Gumbo Life: A Journey Down the Roux Bayou

Straight from the roux bayou, a culinary memoir about how a centuries old Cajun and Creole secret―gumbo―has become one of the world’s most beloved dishes.

The product of a melting pot of culinary influences, gumbo, 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, in America and around the world?

In this paperback edition, updated with new information and recipes, seasoned journalist Ken Wells sleuths out gumbo secrets. His obsession goes back to his childhood in the Cajun bastion of Bayou Black, where his French-speaking mother’s gumbo often got started with a chicken chased down in the yard. In Gumbo Life: A Journey Down the Roux Bayou, Wells shares his lifelong quest to explore gumbo’s roots and mysteries. He spends time with octogenarian chefs to make a 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.

Paperback ISBN: 9781958888384

"Ken Wells knows gumbo, and from whence it comes. And gumbo, and its sources, are profoundly tasty things to know."
―Roy Blount Jr., author of Save Room for Pie

"When Ken Wells was editor at the Wall Street Journal, he glanced round the newsroom and observed: ‘I’m the only one in here who knows how to skin a squirrel.’ There’s no recipe for squirrel gumbo in this mouthwatering culinary memoir, but there is a vivid account of Wells’ languid bayou childhood and the history and personalities who seasoned it. There could be no better guide to this unique American subculture than Bonnie’s boy from Bayou Black."
―Geraldine Brooks, author of March and People of the Book

"Ken Wells was to the gumbo born. Enhancing that felicitous beginning, he has traveled the Gumbo Belt researching, recording, and―most importantly―savoring the myriad interpretations of the iconic Louisiana soup. He even has recipes, including two of my favorites. (I’m not telling which ones!) Like a dense, flavorful gumbo filled with tastes of the region, this is a book to savor."
―Jessica Harris, author of High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America

Ken Wells covered car wrecks and gator sightings for his hometown weekly before leaving the bayous for a journalism career that included twenty-four years on the Wall Street Journal. He has written five novels of the Cajun bayous and lives in Chicago.