An Open Letter to Mr. Alton Brown

Dear Mr. Alton Brown,

I must say that I adore Good Eats.  It's not boring like other cooking shows and it tells us not only the history of the food but also the science behind the food.  And it gives you useful tips like how to safely deep fry a turkey and how to make a fish smoker out of a cardboard box.  And I must say that the pizza dough recipe turned out extremely good and made the tastiest pizza ever.

However, this morning, we were watching a bunch of Good Eats that we had taped and ran across the one on gumbo.  Now, I married into a Cajun family direct from Acadia Parish in Louisiana and direct descendants from the guy who broke Evangeline's heart (yeah, the girl that Longfellow wrote the poem about).  They know gumbo.  In fact, we had it yesterday, made from scratch in my mother-in-law's kitchen.

My husband would like to point out that the recipe used appeared to be from Northern Louisiana where there are no Cajuns.  No respecting Cajun would put tomatoes in gumbo, okra might be found in a chicken gumbo and why did sausage go in with the shrimp?  The roux was also the wrong color because apparently there is a spectrum between brick and black.  The only thing that was right was making stock from the shells.

I must add that I'm just going off what the Cajuns tell me.  I'm a German Wisconsinite.  I know cheese, brats and beer.  I leave the gumbo to them.

Just thought you should know.

Sincerely,

Joy