She never told me her name. 

I lived in that apartment for almost three full years. I never saw her before or after that time. No one I met and eventually became friends with in that apartment complex had ever heard of her. 

I will swear to my dying day that The Gumbo Fairy came to my apartment and taught me how to properly prepare Cajun gumbo.