In Sir Terry Pratchett’s riotous Guard! Guards!,” which pits the stalwart Commnder Sam Vimes and his (at this point in the saga) rag-tag City Watch against a phantasmal dragon, an encroaching fog in Discworld’s largest (and least reputable) city is described as a “real Ankh-Morpork autumn gumbo.” In a considerate nod to his British readers, Sir Terry provides a somewhat less-than-helpful definition of gumbo as like a pea-soup, “only much thicker, fishier, and with things in it you’d probably rather not know about,” a definition that would work just as well for all others outside the American Gulf South who might likely be averse to, say, okra, filé, or crawfish.
