... Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou." So go the lyrics to a famous song by Hank Williams heard year round in N'awlin's but particularly popular in those festive months bookended by Mardi Gras in Febrary and Jazz Fest in late April/Early May. This time of year, my homesickness for New Orleans generally manifests itself in gigantic batches of gumbo, jambalaya, and crawfish pies, as well as king cake cravings (only ever marginally satisfied by cheese danish). Each year, my food exchange comrades benefit from this malaise as my authentic renditions of creole, cajun, and acadian favorites make their way from my kitchen to their tables.
This time around, though, I had a
Like Water for Chocoloate moment. As my annual homesickness gave way to heartsickness at the thought of tragedies endured by my friends and acquaintances in New Orleans this past year, a very peculiar thing happened: my roux broke. If you know anything about gumbo at all--not African gumbo, mind you, with tomatoes and okra and what not, but real cajun gumbo that sticks thick to the spoon like so much andouille gravy--you know that the roux IS the gumbo. Basically, you cook equal parts fat and flour for hours as it turns from golden to brown to the last possible shade before coal black. (I actually use the low heat overnight in the oven technique, but that's proprietary.) This process gives gumbo the nutiness, the richness, the thickness that makes it stick-to-your-ribs good.
But back to the point: my roux broke. As a chef in New Orleans and since I have made hundreds if not thousands of batches of brown roux and this has NEVER happened to me--not once. I looked down into my pot, where I had just sweated the cajun mirepoix (substitute bell peppers where the French use carrots) in the hot roux, sauteed three pounds of Otto's andouille (a little shallow on the spice side, but workable) with six pounds of chicken, and moistened it all up with a bottle of beer before throwing in bay leaves, home-mixed cajun spice, and a couple gallons of stock. As I stirred, I thought of my friends, disappointed, displaced, and dispossessed, and my heart burned with grief and my eyes watered. (There were, after all, pounds of chopped onions in that pot.)
I stirred. Thin soup. I stirred again. Thin soup. What the fuck? Thin soup? My roux had broken. It was clear as Budweiser but peppered with miniscule black flour flakes. I cursed again and threw myself into a kitchen chair with a beer of my own. I thought of all the tension I had been holding so close of late, the mile-long to-do lists, the restless people waiting for my direction, my own fruitless search for answers. Then I paused, took a deep breath, and thought about how fortunate I am to be where I am right now, pursuing my dreams with the support of my beautiful family and wonderful friends.
"Never been a soup that beat me yet," I muttered. "I guess I'd better get my ass up outta this chair and fix it." Most of the people who eat at restaurants probably think that the recipes that taste the same each day get made the same way each day. In fact, almost the opposite is true. The purveyor brings too little so you don't have enough sausage for the gumbo. The cook forgets to turn the stove on and you don't have black roux for the gumbo. You're out of garlic, you forget the spice, the salt, the love. A chef knows that everyday soup is made differently every day--they also know what needs to be done to make it taste the same every single time.
I strained all the good stuff from the ruined broth and whirled the gallons of soup in small batches in my blender until the roux came back together again. It took a damn long time to get the soup good and thick. My favorite Saturday shirt was spotted with black roux and my rose-colored glasses were crusted with it. I burned my middle finger (ironic) moving hot liquid from pot to pot and my angora kangol now smells like butter brown flour. But the soup was good. My friends ate it and enjoyed it.
How they gonna bring back together the complex gumbo that is New Orleans?
