Creole family gumbo: beef, lobster, red sauce, but NO damn corn

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My friend Jillian in Chicago comes from a creole family, and her family’s gumbo was the first I was lucky enough to eat, on New Year’s or any day. Her family spends two days cooking enough gumbo for more than 20 people, though she says many creole families start cooking it even earlier, right after Christmas, with that holiday’s leftover turkey and ham.

Jillian’s family gumbo contains chicken, pork, beef, Andouille, shrimp, crab, lobster, and sometimes oysters. It’s redder than some browner varieties, since it eschews flour as a thickening agent, but it does contain filé, a sassafras spice that also thickens things.

Her gumbo is always served with rice, never corn. “Those people are weird,” Jillian says.

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