This article is from the winter 2025 edition of Mobile Baykeeper’s print quarterly, CURRENTS. The magazine is mailed to active members who have given more than $50 in the past year. To get on the magazine’s mailing list, donate here.
By Caine O’Rear
Nolton Lumar likes to cook, and he really likes to cook gumbo. This fall we caught up with the amateur chef and rapped about his prized cuisine, which has become something of a sensation among his friends, family, and church brethren. A native of Louisiana who now lives with his wife in Mobile, Lumar is on a mission from God when it comes to cooking this local favorite.
Where did you learn this gumbo recipe?
Just by looking at my mom and my brother cooking.
So you created this yourself?
Yeah. But they use a lot of pork. I don’t do pork like that.
Why don’t you do the pork?
I got away from pork for a while. I do it sometimes, but I got away from pork, which they do at home. You know, I’m from Louisiana.
But I do like smoked turkey or smoked meat that’s done well. From there, I get the smoked meat and let that boil with some seasoning blend. You got everything chopped up already. Your onions, your bell peppers, everything like that. So just by seasoning you have to do all that. And I get that cooking. I use that water there for my flavor.
How do you make the roux?
With flour and oil. And you gotta stay on it because you can mess up a whole gumbo like that. You gotta stir it all the way until it’s a reddish color.
And you got a little seasoning on it now. You know like your green pepper and stuff like that. And you keep seasoning it until you get that red color. Once you get that red color, then the other rule you got, you put them together in that pot while that water is boiling. But you gotta keep stirring it because you don’t want it to stick at the bottom.
I use Accent seasoning blend. It really brings out the flavor of everything. And I do black pepper. But no salt.
How long does the roux take you?
Thirty minutes. You take your time with it. You gotta stir with it. You keep stirring until you get that color you want. Medium heat.
Where in Louisiana are you from?
I was born in New Orleans, but grew up right outside New Orleans, in Edgard, in St. John the Baptist Parish. You probably heard about it because they had a big storm hit us down there one time. Yeah, a couple of them, man. You take five hours to get to Houston. It took them 18 hours.
Is that what brought you to Alabama?
I graduated from high school in Louisiana and went to Grambling State University. I was in Atlanta for 19 years. Then I met my wife and she got me to Mobile.
You miss Louisiana?
Not really. No.
You like it here?
I like traveling. I love Mobile, too. But I love my wife. Put it like that. I love my wife. Because I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her. Ninety percent of my family is in Louisiana.
Do you consider this a Creole gumbo, or more of a Cajun-style?
I consider it Louisiana-style.
I know that some of those Cajun recipes don’t even use a roux, which blows my mind.
They ain’t no good. When I went to Grambling, me and my friends had a competition with New Orleans cooking versus Edgard cooking. And I won the taste test. I got my taste in my mind. If that taste don’t go there, I don’t let it come in my kitchen.
How often do you cook your gumbo?
Sooner or later, when you cook gumbo, you got people waiting on it. When I cook gumbo, I got people asking me to cook it for my church.
I got this thing I started at the church to raise money to help kids. And we got 25 to 30 men cooking, like Taste of Chicago. You pay a certain amount of money and you go to each table. When they come out of church, they be ready for gumbo.
This one guy, he said one time, “Man, I think I beat your gumbo.” I said, “You can’t beat my gumbo.” But I just like to cook.
You know, it’s about God. Everything I do is about God. Like I said, when I cook, I cook it in his name. And I like cooking.
Is there always seafood in your gumbo?
It all depends. Some of my friends can’t do seafood. But it goes in last. You gotta have that blue crab to get that flavor. And shrimp, if you want. And you wait till the end to put it in.
Where do you catch blue crabs?
I go buy them. But some of my cousins, like my cousin down here, he goes and catches them. You got some friends, I want to go with them. One time my friend cooked like 200 crabs in there.
If you get it frozen, don’t just go throw it in your gumbo. Test it first because it might spoil the gumbo.
That’s a good tip.
Every time you go buy seafood somewhere, and it’s frozen, test it. Because it can mess up a $200 or $300 pot of food.
How much gumbo do you make when you’re cooking for all these people?
That’s my problem, I got a five-gallon pot. If I cook, my wife’s gonna call people. “Hey, he cooking, y’all.”
And then you see, my brother, he likes cooking spice. I don’t cook spice like that no more. I had to learn how to bring it down because we’d moved to Atlanta. I had to learn how to cook downward. Some of my cousins, they cook good, but they cook with too much spice. You ain’t gonna taste that food.
A lot of them cook with cayenne. I don’t do cayenne no more. One time I cooked, I almost had to eat it by myself because it was too hot for people. So you got to learn how to do that flavor without the hot. So that’s why when you do the turkey neck — the smoked meat first — then you boil it and you take that little flavor of the Accent that bring it out. And that’s the water you use. Then when you start adding in everything, it’ll be a bomb.
If I do wings, I cook them in the oven and I’m going to season them. Some people like okra, some people don’t. So I do okra in the oven, too. So, to get that slime out, put in a little vinegar. Once they cook, then you put all that together. The bomb.
If you want crawfish tails, the optional seasoning blend, make sure you have the chicken wings or chicken breasts. Put them in the oven, though. For the chicken breast, cut them up in cubes, and then put them in the roux you got cooking right there. Then you got the Accent for the seasoning.
But my gizzard, I do my gizzard by myself to get them soft with the turkey neck. Both of them take the longest. But if you want a quick gumbo, I could do it quicker than quick. But not with that flavor you get with the smoked meat. Oh man. The gizzard bomb.
Ingredients
- Love
- Smoked Meat (Turkey Necks)
- Sausage (Andouille) or gizzards
- Shrimp
- Blue crab meat
- Crawfish tails
- Accent Seasoned blend/flavor enhancer (or Cajun seasoning)
- Chicken wings or breast (cubed)
- Okra
- Garlic
- Onions
- Green bell pepper
- black pepper
Roux:
- Flour
- Oil
- White rice
