Few topics are as loaded as a discussion about gumbo in New Orleans. Believed to be based on West African soups, such as Senegal’s soupikandia, gumbo has no clear, indisputable lineage. Historians will tell you that’s because West African slaves, thought to have created gumbo in New Orleans in the 18th century, relied on oral traditions to pass along recipes, leaving behind no evidence of their efforts.

The word “gumbo” is considered a corruption of “tchingombo” and “ochingombo,” a pair of terms that mean “okra” in the Bantu family of languages. The word associations lead some historians to argue that okra is the foundation for gumbo, period. But this narrative is complicated by those who point out that gumbo may have taken its name from the word “kombo,” the Choctaw Nation term for powdered sassafras leaves, another common thickener. Or that French and Cajun cultures have also had a hand in the formulation of this famous soup.

No writer or historian has turned up evidence to suggest the Cajuns, French or Choctaw were the first to prepare gumbo in New Orleans. Yet, each of these groups has left its mark on a soup that, in all likelihood, was lifted from Africa and became one of the city’s most iconic dishes, one flexible enough to absorb the influences of so many cultures.