I heard one of the top bbq competition guys say that the ribs he wants to eat himself are not the ones he has to compete with to win. To each his own but this is why I turned down friends encouraging me to compete in the bbq world.
OT: Gumbo competition
- Thread starter JesterB
- Start date
Don't think I'd try to win with it but that chili-o is pretty dang good when your in a hurry or low on ingredients and you get a hankering for chili in the winter time.
Like is said, you’re lucky I wasn’t there. **
the winner of most of these charity competitions is decided before they get started.
I noticed too that none of the good stuff even got recognized and all of the banks and insurance companies won. What gives?
It's B-town, bruh!
And I'm not hating. Very civic minded city. Or is it money-minded? Either way, I'm just glad they put on events like this.
I’ve cooked in it every year that they have had it. Placed top 3 last 2 years. It’s always a good time There were some good pots and some bad ones. I did notice that the tent behind me had 10 gallons of tomatoes in theirs and made me wonder if they were cooking chili or gumbo.
I don't put tomatoes in mine either, but this is something of a misconception. It may not be common but it's plenty traditional for Creole gumbos to have tomatoes in them. Far more uncommon for Cajun areas. To me, if you're making a roux and also wanting tomatoes, it makes sense to cook a Sauce Piquant instead of a gumbo.
The addition of tomatoes — what is now considered a Creole gumbo ingredient — is something Lafayette folklorist John Laudun believes came from Haitian immigrants and was later reinforced by the arrival of Italians in the New Orleans area.
"Tomatoes in gumbo seem to have the highest density of occurrences in New Orleans, where both a large number of Haitian Creoles settled but also Italians," Laudun said. "As you move away from New Orleans, the density of their usage in gumbo drops off considerably, though pockets along the bayous Teche, Lafourche and Terrebonne are not unknown. My guess is that similar dynamics were — are — in play."
Why do some people put tomatoes in their gumbo? Curious Louisiana investigates.
Baton Rouge native Leea Russell was surprised to be contacted about the question she asked Curious Louisiana to answer: "Why do some people put tomatoes in their gumbo?"
One ingredient that does arouse controversy is the tomato. Some cooks use it in their gumbos, others wouldn’t be caught dead putting tomato in theirs. In that respect, the situation is analogous to jambalaya, where the question of the appropriateness of tomato is a burning issue. Tomatoes are most often found in okra gumbos, but I’ve had roux-based seafood gumbo that also contained tomato. I don’t have any hard evidence to back this up, but in my experience gumbos containing tomato are more common on the eastern side of Bayou Lafourche than they are farther west. Personally, I am for tomato in okra gumbo and against it in non-okra gumbo.
A Short History of Gumbo | Southern Foodways Alliance
Of all the dishes in the realm of Louisiana cooking, gumbo is the most famous and, very likely, the most popular. Gumbo crosses all class barriers, appearing on the tables of the poor as well as the wealthy.
www.southernfoodways.org