The Gumbo incident

John William-Gracie opted for pork ribs to start. It had to be that Carolina sauce, not the texas stuff. The Texan BBQ was too dry. The rubs tended to be salt and double pepper, classic in a sense, but rudimentary for Gracie’s taste. The sauce almost always on the side with Texans, like it was to sacrilege to pour some sauce over the meat. If they smoked it for hours, baked, and then cremated it on a flame, sure he’d take it. He’d never pass up good BBQ, but he doubted they would spend the time on it to make it just the way he liked it. The bark on the outside, blackened, tasted like charcoal at first when you put a piece in your mouth. Then it would pop, the grizzle exploded in your mouth. Texans did brisket well enough, but he never tasted better pig outside of the south. 

He craved the sweet pork. Cajun rub, smoked over the hickory wood if he could get it. Tangy sauce, the ketchup mixed in with apple vinegar, red chilli's, two or three types of sugar, thick like mayonnaise. Get that dopamine rush from sugar cane. 

None of that Texas dipping sauce nonsense. Cover that rib cage, drench it, double coat it, drop it on the hot coals and blast it for five minutes and let it sear and sizzle, tossing it quickly just enough to get that slight char on it, don't burn it. Then dip it in the sauce again, tripled dipped, like he and Ivor used to do on Mardi gras weekends for the whole crew. Both competing grill men. The smoke poured off the grill on those days, stained the skin for days after. New Orleans bounce blasting out the stereo. Everyone came for the food. Satiated, everyone stayed for the music. Ivor died in 06. Drowned in his own cholesterol. Too much BBQ.

Gracie would take corn on the side. Smoked in its husk was fine. Throw it on the smoker, leave it for an hour. A generous lump of butter on the side. He’d smother it across the corn himself with his fingers, rub it into the grooves of kernels, let it melt through. His whole life, he always devoured that crop like it was his last meal. Typewriter chews his way along it like the old Saturday morning cartoon characters did on the TV. This time he’d savour for as long as he could. He’d suck the salt of the root and it would get into the dry cracks on his lips and sting a little, but it would be worth it. 

When offered to choose, Gracie knew right away he wanted his mother’s shrimp and sausage gumbo for the main meal, but he thought hard for an hour before committing to order. Mama Gracie went upstairs in 09 to cancer. The shame took her long before that. He might get a decent plate of gumbo, but he wouldn’t get Mama Gracie's gumbo. The same gumbo he had four and five times a week growing up. Everyone’s Mama made gumbo, but it was never quite the same. Your own Mama made your gumbo. 

The giant jumbo, gumbo, copper pot sat on the outside fire, too big for inside, but she enjoyed the tradition of cooking in the open breeze. Playfully, Papa would grab the kids and sit in the pot it was so big.

John Gracie flavoured gumbo, coming right up - Mama would say, and pretend to stir him round, sprinkle salt and pepper on his head. Papa Gracie would lift him out, take a bite at his ribs.

This gumbo is done! - Papa, throwing young Gracie over his shoulder. 

Gracie doing the same thing with his sister’s kids twenty years later, in the same pot. The kids all laughing at him. 

Papa Gracie would build up the bricks, fire pit in the middle. He set the kindling so precisely it would take a single spark and go up in a flame quickly. A professional fire starter, he did six and a half years in state for arson. Gracie never saw him again after he was released.

Sundays, we always made the fresh batch. The prep before Church, the finishing after thanking the good lord. Mama started with the thick, creamy roux. The kids would dip a finger or lick the spoon when she had her back turned. A salty dough texture lined the gums. She gets red with anger. Like an artist, she’d hide her work until the masterpiece was finished. A gumbo Van Gogh. 

The veg was dropped in, cooked off, the onion, celery, garlic, peppers, and then stock and Cajun spices were added and it’d come alive. Neighbours and relatives would suddenly appear that had been missing all week, but Mama would never grudge them turning up looking for a free plate. Cooking for her was about bringing everyone together, and that’s why she did it. She enjoyed the status it brought, the compliments.

The vibrant green, okra, and fresh river shrimp went in last, then you knew it was nearly time to eat. Traditionally the men got the first bowls, all the best cuts of meat spooned high into deep bowls. Later they would see that as selfish and the family changed that tradition so that Mama always got the first bowl. A reward for her hard work. Chefs privilege. A tear of sourdough ripped freshly baked bread and that’s all you needed. You’d always start with bread, soak it through, saturate it in the sauce. Sensational. Gracie, could close his eyes, and live in those flavours for a moment.

Gracie couldn’t remember the last time he had a bowl of Mama Gracie’s gumbo. So in picking that last meal, Gumbo reminded him of Mama, and the memory was more important than the taste. 

They served John William Gracie his last meal on the death row wing at Louisiana state Penn, the Alcatraz of the south, four hours before he died from lethal injection. 

They served him dry pork ribs without a sauce. They boiled the corn for about ten minutes longer than it should have been. Gracie commented it was like eating pebbles off a rock. The cook, who had hailed from New York had never made gumbo before and served what they could only describe as shrimp water.

Okra? Wtf is Okra? - the cook asked.

He knew he should have had the burger.