Gumbo appears as a signature dish in 1 United States cities. See each city's local variant and where to eat it.
Gumbo · New Orleans
Gumbo is the city's defining one-pot dish: a dark French roux base loaded with the holy trinity (onion, celery, bell pepper), seafood or chicken-and-andouille, finished with file or okra, served over rice.
Gumbo descends from West African okra stews (the word gumbo itself comes from a Bantu word for okra), Choctaw file (powdered sassafras leaves) and the French roux. It coalesced into its modern form in 18th-century colonial Louisiana, where enslaved African cooks and French cooks worked in the same kitchens. By the 1830s it was on every New Orleans Creole menu, in seafood, chicken-andouille, and Lenten z'herbes (greens) variations. The Choctaw influence (file) and the African influence (okra) are still visible in the alternate thickening choices. Gumbo is rarely thickened with both. It is always served over rice, not noodles.
Where to eat in New Orleans:
- Commander's Palace
- Brigtsen's
- Liuzza's by the Track
- Mandina's Restaurant