But in Louisiana, it shifted into a dish vegetarians wouldn’t recognize. Gumbo z’herbes is packed with nine greens, from collards, spinach, mustard greens, cabbage to watercress, plus (surprise!) chicken, two types of sausage (smoked and chaurice, a spicy pork sausage seasoned with scallions, parsley, and onions), ham hock, and veal, in a roux spiced with file and cayenne at Dooky Chase’s (you can find the recipe here).

“There’s a lot of protein to gear up for the fast on Good Friday,” says Edgar Chase IV, Dooky Chase’s executive chef, and Leah’s grandson. “We serve it just once a year.”

Chase says that his grandparents passed down a superstition about the origins of the nine greens in gumbo z’herbes. “Nine is the amount of new friends you’ll make and one will be wealthy. It’s supposed to be an odd number of greens; we’ve also done it with 11 or seven.”

Folse adds, “Leah would tell the story that even though it’s green gumbo, Louisiana has so much access to game and other meats that fit a heartier version, and one that stretches the table for big families. ‘There’s never too much meat for a green gumbo,’ she’d say.”

Year-round, Chase also serves a Creole gumbo, made with chicken, crab, shrimp, veal, ham hock, smoked sausage and chaurice, oyster liquid, and a roux spiked with filé. An okra seafood gumbo, featuring shrimp, crab, oyster liquid, and tomato paste, instead of a roux, is served on Friday. “That’s the beauty of gumbo, it’s so versatile and flexible. You can do duck or turkey gumbo, everyone does a different type of gumbo,” says Chase, whose grandmother, named a James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award winner in 2016, died in 2019. Her children, Edgar III and Stella, now own the restaurant, which opened in 1941.

Twists on gumbo abound. Death by Gumbo (roast quail stuffed with oysters, arugula, rice, and filé) is on the menu at Restaurant R’evolution, a variation of the dish Folse first prepared for The New York Times restaurant critic Craig Claiborne, who wrote a story on how Cajun and Creole cuisine was changing, at his home back in 1987.

Agnolotti stuffed with a gumbo z’herbes filling (collard and turnip greens braised with pork plus cream cheese spiced with Tabasco and harissa) in broth, topped with Parmesan, is served at The Chloe, a new boutique hotel in New Orleans’ Garden District. “The greens make such a flavorful pasta filling. People don’t expect it, some say it’s the best dish they ever had. It’s like pasta en brodo,” says Todd Pulsinelli, chef at The Chloe, which opened in late 2020.

In fact, gumbo is so popular among Cajuns, an unusual Mardi Gras custom is built around it in rural Cajun country. Nicknamed the “chicken run,” Le Courir de Mardi Gras in small towns like Mamou, about three hours west of New Orleans, is so different from the New Orleans festival, it’s like another planet.

Men in rustic long-sleeved, long-pants fringed outfits, homemade masks, and conical, dunce-like caps ride on horseback from farm to farm to beg for gumbo ingredients and chase chickens. The outfits resemble pajamas more than the opulent costumes and ornate floats in the big-city Mardi Gras. It’s a rollicking game whose players, often pickled in alcohol, roll around on the ground in hot pursuit of a chicken, given to a purple-caped, flag-waving captain when caught, sing and dance for bystanders, and even sway and dance atop their horses.

A haunting gumbo-begging song in Cajun French, La Danse (or Le Chanson) de Mardi Gras, accompanies the high jinks. Translated into English, one lyric, referring to the communal chicken and andouille gumbo the town feasts on after the riders enter town, goes:

“Captain, captain, wave sour flag,       

Let’s go to our neighbors asking for charity,

From everyone who’ll come join us later,

Everyone who’ll cook the gumbo tonight.”

Its words are a recent addition, only about a century old, but the melody is believed to be much older, akin to centuries-old tunes from Brittany, France, one history says.

A delightful way to taste your way through history is found at gumbo festivals, known for their cooking contests, held mainly when cold weather approaches. In New Orleans, the Treme Creole Gumbo Festival is in November, held by the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, which sponsors Jazz Fest each year. Honored as the “gumbo capital of the world” by state lawmakers, Bridge City, in Jefferson Parish near New Orleans, held a drive-through version of its long-running extravaganza, which cooks 2,000 gallons of gumbo, last year. Chackbay; in Cajun bayou country in Lafourche Parish, has held its Louisiana Gumbo Festival for 49 years.