---
title: 'The History of Gumbo in New Orleans'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=99yi0FRF4uM'
video_id: '99yi0FRF4uM'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 1576
---

# The History of Gumbo in New Orleans

> Source: [The History of Gumbo in New Orleans](https://youtube.com/watch?v=99yi0FRF4uM)

## Summary

This video explores the history of gumbo through a detailed recreation of an 1885 recipe from 'La Cuisine Creole'. It discusses the cultural melting pot of New Orleans and the three main thickening agents—okra, filé, and roux—while tracing the dish's origins from Native American, African, and European influences.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Gumbo and New Orleans** [00:00] — Max Miller introduces gumbo as a dish embodying the diverse cultures of New Orleans, including Native American, African, French, Spanish, and Acadian influences. He plans to cook an 1885 recipe from 'La Cuisine Creole'.
- **The 1885 Recipe from La Cuisine Creole** [00:39] — The recipe chosen is 'Gombo with crabs, or shrimp', calling for beef, ham knuckle, crabs/shrimp, okra, onion, red pepper, and salt. It includes a two-hour simmer and suggests serving with rice.
- **Three Thickening Agents of Gumbo** [01:42] — The cookbook is notable for including all three main thickeners: okra (mucilage), filé (dried ground sassafras leaves from the Choctaw), and flour (often as roux). Okra comes from East Africa; filé was used by Native Americans.
- **Browned Flour Instead of Roux** [04:35] — This recipe uses browned flour (baked at 400°F for 90 minutes to 2 hours) rather than a traditional roux. Browned flour adds a nutty flavor and thickens the gumbo.
- **Ingredients and Preparation** [07:30] — Max prepares the meats (beef, ham knuckle, shrimp/crab), okra, onion, and bell pepper. He notes the traditional 'holy trinity' of onion, bell pepper, and celery, but this recipe omits celery due to its 19th-century expense.
- **Origins of the Name 'Gumbo'** [12:02] — Two theories: from Choctaw 'kombo' (filé) or Bantu 'ki'ngambo' (okra). First recorded use in 1764 in a document about an enslaved woman named Julia (Comba).
- **Gumbo as a Melting Pot Metaphor** [15:54] — In 1803, a ball in New Orleans served 24 gumbos, including sea turtle, reflecting the city's multiculturalism. Languages and dances were equally diverse.
- **Historical Cookbooks and Early Recipes** [16:55] — Early gumbo recipes appeared in Mary Randolph's 1824 cookbook, Eliza Leslie's 1840 book (New Orleans dishes), and 'The Carolina Housewife' (1847). Sausage became common later, likely from German immigrants in the 1850s.
- **Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, the Compiler** [21:22] — Hearn was a Greek-born journalist who collected recipes and folk songs. He later moved to Japan, became a Buddhist, and studied jiujitsu. His cookbook lacked sausage, which is now a staple in many gumbos.

### Conclusion

Gumbo is a dynamic dish that reflects New Orleans' multicultural history, with endless variations. The 1885 recipe yields a silky, flavorful stew that is more than the sum of its parts.

## Transcript

With Mardi Gras right around the corner, my mind  always goes to one of my favorite food cities, New Orleans. A rich, thick, and savory dish that is the embodiment of many of the cultures that have populated that city.
Native Americans to Africans, French, Spanish, Acadians, and a whole lot more. So today I am going way back to make one of the earliest New Orleans gumbo recipes from 'La Cuisine Creole' published in 1885.
So thank you to Trade Coffee for sponsoring this video as I cook up a historic pot of gumbo, this time on Tasting History.
So the recipe that I chose to cook today comes from the first cookbook which focused on New Orleans cuisine. It was published in 1885 and it's called 'La Cuisine Creole'. So I just chose the one that sounded most delicious to me., "Gombo with crabs, or shrimp".
"To a pound of beef add half a pound knuckle of ham; chop up both in inch pieces and fry them brown in two tablespoons of boiling lard;  add to them four large crabs cut up, or a pound of peeled shrimps, or both if desired;
cut into this four dozen small okra pods, one large onion, a little red pepper, and salt to taste. Let all simmer on a slow fire for about twenty minutes, then fill up with warm water; enough to cover the contents two inches deep. Let  this boil for two hours. If it becomes too thick, add as much water as required.
If preferred, a chicken can be used instead of the beef." So this recipe includes what many people consider to  be a key ingredient of gumbo, and that is okra,   though not all gumbo recipes actually do  include okra.
Now besides adding a flavor, it is also going to be a thickening agent. And what's cool about this cookbook is it seems to be the first that includes all three main thickening agents of gumbo.
So the first method is the okra. And okra is a pod that grows in the mallow family, as in the group of plants that marshmallows were originally made of. Okra first grew in East Africa and was one of the key foods of the people of Central and West Africa.
And during the Atlantic slave trade, it was brought to the Americas where it was growing in Brazil by the 1650s In the Caribbean and the American South, it remained  a staple crop used by the enslaved people,  
many people believe that that is actually where the word gumbo comes from, but more on that later. Now okra is one of those foods that is much maligned and that is because when you cut it open,
it is filled with this sticky viscous substance called mucilage or mucelage. And it can make both the okra and the actual gumbo itself rather slimy, but if it is cooked properly, then it doesn't  make it slimy, but simply thickens it.
Now the second method of thickening is called filé  or dried ground sassafras leaves. This also   This also both enhances the flavor and the texture and was  originally used by the Choctaw Native Americans   Then when the French arrived in the 18th century, they called it filé which means ropey or filament-like.
And this is the more popular thickening agent for the Acadian style or cajun style of gumbo. Now there are two main styles, there's the creole style and the cajun style.
And there is a lot of overlap between the two and really the the type of cuisine and the people themselves.   It's very, very complicated how they are different and how they are alike. So
this is a super simplification. When it comes to their cuisine you can think of  Creole as kind of being New Orleans-centric and Acadian or later cajun, currently it's cajun,
being more rural and outside of the city. Again, super simplification, but there is that and there is a lot of overlap like the third thickening agent and that is flour. They both use it very often.
Now sometimes this flour is added in a form called  roux which is fat and flour mixed together,  they like to cook theirs for so long that it becomes a really, really dark chocolatey brown, sometimes almost black.
Whereas the creole style of roux is more of a light brown, kind of a- they often say like a peanut butter color. Now in older recipes the creole style doesn't call for roux at  all but calls for browned flour.
And this recipe that I'm making today does not call for an actual roux, though the cookbook does include a recipe that does use roux, but it does say that "All gombo should be thickened with a little flour - browned if preferred..."  
So I'm going to make some browned flour, which will not only thicken and color the soup, but will also give it a lot of flavor. As far as the word soup goes, many people will tell you that  
gumbo is not a soup, but a stew. And others will say it's neither. And if that makes you happy, then by all means. But historically, it was always considered  
it was always considered a soup, at least when written about in different cookbooks from the 19th century, even as far back as the 18th century. Like this cookbook from 1885 says, "Remarks on Gombos of Okra or Filee. This is  
This is a most excellent form of soup, and is an economical way of using up the remains of any cold roasted chicken, turkey, game, or other meats... Serve gombo with plain boiled rice. Now let's get to browning that flour, which does take a while.
Now we only need a half cup of the browned flour, but you want to brown at least a full cup because much less than that and it does have a tendency to burn. So take your cup or 120 grams of all purpose flour and put it in an oven safe pan and spread it evenly.
And then set it in the oven at 400° Fahrenheit, 205° C, and cook for about 90 minutes to 2 hours. But every 15 or 20 minutes, you need to take it out of the oven, stir up the flour a little bit, and then put it back in.
Eventually, your flour should have the color of light brown sugar,   and it is going to have a deep, sweet, nutty  flavor similar to some of the coffees Just like gumbo has lots and lots of varieties, so too does coffee.  
you get to experience all sorts of different coffees, discovering new ones every month because they work with 55 local roasters to bring you 500 different coffees.
All you do is take trades quick quiz letting them know what your tastes are and then they have a team of people who will personally match you with coffees that you are sure to love. And if you don't like your first bag, they will replace it for free.
to many of the coffees that I have grown to love. And right now, Trade is offering up to 40% off of your first order when you use my link in the description
That is drinktrade.com/maxmiller. That's me, Max Miller. And now with our browned flour all set, we can move on to the rest of the recipe.  
For which you will need one pound or 450 grams of  beef cut into about 1 inch pieces. One large ham knuckle cut into small pieces. One pound of peeled shrimp, and or some crab legs. You can also use whole crabs if you want.
Then four dozen small okra pods or three dozen if they're large.   One large yellow onion and one red bell pepper, or  one red hot pepper without the seeds. The recipe actually is not clear and they used both the hot  pepper without the seeds and red bell pepper
in different recipes from this period so it's not  entirely clear. Now the traditional vegetables used in today's  gumbo is often called the holy trinity,
and that is onion, red or green bell pepper. I usually  see green now actually and celery.   This recipe does not use celery. Now partly it was because  celery was oddly expensive in the 19th century.  
Like really expensive. People would actually  just put it out for show, but it was also incredibly popular to eat. There are recipes in this book that do include celery but none of the the gumbo recipes have celery.
So it maybe just wasn't really popular in gumbo at the time.   Also, let me know if you want me to do a whole  video on the celery craze of the 19th century   and just how celery got to be sometimes as  expensive as caviar for celery.
Now the recipe has us start by browning the meat. So melt a couple of tablespoons of the lard in a large pot over high heat.   If you have a really wide pot, you can do all the beef and pork at once, but you don't want to crowd the pot, so best to do it in a couple shifts.
making sure you get a nice browning all over it. And it doesn't need to be fully cooked we're just going to want some color on the outside. Then, because we are going to add brown flour
Once it's really hot, then add the 1/2 cup of browned flour and whisk it together. We are just mixing the fat and the flour. It's kind of like a proto roux, but we're not going to let it cook for a long period of time.  
Other recipes in the book do have you do that. This  one does not so just mix it together.   Let it cook for a minute and then add the meat back in along with the onion, the okra, and the bell pepper along with some salt.
And then make sure to stir all of that up together nice and well. And you'll notice that there is a slight deviation in what I'm doing versus what the recipe says to do because the recipe actually says
And I don't know if that's because that's actually what they want you to do   or if it's just sloppy recipe writing. I think  it's that because if you add the shrimp and crab right now
it is going to cook for 2 and 1/2 hours and that will just leave you with lumps of rubber.   It will be inedible and I don't want to do that. So I'm going to wait to add those until closer to the end.
And do not yet add any water because if you do, then all that mucilage in the okra will leak out into the water and it will make for a mucousy gumbo at the end. Very slimy, not pretty.
But if you just let it cook without the liquid for a while, it kind of reabsorbs all of that stuff and then it just acts as a thickener,   which is what we want, but we don't get the  slimy texture, which is not what we want.
And the recipe says to just let it cook without the  water for 20 minutes. Just make sure to give it a good stir every minute or so so nothing burns to the bottom of the pot.  Then after 20 minutes, you can add about 2 liters of hot water, more or less.
And as soon as you do, stir it in and scrape the bottom of the pot to get off the fond that formed when you were browning the meat. Again this is going to add some flavor. And we need all  the flavor that we can get in this because you'll notice there are no spices really added to this gumbo.
And most of the old recipes don't have any kind of spice or even herbs very often added so Now let that gumbo come to a low boil and leave it to cook uncovered for two full hours, stirring frequently.
Then as your gumbo boils in its gumbo pot, we can take a little trip down history lane to learn about the early origins of this most delicious dish.
When looking for the history of a dish, I always  like to start with the origins of the name,   gumbo in this case. And there are two prevailing  theories on where that word comes from. The first is that it came from the Choctaw word for the  ground sassafras or filé
that is used as a thickener. That word was kombo. That's not very far off from gumbo. Now the second theory which I find a little bit more convincing comes from another thickening agent and that would be the okra.
In the Bantu languages which were spoken by many of the enslaved people from central Africa,   their word for okra was ki'ngambo or gambo. Now I doubt there will ever be a definitive answer which one was correct but
I do think it's interesting that both theories come from two of the thickening agents used in this soup or stew. Now the first time that we see this word gombo in reference to a dish
comes from 1764 and kind of has a bit of a dark past. It is in the document describing the interrogation  of a 50-year-old enslaved woman named Julia,   also known as Comba. She was interrogated regarding  her knowledge about a runaway slave named Louie,  
also known as Foy. And in the transcript, the questioner asks Comba "If she had not given him [Louis] a gombeau with Cezar and another black woman." we don't get any description of what she was putting into this dish,
For that we have to go a little while later to 1784 when a French journal on natural history describes the sassafras tree.
which are gathered in July, dried in the shade and in open air, and then coarsely powdered... a pinch of this powder is enough to make a broth viscous. It is this dish that is called in America gombo."
However, one must distinguish this American stew from that which is called gombo févi. The latter is made with the pods of a species of large mallow... All parts of this plant contain a viscous juice, and the pods, when green,
The pods of this mallow are of course okra. And the author seems to have tried both versions of gumbo. And well
"The first time one eats these gombos, one feels a strong repugnance because of this viscosity; but after having tasted it two or three times, the repugnance disappears,   The Creoles of Louisiana love it passionately;  
they cannot eat any other soup than that which they make with broth, pepper, sassafras, and maize or rice cooked in water. It must be admitted that this soup is much finer and much better tasting than all our bread soups.
Gombo is made with all kinds of meats, poultry, and fish. It is also made with shrimp and crawfish. That made with cabbage is the least esteemed..." So even as far back as 1784, over 240 years ago, there are already many, many variations on this dish.
It had become as varied as the people that were making this dish. And that is one of the things that I really love about New Orleans. It is a true melting pot.
In both the history, the architecture, the people, and the cuisine, there are influences from Native Americans, Africans, Caribbeans, the French,   French-speaking Acadians, the Spanish, Germans,  Italians, and just Americans in general.
Now some of these groups, like the Germans and the  Italians, don't actually arrive in New Orleans   until later in the mid and late 19th century. But as early as 1803, New Orleans and its cuisine and people are already very multicultural.
On December 4th of that year, 1803, Pierre-Clément de Laussat wrote about a ball he attended in New Orleans. and in 1803 was in the midst of facilitating the handoff of the Louisiana territory to the United States.
And when he walks into this ball, he talks about how he hears all of these different languages, different American languages, as well as different dialects of French, different dialects of Spanish. And the dances themselves were just as varied.
"The guests danced boleros, gavottes, English dances, French and English quadrilles, and gallopades... As a local touch, twenty-four gumbos were served, six or eight of which were sea turtle."
Now sea turtle is not so common in gumbos today, but back then sure was popular.   What I love though is that even in 1803, gumbo had  already become a metaphor for the cultural mix of  
Louisiana and New Orleans. Now unfortunately,  none of those 24 gumbo recipes seemed to have survived. And that is partly because American cookbook writing was still very much in its infancy,
but also because those recipes would have been made by enslaved people, and very few of their recipes got written down by them until after the Civil War.  
When their recipes did get writtedown, it was by the people for whom they were cooking those recipes. People like Mary Randolph, who while not from New Orleans, included one of the first gumbo recipes in her 1824 cookbook,
The first being gumbs, a West India dish. This is okra stewed with salt and pepper and then served with butter. Now it's not a stew, but it does make the connection between the word gumbo or gumbs and okra.
But she does have a second recipe that is basically for a stew that is gumbo, but she doesn't call that gumbo. She calls that okra soup. And it includes pork and fowl, veal knuckle, and then also lima beans and squash.
Then it also calls for it to be thickened with a butter mixed  with flour, that is a sort of roux. So this is not really the gumbo that New Orleans would have been known for,  
but it does seem that similar dishes were being eaten all over the South at the time. Now to get that New Orleans connection, we actually have to go to Philadelphia of all places.
There in 1840, Miss Eliza Leslie included two recipes for gumbo in her cookbook. These both included okra and tomatoes, or as she called them "tomatas" And then one had beef and the other had no meat, a green gumbo meant for Lent.
But she does say of both types that "It should be like  a jelly, and is a favorite New Orleans dish."   A few years later in 1847, 'The Carolina Housewife'  included another recipe for New Orleans gumbo,  
Instead it called for turkey, beef, and oysters cooked with onion and then "Season to your taste, and just before taking up the soup, stir in,
until it becomes mucilaginous, two spoonfuls of pulverized  sassafras leaves." So it's clear that by then both methods of thickening were around, as well as an early version of the third, that is the roux.  
Now most of the recipes of the 19th century don't  really talk about making a roux, but rather just mixing fat and flour, but then you don't cook it for a long time like a roux is supposed to be done  
until you get to the cookbook that we're cooking  from today, 1885, where in one of the nine recipes for gumbo it does describe making a roux. It's in the recipe for Gombo Filee with Oysters, No. 2. And it says,
"Fry a tablespoon of flour in a tablespoon full of lard. Let it brown slowly so as not to scorch." But really, roux does not become super common in gumbos until the 20th century.  
But then and now, it's very, very standard in  most recipes that I've seen. And very often, it is cooked so long that it becomes super dark, especially in the Cajun style,
Also, little side note about the book that we're working from today, 'La Cuisine Creole', and the man who compiled it. He didn't  actually write the recipes, he just gathered them.
He was a fascinating fellow. His name was Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, and he was actually born on the Greek island of Lefkada before moving to Ireland where his father was from. Later, he was abandoned by his family and sent to  America. And after some hard times in Cincinnati, he became a reporter.
Well after the Civil War, he became one of the first people to write a lot   about the life of the formerly enslaved people. And he went around the area gathering lyrics to the songs that they sang,
preserving them for posterity because many of them had never been written down. He basically did the same thing when then he went to New Orleans, but instead of song lyrics, he did it with recipes and other bits of New Orleans history that was starting to be lost.  
Then later in life, he moved to Japan, became a  Buddhist, and studied jiujitsu until he died at 54. Just a really interesting guy, I think. As for his gumbo recipes, they are missing one ingredient that has since become very popular in many gumbos, and that is sausage.
but many people believe that it started with the Germans when they came in the 1850s because they did bring a lot of sausage making to New Orleans, but
both Spanish and French sausages did already exist in New Orleans as well. There just doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence of them going into gumbo. And the first time that we do see sausage put into gumbo, it doesn't really specify a type.
Today, it is very often sausage, which is absolutely wonderful. And that is actually my favorite part of gumbos. Unfortunately, it is not in the one that I'm making today. It is in the ones that I had in New Orleans. Loved it.
It's not in the one I'm making today. So, I will have to  content myself with other things that I love like   And now, after 2 hours of simmering, you can add those shrimp and crab into the pot
Stir it all in and let it cook for 5 to 7 minutes or just until the shrimp have curled up nicely. And then it is ready to serve with some Carolina rice. And here we are, New Orleans gumbo from 1885.
the look is right, but it is not nearly as dark as a Cajun style. Those are really, really dark brown gumbos, and that's very often actually what I got in New Orleans,
[chomp] Oh my god. Where's it coming from?!
Okay. Okay. That is fantastic. [chomp]
That's really lovely. The texture it is, it is viscous, but it's like silky.
It is not slimy. It's- 'cus so often you can get a lot of oil, especially when you're cooking with sausage-
you can get a lot of oil on the top. This doesn't have any of that.   I just don't know where this other flavor is coming from. There's- it's not a very complicated dish.
Now, you've got the okra, which has some flavor, and then you've got the browned flour, which has some flavor, and the meats, everything, but this is so much more than the sum of its parts. What's crazy
is that- and it does cook for a long time, I couldn't  even pick out a piece of okra in here. All of the vegetables have just kind of like cooked  down to their- maybe that's where the flavor is coming from. It's just so concentrated.
Oh man, it doesn't even need the rice honestly. Now if you have never been to New Orleans, I got to say it is one of the most unique places in the world that I've been to,
definitely in the United States, it is so different from  every other city in the US. Both the people, the architecture, the culture, the amount of  music that's going on, and the food.
There is so much food. I mean- the Simpsons did a whole thing where Homer went and names off like 100 different things. They're all there within like walking distance. You can get to all of those places.
So if you get a chance, go to New Orleans, even  just for a few days. Just see it, and then the history, amazing, amazing history there. And, yeah, I've been a couple times. I'd love to go back.
Don't go during the summer. The weather's horrible, but during the spring, fall, just lovely. And eat while you're there. And if you can't get there yet, then make some gumbo at home
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.