Hartebeest Gumbo

It’s been said that Cajuns will eat anything that moves on four legs, swims or flies as long as it’s cooked up with something tasty. People tend to interpret that as we’ll eat anything. That’s not quite true. We Cajuns are very particular about taste. It’s got to taste good. For generations Cajun cooks have been experimenting with spices and methods of cooking that contribute to taste. We are avid borrowers, co-opting spices from our Spanish co-settlers like Cayenne and Tabasco to jazz up the original French style roux base. We added okra brought over by African slaves whose word for the green sticky substance became the moniker for the dish itself. Using sassafras to thicken gumbos and other stews was a trick we learned from the Native Americans. When German settlers arrived they brought rice and a variety of sausages. All of this ended up in the quintessential Cajun dish of Gumbo. Gumbo, an icon of Cajun cuisine can also be considered an icon of our South Louisiana culture. It is in many ways an analogy for the mixing of cultures, races and ethnicities that took place in this strange land called Nouvelle Acadie. After hundreds of years of such mixing it is little wonder that families whose last name is Segura might be related to those bearing the name Champagne, Signorelli or Zaunbrecker. The end product has become something unique for both our cuisine and our culture. It lends to that Louisiana mystique and attraction.

Here in Windhoek, Namibia our family has been missing that world renowned Cajun cuisine. Yet, even here in the wilds of Africa, there is an appreciation for our way of cooking. The restaurant Luigui and the Fish down on Sam Nujoma Street sports a menu with a variety of dishes billed as Cajun. There’s the Cajun Chicken, Cajun Kingklip and the Cajun Mississippi Mud Pie. The supermarkets all carry Cajun Spice along with the more typical Peri Peri powder. Unfortunately, the Namibians haven’t been very successful in reproducing the quality of fare to which we are accustomed. I guess John Folse hasn’t made the rounds here yet. I’m hoping that he’ll come before our Fulbright stay ends in December and bring along a couple of packages of his Corn and Crab Soup or his Seafood Gumbo.

The main problem for us has been obtaining the types of ingredients necessary to produce the dishes that at home are considered ordinary or every day fare. The desire to make just a simple chicken and sausage gumbo left us searching high and low for something resembling Andouille or smoked sausage. One would think that with such a strong German influence in the country (one of the principal supermarket chains here is Woermann Brock where the cashiers regularly address me as Frau), smoked sausage or any good tasting sausage would be easy to find. Not so. The people here eat a lot of something called boerwors which has such a strong flavor, unidentifiable to our palate, that it’d probably curdle the juice if we added it to Gumbo. Locating crawfish of course is out of the question, although there is a Crayfish Festival down in Luderitz. These guys are salt water crustaceans and have little resemblance to their Louisiana freshwater brethren. Even cooking red beans and rice presents a challenge here. My American acquaintances here swear that it’s due to the altitude, but it’s usually a three day undertaking of constant boiling so as to soften the beans to a somewhat edible state. Without any decent smoked sausage to put in it, who wants to eat it anyway. “Real rice” can be found in a few stores, but at a premium. Most supermarkets carry the parboiled stuff. No real Cajun would be caught dead putting red beans on top of that.

So, when my friend Stephanie, even though she’s spent much of her life in Texas, offered me smoked sausage, I was a little leery to say the least. Her husband had taken her eleven year old son out on a big game hunt at one of the nearby hunting lodges. Titus had bagged a huge red hartebeest which they were having processed not only for the trophy but also for the meat. They were having smoked sausage made with much of it and Stephanie would have to find room for 70 kg of meat in her freezer. Needless to say, she was more than willing to share. I accepted more out of politesse than out of a real desire to sample Namibian hartebeest, but hey as a Cajun I’ll try anything once.

We cooked a bit of it for lunch before deciding that it indeed passed muster. Thus, it was decided Chicken and Hartebeest Gumbo for Sunday dinner. The kids were delighted. Nights are quite cold here in Namibia during June, the middle of the Namibian winter, and the prospect of having a good Gumbo to warm our insides heartened us all. It proved to be quite tasty indeed served over “real rice” and worthy of a second appearance at some future date.

We figure that it’s now our duty to introduce this unique version of an old dish to the Namibians in the absence of Chef John Folse making a surprise visit. What’s been passing for Cajun around here is sadly lacking and there would no doubt be a strong appreciation for genuine Cajun Cuisine. Who knows perhaps Gumbo might be one way to unite the diversity of cultures, races and ethnicities evident in modern Namibian society. Lord knows, they could sure use it.