Disney’s ‘Healthy Gumbo’ Recipe Taken Down After Outcry From True Gumbo Lovers


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Gumbo is a polarizing topic. Louisiana’s famous stew has been known to inspire passion and even murder (though we’re hoping the murder bit was a fluke thing). Now, it’s uniting the state in collective cyber outrage toward Disney.

Here’s what happened: recently, Disney posted a video on its social media outlets for “Princess Tiana’s Healthy Gumbo.” Princess Tiana is the cooking-savvy main character of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, a movie that takes place in New Orleans. So it only made sense for Disney to publish a gumbo recipe in her name, right?

Maybe — if they’d done it right. The problem is, Disney’s recipe included some very non-gumbo ingredients, like kale and quinoa. And, scandal of scandals, it didn’t even start with a roux. You’ve got to start with a roux! What monster doesn’t know that?

The post soon went viral, even inspiring a hashtag, #GumboStrong. Outraged Louisianans came in full force to express their ire at Disney. Some of the greatest tweets:

https://twitter.com/Garywashatn/status/776033439195680768

https://twitter.com/fiercelyfabulus/status/775967244476157952
https://twitter.com/IAM_Brittney/status/775919121330352129

https://twitter.com/allison_ellzey/status/775850136761012224

#GumboStrong was a quick success. By Tuesday evening, the video recipe for Princess Tiana’s Healthy Gumbo had disappeared. The good news is, even though Disney took down the flawed recipe (hey, we’re curious!), a remnant of that video remains via Facebook user David Hilbun. The video cuts between the recipe and clips of people expressing outrage and is just generally kinda fun.

Hilbun’s video got its point across: the post has already been shared over 4,000 times, and has inspired dozens of comments such as “It seems someone at Disney decided that today was a good day to die,” “CHICKEN STOCK???” and “My cat died today, but this is worse.” Hilbun even created a T-shirt for folks to express their outrage permanently.

Has Disney learned their lesson on this one, or are we about to see more ill-advised “healthy” character-inspired recipes? Maybe Belle’s Gluten-Free Croissants? Jasmine’s Heat-Free Curry? We sure hope not. Leave regional recipes to the pros, Disney, and keep up the good work of creating actual film entertainment.

(Via the New Orleans Times-Picayune)