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NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Edited Transcript:

Subject: The World Championship Gumbo Cook-Off
Date: October 12, 2008
Location: New Iberia, LA
Interviewer: Sara Roahen

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This is Sara Roahen for the Southern Foodways Alliance. It’s Sunday, October 12, 2008. I’m in New Iberia, Louisiana at the Gumbo Cook-Off—Gumbo Festival—and I’m going to walk around and try to find some people to talk to me about their gumbo. I don't--I don't know how many vendors are here but it looks like, I’m guessing at least 50. We’ll see if we can get anyone to talk to us.
        
So I’m here with Mr. Jimmy—

Jimmy Picard:  Picard—P-i-c-a-r-d--Jimmy Picard.

All right. And--and what group are you with?

We are Carbo Ceramics. We are--this is our eighth year cooking in the Gumbo Cook-Off.

And tell me a little bit about your gumbo. I just saw the sign that you’re a finalist for this year.

Yeah, yes we are. It’s a traditional seafood gumbo. It’s--we have crabmeat, shrimp; we have a small amount of oysters. We use the basis of—we use a crabmeat base, we use a lobster base, and we use a shrimp base also in the gumbo. It’s made with traditional roux—cooking oil and flour—and chopped vegetables and a little bit of the right seasoning and we’re good to go.

Do you make your own roux for something like this?

Yes, we make—part of the Gumbo Cook-Off is you have to have--you have to make your roux onsite. And you have to make it from scratch. Do you know how to make a roux?

Well you get cooking oil very, very hot, like about 450-degrees and add flour and start stirring until the mixture gets a consistency of about a real, real thick stew, and the flour keeps cooking as it gets darker, and then you add it to make—mix that with water and it makes your gumbo. So that’s basically how we do it and everybody here has to do it the same way; they have to make a roux from scratch.

And did you do that this morning?

Yes, ma’am.

Wow. So what time were you out here?

I was here at 4:30. You can't light the fire until 6:30, but I was here at 4:30 getting everything arranged and getting ready to go so when we do light the fire we’re ready to go.

And how much--how much do you make for one day?

This—we made 100 quarts today and we’re just about out. You see the bottom of the pot.

Carbo Ceramics—that means that making gumbo isn't your profession normally.

No, ma’am, no. We’re—we make ceramic fracking material for the oil and gas industry. We’re primarily—we’re an oil and gas service company.

But you’re a pretty confident cook?

Oh yeah, we’re good. We’re very good. We have a first place, two second places, and a third place thus far, so we--we do pretty good.

And what do you think it is about your gumbo particularly that keeps getting you at least in the finals?

We are the same exact gumbo every year. We make—everything is premeasured. Our ingredients are premeasured, our seasoning is premeasured; we can fool around with color a little bit when it comes time for judging, but we make a very consistent gumbo every year. It’s the same or very close to the same every year. That’s why we’re always in there. We don't—there’s no freelancing; it’s all measured.

Did you play a part in developing the original recipe?

No, I had a lot of help. There’s a gentleman that works with us, Dave Romero; he cooks a lot for us. He’s a good friend of mine. Dave and I go way back. Dave is the one to credit. He owns a meat market here in New Iberia. We’re in the professional category. We’re not the amateur—we’re professional. We don't have a restaurant but he’s been a—he’s in the retail business, food business, so we have to be professional. But he is the one who deserves credit. It’s his recipe.

Is that Dave’s Quality Meats?

Correct. Yes, ma’am.

Okay. I’m back here with Mr. Jimmy, Carbo Ceramics. Can you repeat that, what you just said about the music?

Well I think an advantage that we have is we play traditional Cajun-French music all day for our gumbo, and I think that adds a flavor that’s not in the recipe. We listen to it all day when we cook our gumbo, and I think that’s what makes us good—it’s one of the things that makes us good, because a Gumbo is traditional Cajun. And I’m a traditional Cajun.

Where are you from originally?

I’m originally from Milton, Louisiana, which is just about 30 minutes south of Lafayette.

Did you grow up in a household that spoke any French at all?

All French. My--my grandparents spoke little English. They spoke very little English. They would talk to us as grandchildren in French first and then they would have to think about the English translation and talk to us in English. My parents spoke fluid Cajun-French and that’s the only way they communicated. When they talked to us as kids they would talk to us in English of course, but they spoke fluent Cajun-French. When my family—when my--my cousins, all of my kin folk got together, all of the adults spoke Cajun-French. That was their language; that’s what they spoke. They were comfortable speaking that and that’s why I like the music now.
        
In my generation we weren’t as fortunate enough to learn Cajun-French. I understand Cajun-French very well. I speak some but I’m not as fluent as my parents are, and I wish I were. I wish I was that fluent because it’s a wonderful language. And it’s part of your heritage. When--when we lose it, it’s gone, and that’s why Cajun-French music—my dad, he’s deceased but every Sunday he played Cajun-French music all day. I do too. You can ask my wife. KRVS is Cajun-French—every Sunday.

I’m here with Mr. Troy. Can you tell me your full name?

Troy Delcambre:  Troy Delcambre.

And what group are you with?

I’m with Larry Delcambre Air Conditioning. It’s a family-owned business. My dad started it in 1986 and he’s since retired and I’ve taken over and we’re just out here to have a good time.

Is this your first year making gumbo at the Cook-Off?

No, ma’am. I think this is our 14th year in it.

Tell me a little bit about your gumbo.

Rabbit and sausage. Basically I start with a homemade roux, and it’s a little bit of luck. If you hit it right you hit it right. It just goes back to, you know, home cooking; there’s no set ingredients, there’s no set recipe. You just cook it for this large amount. It’s a little bit of skill and a lot of luck, you know so—.

And so how do you think that you started out making the rabbit and sausage? Is that something that you would make at home?

Ah, [for] years and years Daddy was always a rabbit hunter. I always liked to cook; Daddy liked to cook; Mama loved to cook. We looked for something different. Everybody—when we first started in we did chicken and sausage and [there were] a lot of entries in there, and they had the mélange division and I think this is the 12th year I do rabbit and sausage. And normally by 1 o'clock 60 quarts are sold out.

Didn’t you just start selling at 11:00?

Yes, ma’am, and a matter of fact, we have about maybe four quarts left in the pot. That’s it and we’ll be sold out for 1 o'clock.

Ya’ll have matching outfits on. I like that continuity. Can you describe them for the record?

Camouflage shirts with each guy’s name; a little gumbo pot on the front and then on the back it has a gumbo pot with a couple of rabbits sneaking off and a couple of them holding their ears waiting to get in the pot. [Laughs]

Have you ever burnt a roux out here?

One year, yes, ma’am. We have. [Laughs] So and you start over again; you scrap it and start from--start from scratch.

That must have been a panic?

It is because it puts you running behind because to do a good roux you’re looking at about an hour to an hour and a half of preparing your roux, so then you’ve got to start from scratch and everything is a rush then.

I’m here with the New Iberia Kiwanis Club. Can I ask you for your name?

David Wormser:  David Wormser.

All right, and you’re with the Kiwanis Club. Does this organization always make the turkey and sausage gumbo?

We also do a seafood gumbo but this year we only decided to do one.

And what is it about your gumbo in particular that you think gets you—?

Well we have a couple secrets that we can't give out, but [Laughs] basically the best--the best ingredient for any gumbo, anyone making gumbo, is to start with a good stock. You’ve got to have a good stock, whether it’s a seafood stock or turkey stock—or chicken—and that’s the secret of any gumbo.

Where do you make your stock?

Well we have to make it here; everything is made onsite. We start at 5:00 in the morning setting everything up. At 6:30 they sound a big canon that goes off and that’s when everybody can fire up their grills. No electricity is used, no generators, no—so everything is done by butane and--and it puts a little crimp in our style because a good gumbo takes a long time to cook. So they only give us about two and a half to three hours to cook it. But the roux has to be made from scratch. They come by and patrol around 6 o'clock in the morning and make sure that everybody’s pots are all empty, and then at 6:30 when the canon sounds we’re allowed to start cooking. And so we start around—I would say by 9:30--10 o'clock we have the roux made and—no, by 8:30 we have the roux made, and that’s when we started cooking the actual gumbo.

And so when you get here in the morning, is your turkey raw?

No, the turkey is already pre-cooked. The turkey is pre-cooked and that’s okay, and all the seafood that people use is usually pre-cooked. But you can't make your roux; you can't fill your pots with water; you can't do anything else until the horn sounds.

Can you just explain to me what you mean by making your stock?

Well with turkey we buy smoked turkeys already pre-smoked. We have a party—or, not a party; I want to say we have an event at my home on Thursday nights where we take all the turkeys and we debone them and we take all the bones and skin and everything and put them in bags and when we get here on Sunday morning, in the pot we take all those bones and all the skin and everything and we boil it for an hour--hour and a half. And then we take all of that out, skim the pot really well, so all the water that’s left in there is smokey water. And that’s what starts a good gumbo.

I’m here with the Cargill Salt group. I was sent over here by the man that makes the sausage that you use in your gumbo. Could you tell me your name?

My name is Everett McBride.

I’m sorry I didn’t make it here in time to try your gumbo, but can you tell me a little bit about the kind that you make?

We make chicken and sausage, andouille and tasso, and for secret ingredients we throw a couple of turkey necks in there.

You’re a finalist this year. What does that mean? When do they announce who wins?

Well at 3 o'clock they going to announce all the winners. Right now we are the 2008 finalist for the mélange category.

And so y’all are professional cooks, huh?

No, no, we are amateur cooks. We’re a bunch of guys that got together for the company for Cargill De-Icing Technology, and it’s a team-building event. We--we all get together and have fun.

What are you going to do to celebrate if you win?

Well we get our cup—if we win a cup we all going to put some beer in it and we all going to drink out of it. [Laughs]

Could I just ask--start by asking you to introduce yourself?

My name is Jody Suire and I’m with the New Iberia Lions Club.

What’s your category?

Chicken and sausage.

How long have y’all been doing this?

I believe we’ve been doing this for at least 10 years now, yeah.

What is it about your gumbo in particular, do you think, that made you a finalist?

Boy it’s hard to say because every year the judges are different and--and each gumbo is so unique. This year I think it’s just a combination of how much roux we put into it, and we changed the—it’s chicken and sausage but there’s so many different varieties of sausage and this year we did something a little different. And that seems to have done the trick.

Can you tell me anything about the sausage?

Yeah, it comes from a pig. Other than that it’s, you know, it’s a closely guarded secret. [Laughs]

Can you tell me a little bit about what it’s like to be here in the morning when there are no customers? It’s just everyone frantically making their roux?

Actually it’s nothing frantic. It’s very peaceful. You know it’s a cool fall morning and if you enjoy the smell of roux then you’ll enjoy being out here because that’s all it is. It’s very cool, it’s very quiet, everybody is stirring their roux. It’s--the roux is—for a lot of people, that’s what they think makes the gumbo, is the roux you know because roux is one of those things where as soon as it’s ready you have to stop. And if you let it go a minute longer you’ve burnt the roux and you’ll ruin the whole pot of gumbo. So it’s almost like a religion for a lot of people. But it’s very peaceful. And then to hear the canon go off to let everybody know it’s time to start cooking, it’s even more fun.

Is there a lot of whooping and hollering when that happens?

Not as much as there will be if we turn out and wind up winning the competition. [Laughs]

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I’m here with a group called Roux the Day, it looks like. Can I get your full name?

Shane Crochet:  Shane Crochet.

Can you first tell me just a little bit about this group and how y’all got together?

Yeah. We’re all mostly family and work together and we just got together and decided we going to make gumbo every year and been doing pretty well.

You have--it’s a seafood gumbo?

No, chicken and sausage with egg.

The egg is hard-boiled egg, it looks like.

Yeah, hard-boiled egg and we just put it in after. At the very end of--at the very end of cooking.

And do you put in the whites and the yolk?

No, just the whites. We don't do the yolks—just the white.

And is that a tradition, a Cajun tradition?

Yes, it’s Cajun. They put a lot of eggs in stews and gumbos, Cajun people.

Is this a fundraiser? Do y’all make money?

It’s a 60/40 split with the Chamber. We get the 60; they get the 40.

Do you go around and taste other gumbos?

Yeah, I taste a few. A few is good, a few is not as good as mine, but it’s all in what you like.

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To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

 

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