Roux

• A basic roux starts by heating fat (vegetable oil, butter or lard) in a pan at a low temperature for about three minutes, then adding an equal amount of white flour. Whisk this mixture for about 30 minutes for a light-colored roux, or 45 minutes for a darker one. A darker roux adds a greater depth of flavor, but doesn't thicken as well. After you've made the roux, add it little by little to your gumbo pot until the gumbo is as thick as you'd like it to be.

Powdered Starches

• Arrowroot, tapioca starch and cornstarch are powdered vegetable starches often used as thickeners. To avoid making your gumbo lumpy or glue-like, create a slurry with the powdered starch first. Whisk together equal parts starch and a cold liquid such as water or broth. A 1-cup portion of this slurry can be slowly whisked into the gumbo, but you may find you need more or less, depending on the size of your gumbo batch.

Starchy Foods

• Grated starchy root vegetables go into the gumbo pot just like roux, added by the spoonful until the gumbo reaches the consistency you prefer. Use sweet potatoes or yellow potatoes for color and high starch content. Alternatively, cook rice and puree it with stock or hot water. The shorter the grain, the starchier the rice, but use whatever type you have on hand. As with roux or grated potatoes, mix pureed rice gradually with gumbo so that you can stop at the perfect thickness.

Think Outside the Grocery Store

• Farmers markets and ethnic markets are good places to find mucilaginous vegetables. Nopale leaves, a vegetable popular in Mexican cooking, are often compared to okra. Nopales are the paddle-shaped leaves of the prickly-pear cactus, and are added to stews after being de-spined and cut into bite-sized pieces. Alternatively, look for such tropical vegetables as edible hibiscus leaves and Malabar spinach. Thickening vegetables you can grown in your own garden include muskmallow leaves and daylily petals or daylily buds. The latter are also sold in dried form in Asian market under the name "golden needles."