I haven't made gumbo in a while, but, my local (Northeastern U.S.) price for andouille sausage was so high that I ended up taking ground pork and making my own with some liquid smoke. Was it as good as the real deal? No, but, for about $2/lb, it was fantastic- and worked flawlessly in gumbo. I don't have my recipe in front of me, but I'm pretty sure it was less than 1/8 t. to 1 lb ground pork.
One other thing worth mentioning- I've never come across concrete evidence for this, but, I've seen endless conjecture that cheap bacon is done with liquid smoke rather than being smoked in an actual smoker. If this true, having only bought cheap bacon for about a decade, I can contend that, at the right quantity of smoke flavoring, it can produce some of the best bacon I've ever had. As sacrilegious as this might sound, I won't even go near expensive bacon these days. The cheaper, the wetter, the better, imo.
