Turkey Neck Gumbo and Mirliton Pies

Have you ever eaten a meal or a dish, and it takes you back to a memory of the person who made that meal?

I have several food memories, especially from my childhood. But two dishes when I hear them take me back to the kitchen they were prepared in.

The first is Turkey Neck Gumbo, and the second is Mirliton Pies. Now, if you are Cajun or part Cajun and don’t make gumbo with a wet or dry roux, one, it’s not gumbo, and two, you are not very Cajun.

A mirliton is like a squash. They can be stuffed or put into a casserole. But my favorite is when they are made into little pies.

The cook I remember making these dishes was my Great Aunt Nora.

My Aunt Nora was my paternal grandmother’s sister. She was Nora, and my grandmother was named Ora. They weren’t twins; they were ten months apart, but they did graduate high the same year.

I was only seven or eight when my grandmother, whom we called Meme, passed away. That day on, my Aunt Nora became a surrogate grandmother to my sisters and me.

We would visit my Great Aunt a few times a month, usually on Sundays and occasionally on Thanksgiving. But holidays would always involve my cousins. We would get in trouble playing baseball with the pears from Aunt Nora’s pear tree and doing other things we were not supposed to do.

She had a car, but she didn’t drive. When Hurricane Andrew happened, she and her friend evacuated, and somehow she and her car ended up at our house. When it was time to return home, my mom and I volunteered to bring her and her car home. I was fifteen years old, and the ink was still wet on my driver’s license. My mom drove our family’s minivan, and I drove my aunt’s car with my aunt riding shotgun.

As we went down Highway 90, she was taken back by all the destruction. Here I was, hands tight on the steering wheel, and she was like, “Ooooh, look at that. Never mind, I will describe it to you.”

As I grew into my late teens and early twenties, I would visit my Aunt once a month. Sometimes with my parents would go, sometimes by myself, usually on Sundays. I would drive her car, and we would go to church, or the pharmacy, or a random errand she needed.

She would tell me stories of long ago, half of them were probably true.

And in the kitchen, she always had turkey neck gumbo on the stove and mirliton pies in the fridge. We would eat and watch the Saints game on TV.

My aunt was a hardcore Saints fan. She would yell at the TV and call her 80 something friend and say, “Girl, did you see that play?”

I even lived with her for a few weeks while I was working in Houma. She had all her friends and neighbors listening to the country station just to hear me on it.

When I worked in Television, she would get upset if she didn’t see my name in the credits at the end of the newscast.

Then I took a job at a TV news station in North Texas. It was my Aunt that told me I should do it. I moved in September of 2001; Aunt Nora passed away in October of 2001. Because of my work obligations, I couldn’t go to her funeral, something I still regret.

I have kept her memory alive through stories I have written about her, including through this speech.

But anytime I smell an excellent gumbo cooking or think about Mirliton Pies, I go back to that kitchen where my Aunt cooked with love and passion.

If you have someone in your life like my Aunt Nora, embrace them and let them tell their stories. If they are already gone, let their memories warm your heart and your soul, like a good bowl of Turkey Neck gumbo!