Gumbo Z'Herbs With Smoked Pig Tail Recipe

  The Friday that precedes Easter Sunday, Good Friday, is a day of fasting as it pertains to the hoof and the fin. On the Thursday before Easter, Holy Thursday, the Creole homes are filled with the smells of the garden’s greens as they succumb to the heat and the temptation that can only be whispered by smoked pork. Gumbo Z’herbs is the traditional dish responsible for the aroma of holiness that blankets the city of New Orleans on Holy Thursday. It is comprised of as many different greens that can possibly be foraged and simmered together with a bit of moral leniency in the form of pork. The Creoles consider the dish “vegetarian” and within the Church’s eye of good faith because the pork is used only as seasoning and then is taken out. But I consider dispensing a perfectly good piece of pork a much greater blasphemy. For I am as pure as the sting of Gin with a slice of cucumber on a Sunday afternoon, so this recipe is my attempt to straighten the lives of all you other sinners out there. At least for just one day of the year.