My New Orleans Culinary Reconnaissance: Learning to Cook from Aunts and Mama

One of the signature dishes at Two Sisters Restaurant, shrimp and okra, it's a New Orleans thing via Mississippi foodways, recipe below

Dorothy Finister, the current owner and operator of Two Sisters restaurant in New Orleans, has an amazing culinary story. She grew up in New Orleans surrounded by great cooks. Finister mentioned her Mississippi born mother from whom she learned how to make red beans and rice. According to Finister red beans in rice is Monday eating tradition in New Orleans rooted in Mississippi foodways. From her aunt who lived in Mississippi she learned how to make shrimp and okra. Actually her aunt made it with crab and it came out more like a gumbo. But Finister decided to go with shrimp in okra and she argues that she is the one who popularized okra on New Orleans’ restaurant menus. “Actually, 30-some years ago I don’t think you could find shrimp and okra on nobody’s menu. That’s the reason why I take credit for that. But now you can go to plenty of restaurants and find shrimp and okra,” says Finister the current matriarch of Two Sisters restaurant in the Treme neighborhood in New Orleans. Here is a similar shrimp and okra recipe for you below. Better make it quick before that oil spill comes on sure down on the gulf coast and the price of shrimp goes sky eye for the foreseeable future:

New Orleans Shrimp, Okra, and Tomato Sauté Recipe
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/New-Orleans-Shrimp-Okra-and-Tomato-Saute-242114