• Gumbo Life

  • Tales from the Roux Bayou
  • By: Ken Wells
  • Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
  • Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (9 ratings)

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Gumbo Life  By  cover art

Gumbo Life

By: Ken Wells
Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
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Publisher's summary

Ask any self-respecting Louisianan who makes the best gumbo and the answer is universal: "Momma." The product of a melting pot of culinary influences, gumbo, in fact, reflects the diversity of the people who cooked it up: French aristocrats, West Africans in bondage, Cajun refugees, German settlers, Native Americans-all had a hand in the pot. What is it about gumbo that continues to delight and nourish so many? And what explains its spread around the world?

A seasoned journalist, Ken Wells sleuths out the answers. His obsession goes back to his childhood in the Cajun bastion of Bayou Black. Back then, gumbo was a humble soup little known beyond the boundaries of Louisiana. So when a homesick young Ken, at college in Missouri, realized there wasn't a restaurant that could satisfy his gumbo cravings, he called his momma for the recipe. That phone-taught gumbo was a disaster. The second, cooked at his mother's side, fueled a lifelong quest to explore gumbo's roots and mysteries.

In Gumbo Life, Wells does just that. He spends time with octogenarian chefs who turn the lowly coot into gourmet gumbo; joins a team at a highly competitive gumbo contest; visits a factory that churns out gumbo by the ton; and observes the gumbo-making rituals of an iconic New Orleans restaurant where high-end Creole cooking and Cajun cuisine first merged.

©2019 Ken Wells (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

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Brings back memories

My Cajun grandmother taught me to make gumbo. This really brought back many memories. I also leaned much that I didn't know about gumbo and Louisiana.

The narrator was perfect.

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