This piece is also based on Okra. Gumbo is another name for the plant, but also the name of a dish. My
extended family would always gather at my Great Aunt Jai’s house for gumbo. She was my
grandmother’s sister, and she passed away last year. Before she passed, she let my mom use her recipe to
create a family cookbook. I continue to make her recipe for my family and friends. In the book Conjuring
of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic, Lindsey Stewart talks
about cooking as an act of conjure. She writes about Leah Chase, a prominent black soul food chef from
Louisiana, and how her home was a meeting place during the civil rights movement. It was in her home
where conversations of revolution were fed.