Sunday Supper

Sunday Supper

By Poppy Tooker

Leah Chase believed the problems of the world could all be solved over a bowl of gumbo. After all, in the 1960s she had observed her theory in action, as Black New Orleans civil. rights leaders and White politicians sat down together over countless bowls of gumbo in Dooky Chase's upper room to craft an end to segregation.

Much was made of her admonishment of Barack Obama when he picked up a bottle of hot sauce as a bowl of her gumbo was placed before him. “Mr. President, you do not put hot sauce in my gumbo!” she’s often quoted as saying, when her warning actually included the final words, “…before you taste it!”

The taste of Leah’s gumbo was complex, something she often referred to as Creole. “Creole gumbo is more like a soup, where you get what you get,” Leah said. “You might get a piece of chicken. You might get a shrimp. You might get a sausage or a little piece of veal stew meat. That veal picks up the flavor from all the other ingredients.”

Gumbo featured largely in Leah’s life long before her days at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant. Growing up in Madisonville, Louisiana as the eldest of 11 children, Leah recalled that there was always gumbo at Sunday dinner. “When I was coming up, we were so poor,”

Sundays were special when Leah was growing up. While meat was often scarce during the week, there was always chicken on Sundays, stewed, or fried and served with macaroni and cheese — but first, there was gumbo. “Mother took great pains in making that gumbo on Sunday. Never a little pot — it was always a big pot.”

Leah remembered with pride how her mother used bleached flour sacks she sewed into tablecloths to set the table especially for Sunday dinner: “We sat at the table for gumbo first. Everyone had a glass of wine, sometimes two.” she laughed. “Afterwards we’d get up and walk around before Mother served the rest of dinner. It was a simple life, but we were happy,” she remembered with a smile.

Once Leah joined her mother-in-law Emily at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in the 1950s, her gumbo began to take on new prominence. The gumbo served at the restaurant today is still true to what was served then. It’s Creole style, redolent with meat and seafood, full of flavor and tradition. For more than seven decades Leah served that gumbo to presidents, movie stars, musicians and anyone else lucky enough to pass through the doors.