A  mainstay of Creole cuisine, gumbo is a thick, stew-like dish that can have any of many ingredients, including vegetables such as okra, tomatoes and onions,
and several meats or shellfish such as chicken, sausage, ham, shrimp, crab oroysters. The one thing all good gumbos begin with is a dark roux, which adds an
unmistakable, incomparably rich flavor.

New Orleans is a gumbo of peoples.

The players?  Cajuns – all originally descended from 1,600 French Acadians that the British forced from their Nova Scotia homelands in 1755.  Local Indians
transmuted the word Acadian first to Cagian, then to Cajun.

Creole, a French word, comes from the Portuguese word criolla, which purely translated in the period of its importance, meant “a person of European descent born in the colonies” (the West Indies or Spanish America).
The definition evolved as the people did, and came to mean a person of mixed French or Spanish and black descent, speaking a localized version of French or Spanish.

The French ruled their territory in the Southern United States until the French treasury became depleted, and Louis XV secretly gave Louisiana to his cousin Charles
III, King of Spain in 1764.  Five years later, Charles III sent Alexander O’Reilly to be the territory governor, and
with him came 3,000 troops, whose mission was to instill Spanish law, and imprison and execute French who insisted on “trading people like land.”  After this bloody period, life under Spanish rule became quite tolerable, and Spanish settlers began intermarrying with
French locals, blending a new Creole culture.

Two major fires leveled the city in the late 1700s, giving rise to the style of Spanish architecture so prevalent today – houses with ornate balconies, and protected
courtyards.

About this time, the Spanish, French, and Americans all wanted control of the city, togain dominance of the commerce generated by the Mississippi River.  The city was given back to France in 1800, and Napoleon sold the territory to the U.S. a scant three years later for
fifteen million dollars.

The Creoles now felt they had been sold to “complete barbarians”, and the incoming Americans thought the locals that lived in the Vieux Carre (old square) far too
“fun loving” and built their ‘own city’ on the other side of Canal Street, which became the beautiful and stately Garden District.

When the British arrived en masse in 1814 to capture the city, Andrew Jackson rallied men from all quarters of the city – every race and heritage fought together to
repel the invaders, creating a sense of unity and camaraderie among all ethnic groups, which continues til today.

The period from 1820 to the Civil War saw the prosperity of huge plantations and agricultural influence, and the city blossomed.   The last century saw large influxes of
Germans, Irish, and Italians, right up until the second World War.

New Orleans, N’awlins, NOLA, The Big Easy, whichever name you call it by…..  It’s Spanish, French, American colonists, Africans, descendents of Caribbean slaves, Germans, Irish, and Italians…..who all brought their wonderful music, their exquisite cuisines, the passion for
the heritage of their  cultures……..

A gumbo of people, who all come together to produce a
city with an unmistakable, incomparably rich flavor.