What is Haitian Gumbo?

Series Summary

Gumbo is an American cuisine that is generally associated with Louisiana. The word Gumbo comes from the African Bantu dialect word for okra - “kigombo”. African natives, enslaved in Louisiana during the slave trade, brought with them from Africa the knowledge of how to make their kigombo soup, which was a thin soup with fish, okra, plantains, and bananas; this soup was later influenced by a number of cultures including the Spanish and the French. Today the dish is a thick soup with a wonderful array of spices, but there are many different varieties of Gumbo and many more family recipes of each variety. One such variety is the Haitian Gumbo or Caribbean Gumbo.

In this free video series learn how to make Haitian Gumbo from David Postada head Chef and owner of Big Easy Catering Company in Santa Barbara, California. Learn important Gumbo cooking tips and techniques such as what ingredients to use; how to mix the spices to create the seasoning; what sausage and ham to use and how to add the meat to the Gumbo; how to peel the shrimp, make the stock or roux, add the rice, and serve.

Video Transcript

"Hi this is David from the Big Easy Catering Company in Santa Barbara, California for expertvillage.com. Today we are going to be making a Cajun gumbo. What gumbo is it is a sort of a Cajun stew made with different types of things: okra actually is called a "gumbo" down in the Caribbean. I'm going to be doing sort of a Haitian-Cajun version of the dish today. We are going to be adding a lot of great ingredients and this will be a little Caribbean twist, so this is going to be fun. We are going to use sausage and ham, and we will go over all the ingredients in a moment. There's as many types of gumbo as there are cooks in Louisiana so you can pick out your own ingredients. It was made by the Cajuns in the beginning with whatever they had and mixed a very savory stew so let's get this going."