Okra hits its peak around mid-summer in the South. And any Southern cook worth his/her salt knows just what to do with it.

But before I go any further, I must tell you a little story about a friend of mine. Adele, and her husband Bud, a Navy pilot, were living “up East” years ago where he was stationed. One summer day, Adele had a hankering for some okra to smother down with onions and tomatoes to use for her okra gumbo. She went to a local produce stand and asked the manager if he had okra. He replied that he wasn’t sure what she was talking about and could she describe it.

“Well,” she responded, “It is long and slender, green and fuzzy, and it has a cap on one end and tapers down to a little tail. When you cut in crosswise, it looks like a pinwheel with little seeds.”

The gentleman looked at her for a moment, and replied crisply, “Nope, never heard of it.” Thus ended her search for okra, at least until she returned to the Deep South.

It’s a known fact that Southerners are born with the ability to cook okra—fried, boiled, pickled, and of course, to add to a gumbo to thicken it just right.

The tapered green pod that can grow up to nine inches long has been prized in Africa from prehistoric times. African slaves who brought it to the Americas called it gumbo—a name that was later extended to denote a stew made with the vegetable. Okra gives gumbo a rich, earthy flavor and, what is more important, it thickens the stew as it simmers, by means of a gummy substance in the okra pod.

Now it appears that okra is making its way across the Mason-Dixon line and Northerners are trying to figure out how to use it. I say to those who want to try their hand at it—visit the recipe section at emerils.com. And to borrow a phrase: “Try it, you’ll like it!”

Filed Under: Food Talk