I grew up smack dab in Cajun Country, USA, in a little town called Erath, Louisiana. That’s right, not Earth, but E-r-a-t-h. My mother cooks gumbo regularly, but she’s the kind of woman that likes to do things her own way, so she tends to shoo us out of the kitchen once things get going.
I covered a gumbo workshop at the Viking Cooking School earlier this week, and I actually got to attend last night so I can learn how to make gumbo like (nay, better than) my mom’s original show-stopping recipe.
The set-up was a lot more impressive than the kitchen back home. It was stocked full of Viking cooking equipment, shiny and official-looking, and situated on the third floor pool deck of the Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center, with a beautiful view of the river. This may sound like a description right off of the brochure, but I was genuinely in awe of it all.
The two resident chefs showed us — meaning me, my photographer, and a table full of wise-cracking, middle-aged couples — the ropes. Matt Brewton, who has been cooking for 17 years and said “gumbo was the first thing [he has] ever made,” told the table the difference between Cajun and Creole peoples and their cuisine before we started, a lesson that continued with Raine Bayyan as we cooked.
The cooks split us into three groups, each of which made their own potato salad and pot of seafood gumbo. We also watched as they applied the final touches to a duck-and-alligator-sausage gumbo and a pork-and-collared-green creation (which struck me as odd, but I am almost childishly attached to plain old chicken and sausage gumbo).
Everything at the school is pre-weighed, cleaned, and chopped, so I was already off to a fantastic start. The worst thing for me was the meticulous prep work involved when I watched my mom cook a gumbo.
The seafood gumbo came out great, but another group came out on top as the most popular attempt and we toasted them with cheers. The experience was fun, and the company was hilarious. I recommend it to any college student who wants to learn some nifty, easy kitchen tricks and have fun in the process. The only downside is the $89 price tag per person, so I guess I should thank my mom for admitting me to her table for free.
It was a solid attempt at remaking the experience of my mother’s homemade gumbo, although I’ll still be making the trip to her house at the next cold spell for a good dosing of the original. But I will probably take a cue from Viking Cooking School and bring a bottle of red wine with me. Cheers!
