Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas

Tradition in a Pot: How Food, Family, and Weather Define Cajun Gumbo

• Chris Logan Media • Season 3 • Episode 25

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The first cool breeze doesn’t need to be cold to light the signal: it’s gumbo season. We pull out the deep, trusted pot and talk through the choices that make a bowl yours—starting with the Acadiana classic, chicken and sausage, held together by a dark, toasty roux and that unmistakable aroma that fills the house. We get into the details of how we build flavor with onions and bell pepper, when celery earns a spot, and why boneless thighs often win our weeknights even if bones bring extra depth.

From there, we move to the table where the real debates live. Potato salad isn’t just a side; it’s a ritual—with strong opinions about whether it belongs inside the bowl or riding shotgun on the rim. We swap stories about day-two gumbo perfection, the cool-heat harmony of a cold scoop melting into a hot bowl, and the carb parade that some families swear by: rice, crackers, Evangeline Maid bread, even a baked sweet potato on the side. We also trace regional lines—okra in seafood gumbo, no tomatoes in our kitchens—while giving a nod to the variations you’ll find around Louisiana and along the Gulf.

We don’t gatekeep access either. If you’re new to gumbo, we share approachable ways to start: store-bought roux that’s actually fine, seasoning blends that save time, and even where visitors might find a respectable restaurant bowl. And because small tweaks matter, we share our favorite finishers—Cajun Chef green hot sauce and pepper vinegar infused with homegrown cayenne—to lift the flavors without drowning the roux. If you love food that tells a story about family, place, and season, this conversation will feel like home.

Enjoyed the convo? Subscribe, share with a friend, and drop your gumbo rules and sides in the comments—potato salad inside or on the side?

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SPEAKER_02:

What does gumbo mean? I'm gonna Google it right now. In French, you think? Yeah. Refers to the okra vegetable. Wow. Show de show us.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Coffee Talk with the Cajun Mamas. Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's dive into real conversations about life, motherhood, and a little inspiration to brighten your day.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, welcome to Coffee Talk with the Cajun Mamas. Today we have a really good topic for y'all. It's a hot button issue.

SPEAKER_02:

It could be a hot button issue with uh Southerners in general, but um I know. But you know what I just realized? What if somebody listening has never had what we're about to talk about? Oh, we're gonna have to describe it.

SPEAKER_01:

We'll just we'll use our descriptive language.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, this will be fun. Okay. Okay. First of all, um, do y'all know that we have a website? We do. We we are podcasters, we are content creators, and we're business owners.

SPEAKER_01:

We are business owners. I mean, look at several businesses. Yes, multiple, but this one in particular is our own baby. Yeah. And we love it. Cajunmamas.com. We have a variety of Cajun-inspired merchandise for y'all to come. Not specific to the Cajun Mamas, but just the culture.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we like to mix, intertwine Cajun words and phrases and uh mom things. And uh now we even have some things for men. Like we have these nice little hats. You can pick the color and the saying on it and stuff. That's doing really well. Um, coffee cups, you know, we you know, y'all know we love our coffee. And I feel like when somebody gets a coffee cup of from from our our website, it's like we can have coffee together. I love that. Me too.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm. I love to um, and sometimes when I'm packing, because if you don't know, okay, we do we run all this ourselves. She's the lady who does everything with the website, and I'm the gal that packs and ships your order. So, and sometimes if it's a lot, then she gotta come and pack. Come help, yeah. Y'all put us to work and we we love it. We're not complaining. So everything you see is done with these four hands. That's right. And these two hearts. Okay, so um it and it comes straight from us to you, and we uh and we work with so what Vacita Vicajan and Branch, and she just makes all of our dreams come to life. So shout out to Vicajan. You are um you uh doing God's work, Miss Karen. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

So and Jeff Cajun Mamas, C-A-J-U-N-M-A-M-A-S dot com. Y'all go see what we got. Just go see. We always coming out with some new stuff too. I like keeping it fresh on there.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, speaking of, okay, our topic today, gumbo. Okay, I'm and you have a new shirt. Yeah. Okay, gumbo, rice, and plenty of spice. That's what Cajun Mamas are made of.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01:

That's an original, a Cajun Mama's original.

SPEAKER_02:

We came up with this all ourselves. And isn't it true?

SPEAKER_01:

It is.

SPEAKER_02:

And now that we are in October, it is officially, I can say, gumbo season.

SPEAKER_01:

It is gumbo season, baby.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, and some people will argue that it's gumbo season all year because you can turn your air conditioning down in your house. You can and make it feel like it's gumbo season outside, but it's really not.

SPEAKER_01:

But there's just something about when that air turns crispy and it just cool cools just even a little bit.

SPEAKER_02:

I know. If it even gets to 85. If the humidity goes down even, you can put a pot of gumbo on.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, and so let's talk about what is a gumbo.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Um, in our standards, our basic main gumbo here in uh church point and the surrounding areas is chicken and sausage gumbo.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I I feel like that is the most common you will see around here. And it is basically like a soup, okay, but thickened with a roux. And a roux is just flour and oil that you cook down on the stove, or somebody else cooks it for you and you buy it in the drawer. Okay, don't hate me for that. Um, but it's browned, it's cooked, and the oil browns the flour, and you get that roux nice and dark, and you put that in your gumbo, like your pot of water with your chicken and your sausage and your onions. And um, if you use the Trinity onions, bell pepper, celery. Um, I do more onions, garlic, bell pepper.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't put celery in every time unless it's already chopped up by Deatrice.

SPEAKER_02:

The seasoning blend. Right. Uh and then you add add your root and it gets that that distinct gumbo taste.

SPEAKER_01:

And the smell in your house. Oh you already know, okay?

SPEAKER_02:

When that pot comes out, everybody has the gumbo pot in your house, and it has to be deep because you cannot make a small gumbo.

SPEAKER_01:

I I can, okay. It's harder to make a small hard, okay, because the the root to water ratio just ain't right unless you use that pot. And my husband has this pot, okay? And he's like, We gotta get it to the waterline, you know, the water. It's marked in the pot. And and he gets it right every time. Every time. So I learned from my daddy and from him how to make a gumbo.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, but that's the pot. When that pot cracks out now.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, it's happy time. Yeah. And I mean, there is a variety of ways you can make your gumbo as far as like ingredients which you put in it, but ours is pretty basic. Like, you're not gonna find vegetables added in there other than the onions.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, and some people add in okra, which they said like the actual word gumbo means okra. Um, I didn't know that, but um I had heard that before. You don't own up to that. What'd you say? I don't I don't know that. You don't know that? Is that true? That's what they said. It like it's a Native American name. Hey man, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm I'm I learn new things every day. I'm just wondering if you looked it up in your little books. What does no like I don't have any little books?

SPEAKER_02:

You have the same Cajun books I do. What does gumbo mean? I'm gonna Google it right now. In French, you think? Yeah. Refers to the okra vegetable. Wow. Show deep. Okay, so but that's interesting how we've come so far in our Cajun culture area. We I can't say we don't put gum ochre in the gumbo, because we do, but like not a lot. Or only for us, it's if it's a seafood gumbo, we put ochre in it. Yeah, but not a chicken and ochre sausage.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I don't know. There's different types, okay? There's different types, but mostly in this area is chicken and sausage. That's all I grew up with. Like my nanny, she was Oda, so she had the ochre and shrimp and ochre gumbo. And um, and we was cold, so we didn't have no seafood. I mean, seafood's more expensive.

SPEAKER_02:

So you would think it wouldn't be because we live near the Gulf Coast, but it is.

SPEAKER_01:

But when you make in that amount of seafood, yeah, you got to have a lot of it to make to fill up that pot.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So we only do that for like Christmas. Special. That's special. Yeah. Special occasions.

SPEAKER_02:

You get the seafood gumbo. Um, but uh mostly just chicken and sasha. Because it's the ingredients are cheap and it goes a long way. It does. And um, I hope you just have the chance to experience that in your life and a you know, a good one. Like we don't go to at least I can speak for myself. We don't go to the restaurant and order gumbo.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh no, I'm not ordering gumbo if I go to a restaurant. Uh-uh. Um, I don't care if anybody says it's good. No, I don't trust. They made it in a big commercial pot. So I'm pretty sure that it don't taste like my house.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So when people ask us, you know, where's the best place to eat a gumbo, I just want to say, you're gonna need to go find somebody.

SPEAKER_02:

Some go to yeah, I hope you have family or something that's down here that you could visit. Yeah. Um, now I will say this. Uh my husband told me that they have they have where he works, they have people that come in from out of other states like to do trainings and stuff. And they, of course, they want to eat Cajun food when they come. Yeah, and they want gumbo. And Nathan says Parishons has a good gumbo. Okay, Prejon. Okay, so he's like, I always, that's where I tell him to go. That's like the only place he knows because we don't eat that. We we eat that at our house, we don't go out to eat that kind of food, right?

SPEAKER_01:

So just I mean, I'm just saying. But I don't, yeah, that makes us snobby because then we're like, well, you're only gonna get a good place. I'm not trying to be snobby. I'm not. I'm glad you're telling me where a good place is because a lot of people, you know, they they want to come down here, they want to experience the food. I don't know where to tell them to go eat gumbo.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, maybe if you're watching uh our YouTube right now and you could leave us a comment if you're from around this area, where do you like to tell people to go? Or maybe you maybe you don't care because you don't want to make the gumbo yourself and you want it to be already done and you go eat you go out to eat it and you eat gumbo. Tell us where is your favorite.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because you know something in the supermarkets like rods, that make you a big thing of gumbo.

SPEAKER_02:

And you can buy it frozen and go home and thaw that out. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of easy. If you're not a cook, you know, or sp or if you're single and you live by yourself and you don't want to make a big pot for yourself. Oh yeah. That's a good point. We're not just but we can't hate on, you know. Oh no, I'm not hating.

SPEAKER_01:

I just uh I'm always cooking for an army and I don't think about it. But yeah, you can go and get them at those little supermarkets and they'll have it already ready for you to go.

SPEAKER_02:

Um what uh okay, let's talk about let's talk about uh what we eat with our gumbo.

SPEAKER_01:

I was about to say, let's let's have the potato salad discussion.

SPEAKER_02:

The potato salad, the great potato salad debate.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not a but it's not a bidet for us. It's not a bidet fuss.

SPEAKER_02:

It show is not, but a lot we had made the same in this. We made a video one time, y'all might have seen it, like where we it was a coffee talk video, and we were talking about do you put your potato salad on the inside of your gumbo or on the side? Like on the outside. That's the big debate. That's the big debate.

SPEAKER_01:

There's a I thought you were gonna talk about like what we put in it. We're gonna talk about that too. All right, this is exciting.

SPEAKER_02:

First debate is yeah, and some people they commented on that video that they don't even eat potato salad with their gumbo. Where you live at? Uh they said just rice. Like they don't they don't eat the potato. They're like, I've never had potato salad with gumbo. And I'm like, what? We always have rice and we we just carb it up.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

We have rice and potatoes.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not if we're not there to be healthy. It's not one or the other. It's both. It's it's always both. It's always both with us. Unless you're like, you know, you're out of function and like there's no place to put the potato salad, you know, like sometimes for Mardi Gras, um, you know, like we're outside all day. Oh you're just gonna get rice and gumbo because I'm not sitting potato salad outside. Okay, you know, but if we like somewhere where it's kind of catered or no, that's never happening.

SPEAKER_02:

But at home at home, we make potato salad. Potato salad. And another thing, and we're gonna circle, I wanna circle back to what's in the potato salad, okay? Yeah, but uh another thing that I did not grow up on, but my husband did being in Church Point, his mama always bakes sweet potatoes when they make a gumbo. Okay, my friend Kyra said that too. And I'm like, what the like y'all eat it with it. Now they don't put it inside, it's not like a potato, it does, and it also does not replace the potato salad.

SPEAKER_01:

So they eat the sweet potato and the potato salad and the rice and some crackers.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, they sometimes do crackers too, but it's optional. Sometimes it's optional, it's optional. Uh, but yeah, when I'm telling you all the carbs, all of them. Wow. And so the first time I saw that, I'm like, that just don't go together. And then I tried it, and I don't do it in the same bite, but there's just something about it, like it goes.

SPEAKER_01:

Like you just eat it on the side of it, you like a little bite of sweet potato, a little bite of gumbo.

SPEAKER_02:

A little bite of sweet potato every now and then uh some gumbo potato salad. Now I'll mix my, I'll put the potato salad in the gumbo on the second day.

SPEAKER_01:

Not on the first salad, not on the first day. How did I not know about this?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, because I like the cold potato salad in my gumbo. Oh it can't be room temperature. It can. I don't usually do it. Okay. I I'm not against it. I'm not against it. But in my perfect ideal situation, okay, and this is me at my mother-in-law's house, because this is in my mind the perfect gumbo situation. She cooks gumbo Sunday after church. We sitting down, it's fresh, hot. My potato salad and my sweet potato are on the side, and a little bit of vinegar coleslaw.

SPEAKER_01:

Ooh, now I could get down with that. Yes. Inside or on the side? So you got all these dishes.

SPEAKER_02:

It's like a little bit of like you take a little bit of uh little bit of potato salad and eat the gumbo, a little bit of uh coleslaw and eat the gumbo. So it's on the same spoon, but it's not in the same bowl. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

This is so specific.

SPEAKER_02:

So specific. I bet y'all did not know how deep this goes, okay? It goes very deep. Yes. Now gumbo leftovers are elite. Okay. Gumbo leftovers. The gumbo is better the next day. Ask anybody around.

SPEAKER_01:

Thousand percent.

SPEAKER_02:

Gumbo is better the next day. So you're heating up your gumbo. Okay, it's piping hot coming out the microwave. Out the microwave. Out that microwave. And the potato salad, leftover potato salad, has to be in the fridge so it's cold. So that piping hot bowl of gumbo. I'm so hungry right now. Piping hot, baby. Cold scoop of potato salad in that gumbo so you can eat it faster. So it don't burn your tongue. Yes. I take a that's in the middle. And then I take a scoop of the potato salad with the gumbo so it's like a hot, cold situation. Elite meal, I'm telling you. This is so hilarious to me.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. So I'm gonna I'm gonna just tell y'all my perfect gumbo scenario real quick, okay? Mine is uh first I put my rice, then I put my gumbo. And I I like to use boneless, skinless chicken thighs mostly. Yes. Uh, but I don't like gumbo bones. Um, and I know there are people with opinions, okay? Yes, the flavor's probably much more delicious with the bones, but I get turned off if I have a bone in my mouth. Like, no, I'm not gonna eat the rest of the thighs. I prefer the boneless thighs too. So say what you will, I still get a delicious gumbo. Um, but it's gonna be boneless and that's how I roll. And then um potato salad, no relish. This is a gumbo potato salad for us, okay? Absolutely. Potatoes, eggs, mayonnaise, and a little bit of mustard. That's it. And you season it. That's it, okay? That goes in my gumbo, okay? I don't care what day it is, that's where it's gonna be. Now I am not mixing it up to where it looks like mayonnaise soup. That's not happening. It's just gonna be on the side so I can take a little bite, whatever. Next. Um, so I'm gonna have my whole bowl. I do like to have crackers.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

My sister, though. Does she butter her crackers? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01:

She has to have a loaf of evangeline made bread. Oh. And when I'm telling you she could eat a half a loaf of bread, dipping it in her gumbo. What? Yes. So talk about some carbs. Soaking like in the jig. Like she just like soaks it and eats, soaks it and eats. It's so good, but I had to get off of that training. So bad. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

So I mean, we're talking all the carbs.

SPEAKER_01:

Her and I, we don't have the same body type. So, um, you know, so we're not doing that. Yeah. But she does that. That's how she does. Do y'all eat Evangeline May with y'all gumbo? Or is that just something that we I've never done that. Oh my god. But that's what she does. But crackers. Is crack is crackers optional for you? Do you eat your gumbo like a soup or do you eat your gumbo like a rice and gravy? My husband eats it like a rice and gravy. And if you ask me, What do you mean? He doesn't put any of the juice in it? Uh-oh. He has mostly like it looks like a rice and gravy with like it's got a lot of gravy, but it's not like it's mostly just I'm just like, what is happening? What is on your plate? When we first got together and he fixed himself a gum a bowl of gumbo, I'm like, mm-mm. Well, there's no shortage of juice in that pot. We make sure we have a lot of juice. I don't know. And crackers. Crushed up in it. Oh, wow. So how you eat your gumbo? I don't know. Um well, yeah. Let us know how you eat it. It doesn't matter what you say. If you don't eat it the same way as me, it's wrong.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not gonna look. We like to joke around a lot about how don't you dare put tomatoes in our gumbo. And I mean, I'm gonna stand by that. I don't I won't do that at my house. But I don't love you any less if you do that. If that's what you like.

SPEAKER_01:

If that's what you like, that's what you like. You know, like when you go to New Orleans and you have an Acre gumbo, you know, like I'm gonna try to. You're gonna find ochre or you're gonna find tomatoes. You're gonna. Yeah. Okay. I'm not opposed to it in that region, but not over here. But no, it's not something normally.

SPEAKER_02:

No. And now let's circle back real fast, said a potato salad, okay? When we made that video, they had lots of people saying, like, we said no relish in the potato salad. No pickle relish, okay, in the potato salad when you're eating it with a gumbo. And people were like, I always put relish in my potato salad. And we were like, Oh my lord, pickles with the gumbo, no ma'am. But uh, so that brings us to there's a potato, there's a gumbo version of potato salad, and there's a barbecue side dish potato salad. I think that's when it's a it's appropriate to have relish. If you're gonna use relish, it's okay, then. But relish in the gumbo is a no-no for me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no. Mm-mm. And like just like somehow some people like to put chow chow in their gumbo. Okay. I'm just not a fan of that. My mama likes chow chow in all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I just never was a fan of that either.

SPEAKER_01:

Now I do do do, and this is where um, if you haven't tried this, I'm telling you, this is like your coleslaw vinegar. I knew what you mean. Okay, the green hot sauce.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Tabasca green Cajun Chef. Cajun Chef green hot sauce.

SPEAKER_01:

If you can get that one, that one is the one we go for and we get that big one, Cajun Chef.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

I like Tabasca. It's a little harder to find the green one. Um but I prefer Cajun Chef.

SPEAKER_02:

And you like to put a spritz a few little shakes into your gumbo? Yeah. So my mother-in-law will pickle, not pickle, uh, she will can uh what kind of peppers is it? Is it them little tiny ones that comes on that little tree? Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah. But what kind of pepper is that? Uh cayenne. Well, I don't think that's the little ones, but she she grows cayenne peppers in her garden and she shreds them up, okay, or like chops them or whatever, and we'll just put vinegar. So it's a jar of cayenne peppers in vinegar. And you don't eat the peppers, you just have the vinegar and you just drizzle a little bit of that in your gumbo, and that brings it up another level.

SPEAKER_01:

See, my nanny would have some like in a little salad dressing container. Yes. And it stays on her thing all the time. Just like if you would put hot sauce and you just vinegar in them little tiny peppers.

SPEAKER_02:

And you can refill it with vinegar a few times before you have to just say, okay, there's no more, no more hotness in these peppers. It's time to go.

SPEAKER_01:

But first thing she has some that she could spare. Yeah. I bet she's a good one. Sure would like some. Because my nanny would have that, and I'd or maybe if I could just grow some. But we all know that's probably not gonna happen because I can't.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll ask my sweet mother-in-law to if she has any extras. If not, I might even have an extra jar in my cabinet from her. So I will I will have to look because it's gumbo season and you need it.

SPEAKER_01:

It's gumbo season, baby. And clearly we have a lot to say about it. And I could eat a big bowl right now. Oh, let's go cook.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. All right, y'all. Thanks for hanging out with us and listening to all these, I don't know what it's stories and sh recipe inspiration, maybe you might get. Uh, but uh leave it, let us know in the comments if do you like gumbo? Have you tried it? What's your favorite version? Whatever. Let us know and where you're from too. We would love to know that. So we had a great time talking about one of our favorite dishes today with y'all. And uh, we want y'all to please go to CajunMamas.com if you haven't already. We have a lot of cute little merch items for y'all to check out. Bring a little bit of Cajun Mama love into your life, into your home, and have some coffee with us in the morning.

SPEAKER_01:

Into your Christmas, because you know that's coming up before you know it. Get that coming to you now so you're not having to worry about that. So, matter of fact, we got something for everybody to get all your Christmas shopping done on CajunMamas.com.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, y'all make some good little gifts, unique little gifts for everybody in your life. So, thank y'all for listening. We'll see y'all next week.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for joining us on Coffee Talk with the Cajun Mamas. We hope you enjoyed your cup of coffee and our chat. Don't forget to subscribe and share with your friends. Until next time, keep the coffee brewing and the conversation flowing.