...pouncing on a thread from jmh's dictionary topic: gumbo and okra - the words are cognates, if you will. However, now gumbo has expanded to include okra and other ingredients, as y'all mentioned.

http://www.bartleby.com/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/sitesearch/?query=gumbo+AND+okra&db=db&cmd=context&id=38d47e8443b#hit1

and

the American Heritage Dictionary, whose link I lost due to obsolete computer power - yet for which my lingusitics professor wrote the preface. So it still rules in my non-virtual book :-)

>>gumbo and okra - the words are cognates<<

Anna,

The link you provided gives the following definition:

"...another name for okra; also applied in the W United States to a rich, black, alkaline alluvial soil, which is soapy or sticky when wet."

Is that why so many people think it is so yucky?

Anyone for some soup?

Soapy soup??
With okra in it???
Bleah!!

Well I've got a trip booked in the diary for New Orleans the year after next (it's a conference) - will I be able to get Gumbo and biscuits in the same restaurant or will I have to go to more than one.

I think okra is thoroughly disgusting. Sticky and soapy in one. However, hidden in a Cajun dish, it's sort of edible.
Jo, I bet you will be able to find both in the same restaurant. This is the land of overwhelming choice. If not, just do biscuits at breakfast.
Also (knotting up some threads here), do try the beignets: New Orleans' inimitable Berliner. I mean, sweet bread roll. Erm... that is to say, donut.

interesting pair of words in that they are both among the very few English borrowings from the days of slavery: 'gumbo' having Bantu origins and 'okra' being from West Africa.