Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou Contributor(s): Wells, Ken (Author) |
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ISBN: 0393254836 ISBN-13: 9780393254839 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company OUR PRICE: $24.26 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: February 2019 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Cooking | Essays & Narratives - Cooking | Regional & Ethnic - Cajun & Creole - Cooking | Courses & Dishes - Soups & Stews |
Dewey: 641.813 |
LCCN: 2018048425 |
Physical Information: 1.2" H x 6.1" W x 9.3" (1.10 lbs) 288 pages |
Themes: - Geographic Orientation - Louisiana - Cultural Region - Deep South - Cultural Region - Mid-South - Cultural Region - Southeast U.S. - Topical - Cajun - Cultural Region - South |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Ask any self-respecting Louisianan who makes the best gumbo and the answer is universal: "Momma." The product of a melting pot of culinary influences, gumbo, in fact, reflects the diversity of the people who cooked it up: French aristocrats, West Africans in bondage, Cajun refugees, German settlers, Native Americans--all had a hand in the pot. What is it about gumbo that continues to delight and nourish so many? And what explains its spread around the world? A seasoned journalist, Ken Wells sleuths out the answers. His obsession goes back to his childhood in the Cajun bastion of Bayou Black, where his French-speaking mother's gumbo often began with a chicken chased down in the yard. Back then, gumbo was a humble soup little known beyond the boundaries of Louisiana. So when a homesick young Ken, at college in Missouri, realized there wasn't a restaurant that could satisfy his gumbo cravings, he called his momma for the recipe. That phone-taught gumbo was a disaster. The second, cooked at his mother's side, fueled a lifelong quest to explore gumbo's roots and mysteries. In Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou, Wells does just that. He spends time with octogenarian chefs who turn the lowly coot into gourmet gumbo; joins a team at a highly competitive gumbo contest; visits a factory that churns out gumbo by the ton; observes the gumbo-making rituals of an iconic New Orleans restaurant where high-end Creole cooking and Cajun cuisine first merged. Gumbo Life, rendered in Wells' affable prose, makes clear that gumbo is more than simply a delicious dish: it's an attitude, a way of seeing the world. For all who read its pages, this is a tasty culinary memoir--to be enjoyed and shared like a simmering pot of gumbo. |
Contributor Bio(s): Wells, Ken: - Ken Wells covered car wrecks and gator sightings for his hometown weekly before leaving the bayous for a journalism career that included twenty-four years on the Wall Street Journal. He has written five novels of the Cajun bayous and lives in Chicago. |