A sprightly, deeply personal narrative about how gumbo—for 250 years a Cajun and Creole secret—has become one of the world’s most beloved dishes.

Ken Wells grew up in the Cajun bastion of Bayou Black, eating his French-speaking momma’s gumbo and living what he calls the Gumbo Life—where the rhythms of the day cling to rituals of a previous century and gumbo begins with a chicken chased down in the yard. He later would roam the world as a journalist but never forgot his roots.

In Gumbo Life, Wells returns, taking readers on a lively tour that includes visits to a coot-cooking gumbo group, a factory producing gumbo in insane quantities, and Commander’s Palace, an iconic restaurant where high-style Creole cooking and reenergized Cajun cuisine merged to change the culinary landscape. Along the way, Wells explores the soup’s global profile—including how it got to China and who won New York City’s Gumbo War. A lively travelogue and moving memoir, Gumbo Life is a celebration—of a place, a dish, and the cultures that created it.