Meats started to appear in published gumbo recipes around this time, too. Eliza Leslie’s Directions for Cookery (1840) includes recipes for both “Gumbo Soup,” which incorporates “a round of beef” along with the okra and tomatoes, and just plain “Gumbo,” the traditional stewed okra and tomatoes, which she describes as “a favourite New Orleans dish.”
More common than beef in gumbo, though, was chicken. The version provided to the Mobile Mercury by Mrs. L. H. Wright in 1858 is typical. First, fry a cut-up chicken “to a nice brown color,” presumably in a cast iron skillet over the coals of a fire, then add a large plateful of okra. After cooking it a little, pour over a few quarts of water and let it simmer until the chicken is tender. “The gumbo thus made will be very thick,” Mrs. Wright notes, and as in most recipes of the period, she specifies that it be served with “rice boiled tender, but be careful that the grains are separate.” That same basic method, often with onions and sometimes tomatoes added, can be found consistently in published recipes until well into the 20th century.
