* You can use cooking oil, but the original recipe called for bacon grease, and I think it's better.

Put tomatoes, okra, chicken broth, and water and thyme in large pot. If crab is frozen, add it now. To make roux, melt bacon grease in heavy skillet. Add garlic, onion, & celery to skillet. Cook on medium heat til onion is clear - do not brown. Add flour to onion mixture. Cook on low to medium heat. Stir occasionally (later, frequently). Add salt (just a little) and pepper (not too much), and soda to tomatoes. Keep cooking roux until onions are an even, dark amber color. Mother always said "Cook 'til just before it burns." It's very important to use less flour than grease - or gumbo will taste of flour. Turn off roux. Add some of tomato mixture to roux, stir. If using fresh crab, add to tomato mixture now. Add roux to tomato/crab mixture. Add chopped bell peppers. Add file, ("until it looks like it doesn't want any more"). Most gumbo recipes do not add file until after cooking. It is said to make gumbo "stringy". I've never found that to be so. Add more water if needed. Add Tabasco. ( Watch it here. Some people like their gumbo really hot, others don't. I put in a few drops and then put the Tabasco on the table.) Simmer covered one hour. Correct seasonings ~ simmer a few minutes more. Make a day ahead, if possible. It's better the next day. Serve over rice. The most important things are to use bacon grease, not oil, to use less flour than grease, and to cook file with gumbo. Mother's original recipe does not call for celery or green pepper, but I like it. Also, hers called for canned tomatoes. I use canned stewed Cajun-style tomatoes.

dish to experiment with. Gumbo is one of those dishes that you develop a "feel" for. Can, of course, add shrimp, oysters, or any other stuff people put in gumbo. Use more or less of anything you like or don't like. I use chicken broth because it's handy. If you have seafood stock, so much the better. This recipe uses claw crab meat. If you're lucky enough to have crab bodies, put them in! We have a set of antique silver spoons, which have been "the gumbo spoons" in our family for years. They are just regular soup spoons, but they are a bit rounder and deeper than present-day soup spoons. Note to RecipeLu: This gumbo breaks several traditional gumbo rules, but it's the way we like it best. First, instead of equal parts of grease (or oil) and flour for the roux, we use a bit less flour than oil. Keeps the roux from tasting too "floury." Second, we use both okra and file. Third, . against almost all (but not all) recipes I have seen, we put the file in from the beginning. The conventional wisdom is that it becomes "ropey" but we don't find that that happens.)