This section is from the "The National Cook Book" book, by Marion Harland And Christine Terhune Herrick. Also available from Amazon: National Cook Book
One quart of strong chicken stock ; two slices of corned ham, cut into small bits ; one pint of strained tomatoes ; two dozen okra pods. Paprica and salt to taste. One onion, sliced and fried in a tablespoonful of butter.
Cook ham, fried onion, and sliced okra in the stock until the okra is tender ; season and turn out.
Joint a tender fowl, wash well, and roll in salted flour, then fry in good dripping with a sliced onion to a light brown. Or you may fry half a pound of sliced salt pork with the onion, strain out the fat and cook the chicken in it, until tender and ready to fall to pieces. Add now a cupful of strained tomatoes, season with salt and paprica or cayenne, and when the boil is again reached, put in two dozen fine okra-pods sliced, and cook half an hour after the boil is reached.
The "far-Southerners" do not consider gumbo perfect without a teaspoonful of sassafras powder, or two or three teaspoon-fuls of chopped sassafras leaves, an addition that is hardly considered an improvement by the uninitiated palate.
 
Continue to:
Random recipes from the book: