From Hell To Breakfast: Musical Review With Recipe: Rolling Thunder Revue & Turkey Gumbo

"Now, there's a certain thing
That I learned from Jim
That he'd always make sure I'd understand
And that is that there's a certain way
That a man must swim
If he expects to live off
Of the fat of the land."
-- Bob Dylan

I’ve got a friend, Bishop Ken Myers, who calls Bob Dylan a prophet in the exactest sense.

There’s something to that.

If the Prophet Amos was inspired, so is Bob Dylan.  (Well… he was until he did that freaked out Christmas video.  Unless you want to argue that that was inspired insanity.  Still making up my mind on that.)

Let’s talk about Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue (1976).  Dylan lured in some of the weirdest and best musical aliens nobody’d ever heard of: David Mansfield, T-Bone Burnett, Stephen Soles, Mick Ronson, Howie Wyeth, Bobby Neuwirth… oh, and toss in Roger McGuinn from The Byrds, the best cover band in the history of the universe.Genius. But Wait, You Also Get The Ginsu Knives…

That band represents the golden age of folk-rock.  Defined it, I should say.  From the moment that Dylan strapped on his Telecaster at the Newport Folk Festival (or was it Monterey?  I can never remember), American music had begun to feel its way towards a really unique blend of apocalyptic edginess and soulfulness.   The Rolling Thunder Revue was All That: spiritual, intense, sexy, cluttered, young, idealistic, ironic, passionate.

You should listen.  It’s like being lulled to sleep by the crooning of the Four Horsemen.

The thing about Dylan is, he’d mastered the imitation of folk music.  He could write something that you couldn’t swear wasn’t written during the labor disputes of the 1920’s, or by abolitionists, or Gold Standard populists or something.  And he’d sing it, but it’d somehow feel fresh. 

And when he plugged in, holy god, he was suddenly saying, “Not then, not tomorrow, but now.”

Folk rock dips its ladle into American roots, blues, jazz, and rock, but it’s something much greater than the sum of its parts.

Like gumbo.

Make a good stock.  Boil a turkey or chicken in just enough water to cover it.  Toss in, wrapped in muslin or netting, a quartered onion and some celery and a bit of salt.  Boil it until the meat falls off the bone.  Save the meat.   Don’t give the bones to the dog or it will die on the spot.  Don’t skim the stock: fat is flavor.  Deal.

In a pan, make some roux.  One cup of clarified butter or olive oil to one cup of flour, or a little more.  Put it in your grandmother’s cast iron frying pan over a medium high heat.  Stir it constantly.  If you stop stirring, black flecks will appear in it, and you’ll need to throw it away and start over.  Be cautious of the spattering: that stuff scorches.  A hard rain is gonna fall.

When it gets to be the color of a new penny, reduce the heat a bit and add a cup or so of chopped okra, a cup of chopped onion, a few cloves of chopped garlic, a cup or so of chopped celery, some chopped green pepper.  Stir it all together until the vegetables are soft.  You can add some stock to cool it just a bit.

Add the roux to the hot stock in a stock-pot.  Stir it all together.

Add a couple of tomatoes.  You can chop them or whatever you like.  I like to take the skin off them and squeeze them over the pot and tear them apart with my hands and hurl them in.  It makes me feel like a Roman emperor.

Add the meat.

Spicing it is a bit of a trick.  Spice it to taste.  Your best bet is to use Tony Chachere’s magical Creole or Cajun seasoning.  Really good stuff, that is.  Add it slowly: you don’t want to make it too salty.

Cover.  Let it simmer a while.  I generally let it go an hour or two.  Add some chopped sausage.  Andouille is best, if you can get it, and don’t mind spicy.  If you’re part of that sad segment of humanity (we use the word loosely) that can’t stand spice, I suppose you must make do with some inferior sausage or something.  It’s all right, in some corner of the multiverse, to do this.  (Don’t add this too early, as the sausage gets rubbery.)Consider a Lethal Dose

Fifteen minutes before serving, add some peeled unboiled shrimp and a pint or so of oysters.  If you’ve got gumbo crabs, make it so.  Cook some rice.

Serve the gumbo over rice.  A crab claw hanging out over the bowl is traditional.  Sprinkle with ground sassyfras root (“gumbo file”).   French bread on the side.  An Abita or Dixie beer or a glass of good Cabernet Sauvignon.

Watch this video and think about how love binds together disparate things and makes them unusual and beautiful.

And puts weird rags on their heads.

Comments

[Kenneth Myers]

Thank you, Jim, for mentioning my name in the same paragraph, nay, the same sentence, as you mentioned Dylan!

He IS a prophet, still, to this day, though he denies it. Great article, my friend, about two of my favorite things - Dylan's music and good gumbo (my dad, I am convinced, makes the best gumbo on the planet, although he wouldn't know a Dylan song if it bit him).

My only disagreement - COME ON MAN! That Christmas video was awesome! Just sheer fun! And also, think about it: he was imitating Tom Petty, who built a career imitating Dylan (and later joined him in the Traveling Wilburys). Full circle; life imitating art imitating life. Good stuff!

[Otter]

Awesome, Ken! But no. Prophets do not have fun. They pull on the Granny Panties of Righteousness and sing "Blowin' In The Wind," or marry a prostitute, or something.