We did not win the inaugural Gladiators of Gumbo this weekend in Shreveport, but neither were we chum for the lions. Competing in a field of 31 professional chefs, caterers and home cooks, Roux the Day represented for us amateurs, winning the winner-take-all non-seafood division, while The Spicy Crabs took the seafood division. Gumboo-yah won the People’s Choice Award, and Krewe of Helios-Arizona unofficially came in second*.

In my first outing as a competitive cook, I learned a helluva lot, had a helluva time and decided I’d come back for seconds next year. I don’t know if that means I am a glutton for punishment, but I definitely could contend for the title of a Gladiator of Gluttony.

So here is the Gladiators of Gumbo competition by the numbers:

• 350-400 people served by the Krewe of Helios-Arizona team. I estimated that I cooked seven gallons of turkey and sausage gumbo, which yields roughly 448 quarter-cup $1 taster servings. If they liked their taste, they could come back for a $4 one-cup bowl. We served several bowls, but I don’t have an exact total because the currency was $1 coupons deposited in our KOH milk jug, which was collected and counted at day’s end by the Gladiators organizers. People came up so fast and furious that I didn’t even sample the finished product until two hours after the cooking was over and the team kept serving the tasters that my friend Stacey and I had set aside for ourselves.
• One 22-pound turkey (one of only two available in the grocery store because apparently they don’t keep them on hand except for at Thanksgiving and Christmas). 10+ pounds of andouille and smoked sausage smuggled up from Lafayette by my cousin Stephen. Six onions, nine bell peppers, 12 stalks of celery. Three sacks of frozen cut okra. Two large cans of petite diced tomatoes. Five tablespoons of kosher salt. Six tablespoons of black pepper. Six tablespoons of cayenne pepper. One tablespoon of ghost-pepper salt (the second secret ingredient). Six cups of bacon grease (the supreme secret ingredient) lovingly collected by three families – thanks to Mom, sister Kelly and cousin Michelle. A pound of bacon only yields about a quarter-cup of bacon grease, so they ate a lot of bacon.

• $250 raised in tips by the Krewe of Helios-Arizona for the People’s Choice Award.* The Gladiators of Gumbo cookoff benefited the Volunteers for Youth Justice, which provide intervention and advocacy for kids in the juvenile court system.  This ranges from the court-appointed special-advocate program for abused and neglected children to diversion programs for first-time youth offenders. In addition to taster-tickets, each team had a tip jar to raise cash donations for VYJ. The total tally of tips for a team determined the People’s Choice Award. Shameless prevaricator that I am, I brought four signed copies of my sister-in-law’s cookbook, One Dish at a Time, and sold them for $25 each (regular price, $30 – without the celebrity autograph). The Official Pat and Stacy Gumbo Recipe that I cooked at Gladiators of Gumbo is on page 161. We raised $100 off book sales and another $150 or so. According to the event chair, my high school friend Angie, we came in second place in the People’s Choice Award – behind Gumbooyah, which raised about $300. No one else was close… but they didn’t award a second-place trophy, ribbon or medal (much to my grave disappointment – I’m all about medals).
• 7, 4 and 11 – The length in pages (7) of my official Krewe of Helios-Arizona Gladiators of Gumbo timeline, checklist and shopping list – it was in 14-point Helvetica font, which contributed to the page count – but in all that level of sphincter-checking detail, I left only three things off the master list: a flashlight (which my Dad remembered), tablecloths (which my Mom brought) and Bloody Mary ingredients (which our adjacent competitors sipped all morning). The hours of sleep I got the night before the event (4) when my mind was racing through said checklist at 2 AM and we had to be on-site at 5:30 AM to check in… hello 4:30 AM alarm clock; and the hours of sleep I got the night after the event (11), including a post-cookoff nap.

Gladiators of Gumbo Tasting Notes:

• I had no idea what I was up against: Seriously. Because of the overwhelming crush of people, I tasted only three gumbos other than my own – hell, I didn’t even leave my tent to pee until noon because I was waiting for the organizers to take my official entries to the judges. The gumbos I tasted were good: Our neighbors at the Krewe of Centaur featured a duck gumbo. Their head cook, Corky, skinned the ducks and chopped their breasts on site in his fabulous cast-iron caldron (which prompted some serious burner-envy in my Dad). I sampled the chicken and sausage of the People’s Choice Award-winning Gumbooyah. It had a nice little pop of green onion on top. I also had an origin-unknown seafood gumbo that was so lusciously outstanding, I was glad that I was not competing against them.

• So what did everyone else think? Because I didn’t leave our tent, I relied on my friends and family to give me the lay of the land. Both my cousin John and my sister Kelly said Roux the Day would be my toughest competition. Apparently, their roux was a bit thicker than mine and they really developed their flavors well. Two guys that had sampled every single offering returned to our tent for seconds and told my Mom that Roux the Day was their favorite gumbo, but that ours had the best spice of any entry they’d sampled – not too fiery to overwhelm the ingredients, but just enough burn at the end to remind you of the heat. Kelly sent my nephew Carl out with a handful of singles to sample the local talent (her words, not mine), and as they tasted the competition, she was surprised at the number of miscues out there: People leaving chicken skin in the pot, samples oozing with oil. She might have initially mocked the seven-page checklist but Section V, Chapter 4, Item E, Subsection ii – CHICKEN PICKEN (or turkey jerkin’ if you want to be accurate, if slightly offensive) specifically stated: remove all gristle, skin and cartilage … and on the timeline, Section II, Item 8, noted that we would be skimming off all fats at precisely 9:30 AM on cook-day. Attention to detail like that is the difference between first place… and not first place, since they didn’t award anything other than first place… and I didn’t win. Moving on.

• Why won’t my nephew Carl be receiving any gifts for his next two birthdays? He chose Wicked Good Voodoo Gumbo as his favorite. I won’t hold it against him for that long because the Voodoo crew’s little doll kept the rain away, although it didn’t do much for the gale-force winds that kept extinguishing our fire… even though Pat Bertinelli said I shouldn’t have to worry about the wind because it’s never windy in Shreveport like it is in Arizona.
• What does bitterness taste like? Of the hundreds of people we served, a handful refused to try our turkey gumbo. I didn’t get the exact reasons – some mumbled they didn’t like it. Others might have been allergic. I think many probably equate turkey with the cardboard served at Thanksgiving between football games. The Pat Bertinelli Method™ produces a succulent turkey that was their loss. We debated in the tent whether I should use chicken as my protein next year – but I think I’m going to ride the bird I came in on. I’m not changing just because less than 10% of the samplers had such uninformed and unadventurous tastebuds that they refused to even try it (REALLY? YOU’RE AT A FOOD FESTIVAL – GO EAT SOME KETCHUP AND GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!) And then we had the woman who insisted on seeing our roux before she’d even fork over one sad pink ticket to try our gumbo:

“I’m not eating any gumbo until I see your roux.”

“Oh, OK… well, let me get a bowl,” I said, a little puzzled, but trying to be polite and congenial. “You can tell this is our first time at this.”

Our cooking area was in the back of the tent so the servers wouldn’t burn themselves. I drew up a bowl of gumbo and brought it back to the front to show it to her.

“Your roux’ too light. I’m not eating it.”

I refrained from saying: “Your ass is too fat, bitch, you don’t need to eat it!” Or perhaps, “And you’re a rude cow, but at least I can change my roux.” Or possibly, “You want a closer look at my roux? Why don’t I shove your ugly face in that boiling pot?” Or my old standby: “Well fuck you, you fucking fuck, and the high haughty horse you rode in on!”

“Walk it off! Walk it off,” my sister said,  as she pulled me from hurdling over our serving table to pommel the interloper. “She’s not worth it. I’m sure she’s a plant from another team, just here to rattle your cage. Walk it off – didn’t you give up cursing for Lent?”

• What does goodness taste like? My friends Darren and his wife Stacey came over from Arlington, Texas – I hadn’t seen them in 10 years. He acknowledged that he was fully prepared to lie if my gumbo sucked since I was a friend, but Darren said mine was his favorite because it was a solid gumbo – no gimmicks like alligator or liquid smoke – just a solid, flavorful gumbo. That was really nice to hear, but it was even nicer to see him and Stacey… and so many cousins, friends and almost-family members that I only get to see at weddings or funerals (Angie, Aunt SuSu, Troy and Libby, Miss Carol, Bob, Marion, Samantha, Chicken Cousin, Kim, Stephanie and the Nugget, Carl, Michelle, Livvy and Jack – sorry we ran out so quickly, but we weren’t the first to run out). It was a hoot to cook next to Corky and the Krewe of Centaur (even though my ears are still ringing from their sound system). It was an honor to cook against the legendary Ernest’s Supper Club and Chef Tina. And it was overwhelming that sweet Penny drove up from Austin – arriving at 10 PM before a 4:30 wake-up call – to help with the cook… and that dear Stacey saved cardboard boxes for our signs and kept calling to find out if we needed anything while she drove her daughter from Point A to Activity B to Event C – and that she worked in our tent all day, even though she’d be cooking for her own guests that night. What can I say about Mom, Dad, Kelly, Gene, Carl and GraceAnne? They had no idea what I was getting them into – but they threw themselves into it (and put up with me) the way families always do (the family that enters a gumbo cookoff together… never mind). And even now, back in Arizona, I have to thank all of my test-cook guinea-pigs – Bob, Linda, Veronica, Nate, Liz, Colton, Cynde, Dragon, Gina, Val, Tom, Troy, Dirk, Kellee, Kat, Cathie, Kathy, Katerina from Scotland, Ricky-Chris, Chris … and of course, sweet husband Pat, who didn’t blink when I said, “I think I want to enter a gumbo cookoff… in Louisiana.”

Gumbo not a dish for an intimate meal, but a gathering of friends and family – like a Thanksgiving table. Having cooked 17 gallons of the stuff over the past three weekends, I should know. Like football, food brings Southerners together – it’s probably one of the only things we can agree on (unlike football), and one of the few things that bridges the sad legacy of racism in our region. Everyone – black or white – has an opinion about their gumbo, and we share tips and recipes like baseball cards and trade secrets. I believe that Southern culture is a lot like gumbo – diverse ingredients, different ways to put it together, but in the end, it all merges into one rich flavor that tastes like nothing else.