Western food is so pock-marked with stupid regional rules and arbitrary distinctions that often make home cooking feel more like coloring in the lines (or else!) rather than enjoying the natural progression of a dish—classic or new-fangled, for what in it appeals to you as a human being with a mouth.

Case in point, I hate okra. In any form. Ask me to try it fried, pickled, curried, or stewed and I will. So far my mouth has shot em all down. But I’m really hung up on the idea of gumbo (literally okra) as a stewed dish.

Back in the late nineties when Helen and Gus held a place for the food of their Greek homeland on the menu at the Harris Grill I fell in love with what I still think of as the simplest and most soul-piercing of their recipes: fasolakia. Basically, it’s green beans and potatoes stewed in tomatoes onions and parsley. A greater whole greater than the sum of its parts I never once knew.

That was my narrative track switch from the okra in gumbo. A lot of folks—territorial as they’re wont to be, would say it’s neither fasolakia nor is it gumbo. To why I say, correct, don’t eat it. Dude, I’m from Carlisle.