Have a taste of ‘gumbo diplomacy’ with Biden nominee’s classic recipe
Anyone who has served a big pot of gumbo to family and friends knows exactly what Linda Thomas-Greenfield means when she refers to “gumbo diplomacy.”
She captured national attention when she used the term on Nov. 24, when accepting President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Her point: that you can’t help but warm toward someone who has labored over the fragrant, darkbrown soup and is now ladling it into a bowl for you.
Thomas-Greenfield, a 35-year veteran of the Foreign Service, explained how she would invite her counterparts in countries such as Nigeria into her home to cook and eat together: “I put a Cajun spin on it. ... It was my way of breaking down barriers, connecting with people and starting to see each other on a human level. A bit of lagniappe is what we say in Louisiana.”
Still, like many who make gumbo regularly, she faced a hurdle when asked to share her recipe. “I don’t have one,” said Thomas-Greenfield, who is awaiting a Senate confirmation hearing that could have her following in the footsteps of George H.W. Bush, Madeleine Albright, Andrew Young and Susan Rice. “I’ve never cooked gumbo from a recipe. I learned it from watching.”
The career diplomat is used to finding ways around obstacles, however, so she simply walked herself through the process, jotting down do’s and don’ts, going into detail when she felt it was essential and loosening the reins where she could. Though she’s all about flexibility, she does have strong opinions when it comes to gumbo: “Do not use tomato paste or sauce. I hate red gumbos. … Gumbo should have a nice brownish color.”
“Each time I make gumbo, it’s different,” she said. “No two gumbos are alike, and that goes for others who make gumbo as well.”
Thomas-Greenfield, 68, has had plenty of opportunity to share her gumbo around the world, including in Gambia, Kenya, Jamaica, Liberia, Pakistan and Switzerland. She began working in the Foreign Service under President Ronald Reagan, then served as ambassador to Liberia under President George W. Bush and assistant secretary of state for African affairs under President Barack Obama. She retired from the State Department in 2017, after the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
She first heard the phrase “gumbo diplomacy” from a fellow Foreign Service officer and realized that’s what she had been practicing throughout her career. “When we were living overseas, we had staffwho were supporting us, but if I had people over to my house and I really wanted them to enjoy the meal, I’d cook myself,” she said. “I’d make red beans and rice, or gumbo, and it was always a conversation.
“It causes people to relax. You’re sitting around. You’re talking about food. You’ve had this really important conversation around human rights. Now, you’re having a conversation about what you put in your gumbo and what a roux actually is, but you’re also talking about a certain issue happening in a country.”
In her hometown of Baker, La., her mother was a public school cook and her father a day laborer, and from them, she learned the unifying power of food.
“We were a poor family, but the one thing we never had an issue about was food,” she said. “My father’s goal in life was that ‘my children will never go to bed hungry.’ ”
In fact, he often doled out food to neighbors and friends, too. Her mother would cook inside, and her father would fire up a homemade barbecue grill in a shady spot across the road from their home they simply called “under the tree.”
“We never had a meal where it was just us,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “People would say, ‘The Thomases are cooking,’ and they would show up at our house.”
Gumbo is a great example of how great things can come from being flexible and resourceful, she said.
“People will say, ‘I can’t make gumbo because I don’t have filé’ or ‘because I don’t have celery,’ or ‘I can’t have this conversation with you because I haven’t gotten instructions,’ ” she said. “You will never have 100 percent of what you need to get to the point of negotiation, and you may never have everything you need to make the perfect gumbo. You just work with what you have at the table.”