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In 1972, To Commemorate The Passing Of Louisiana Senator Allen Ellender, The US Senate’s Cafeteria Added Creole Gumbo

Oct 12, 2023

A heavily seasoned, stew-like dish is in the spotlight on National Gumbo Day which is annually observed on October 12. Originating in southern Louisiana during the 18th century, Gumbo is a dish that typically consists of a strongly flavored stock, meat or shellfish, a thickener, and seasoned vegetables.

The seasoned vegetables may include celery, bell peppers, and onions which are a trio known in Cajun cuisine as the “holy trinity. The dish is commonly served over rice.

Gumbo arose from a West African word for okra, ki ngombo, which many believe is how the name and the ingredient are also intertwined.
12th Century – The earliest written records reveal that okra was first cultivated in Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia).
1719 – Enslaved Africans were brought to the French colony in large numbers starting in 1719, and by 1721 more than half the residents of New Orleans were African.
1802 – John Sibley described “the dish they call gumbo which is made principally of the ochre into a thick kind of soup & eat with rice, it is the food of everybody for dinner and supper.”
1803 – gumbo was served at a gubernatorial reception in New Orleans
1824 – Mary Randolph’s cookbook “The Virginia House-Wife” was the first to include a recipe for gumbo
1972- the United States Senate cafeteria added Gumbo to the menu in honor of Louisiana Senator Allen Ellender.
1980s – Chef Paul Prudhomme’s rise to television popularity multiplies the American interest in Creole and Cajun cooking.
1989 – Fewer than a dozen chefs participate in the inaugural World Championship Gumbo CookOff in New Iberia, Louisiana.
2018 – Los Angeles-based chef set the world record for the largest-ever pot of seafood gumbo, made at the Walk-On’s Independence Bowl. The record was set at 6500 pounds of seafood gumbo.
Gumbo is the official cuisine of the state of Louisiana.
Gumbo is cooked for a minimum of three hours but often simmers all-day
Gumbo is a dish with Spanish, French, African, Native American, German, and Caribbean influences, all coming together in one hearty meal.
The self-described “Gumbo Capital of the World”, Bridge City, Louisiana, holds an annual Gumbo Festival.
Since 1989, New Iberia, Louisiana has held The World Championship Gumbo Cook-Off.
There are several different varieties of gumbo based on the type of thickener used to create the dish.
Creole gumbo contains shellfish and tomatoes whereas Cajun gumbo is generally spicier with shellfish or chicken.
Gumbo has flavors rooted in Native American, African, Caribbean, Spanish, and French cuisines.
Gumbo is usually called a Cajun dish, but there are both Cajun and Creole varieties. Cajun refers to a group of people of French descent who migrated to Louisiana in the 18th century after they were expelled from the Northeast by the British.
The term Creole can refer to both people of mixed descent and those of French or Spanish descent born in the New World.
The first known reference to gumbo as a dish was uncovered by historian Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, who found a handwritten transcription of the interrogation of a 50-year-old slave named Comba in New Orleans in 1764. Suspected of being associated with other slaves who had stolen clothes and a pig, Comba is asked whether she had given a slave named Louis un gombeau, and she replies that she did.
There’s even a tradition in New Orleans, the “courir de Mardi Gras,” where local men go door-to-door begging for gumbo ingredients, and then cook the gumbo in the square that night