Gushing over gumbo and celebrating celery: two literary quotes.

[full_metal_ox]

I encountered these quotes in Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons (Little, Brown and Company, 1996), by Nava Atlas; the problem is that I haven’t the book ready to hand, and it’s no longer in any of my local library systems.

The first quote came from a nineteenth-century (French? British? I want to say De Tocqueville or Brillat-Savarin) author who’d visited the U.S. and found an epiphany in gumbo: they proceeded to eulogize it as the perfect food, combining vibrant flavors and being soup and vegetable and entree in one.

The second was by a Victorian or Edwardian British author, extolling celery, in its cold clear no-nonsense crispness, as the gustatory expression of autumn. (These quotes embellished recipes for a gumbo and a celery soup, respectively; Atlas’ cookbook had something of a literary and reflective tone.)

ETA: wolfinthewood has identified the celery quote, from the essay “A Word for Autumn” in Not that it matters (1919) by A.A. Milne; kineticatrue has tracked the gumbo quote to Will H. Coleman’s Historical Sketch Book and Guide to New Orleans and Environs (1885), p 91.

Comments

[kinetikatrue]

And this is the gumbo quote:

Coleman, Will Historical Sketch Book and Guide to New Orleans and Environs (1885), p 91

“The great dish of New Orleans, and which it claims the honor of having invented, is the GOMBO. There is no dish which at the same time so tickles the palate, satisfies the appetite, furnishes the body nutriment sufficient to carry on the physical requirements, and costs so little as a creole gumbo. It is a dinner in itself, being soup, piece de resistance, entremet, and vegetables in one. Healthy, not heating to the stomach and easy of digestion, it should grace every table.”

at archive.org

[full_metal_ox]

Thank you for tracking down the gumbo reference! Between winter (January is National Soup Month in the U.S.) and quarantine, I’ve been making oceans of soup, which may have spurred the memory of those two passages.