A Slick Story about Southern Okra

I was on the front porch when you drove by and I waved, reeling from surprise and consternation, having just learned that a good southern friend of mine (Lord, forgive him) does not like okra.

I know, shocking.

Someone sitting at our restaurant lunch table --- could have been me --- mentioned okra, you know, as people often do in your more intellectual conversations, and my friend reacted as though he’d eaten bad fish, or was looking at a men’s locker room painted in pastels. “Gross!” he said, “Okra is slimy, like old lettuce in the back of your refrigerator! Feels like axle grease”. Then he made fake gagging sounds, clutched his throat, and a concerned waitress came running over prepared to go all Heimlich maneuver on him.

Unfortunately, this is a response not so unusual, particularly among people with no fondness for the five-sided vegetable pod. The Wikipedia definition for the green plant can be a bit nightmarish: “Okra is an allopolyploid of uncertain parentage… mucilaginous, resulting in the characteristic "goo" or slime when the seed pods are cooked…also called Lady Fingers.”

I grew up eating okra, cooked like collards, in a long hard rolling boil until the okra could do no harm to anybody whatsoever. We then placed the okra in a bowl of apple cider vinegar with black pepper and served it. When I moved to Iredell County, I learned to eat okra cut in slices and dusted with flour or cornmeal then fried. My grandmother would say that if you ate okra your pants would slide down. My grandfather claimed that was an old wives’ tale, that the truth was, your socks wouldn’t stay up.

That’s because cooked okra is slimy and slick. But I like slick.

The best guitar player I ever accompanied in my rock band days (during the 1970’s) could play “Wipe Out” and “Yakety Axe” so fast and smooth we called him “Slick” out of respect. In the South, to witness a good thing or special skill is described as slick. Slick is good. Slick is…well...slick.

I once watched the TV chef Giada De Laurentiis, looking slick in a low-cut black spaghetti-strap cooking dress, once explain how to get the slime out of okra by stir frying it and adding a tablespoon of lemon juice. She sold me on the taste when she leaned into the camera with her million-dollar smile and from the TV screen looked me straight in the eyes and said “Mmm”. You just knew that was perfectly cooked okra.

An okra purist will tell you if you don’t want slimy okra, then eat something else. Like say, cilantro, or tofu--- which suddenly makes slick and slimy look pretty good and so now you’re back to okra.

Okra is originally from Africa, the Ghana region. It’s sometimes called “gumbo”, a name synonymous with a Louisiana Cajun stew-like dish made of tomatoes, celery, onions, sausage, shrimp and the key ingredient, okra.

Gumbo is a big deal in my house.

My wife and her family hail from just north of New Orleans, and cooking gumbo was required learning for new-comers to the family. Right after saying our vows, I went into training.

Good gumbo requires a dark roux to enhance the okra along with other seasonings. I worked hard, cooking the roux’s oil and flour carefully (it burns easily), stirring it not too slowly, nor too fast. The prepared roux and other ingredients are placed in a big pot of chicken stock and boiled.

I worked at making gumbo for years, and then one evening over a gumbo supper, Aunt Laura, matron cook of the family and restaurant owner, made an announcement. I nervously wiped my hands on my apron as she proclaimed that I had, that day, achieved gumbo perfection.

The okra was just right, the roux perfect. Delicious! I beamed. Cheers went up. Honestly, I thought that was pretty slick.