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Bob Roberts's Burgoo
Meota Bennett, of Louisville, writes: "I have a recipe for Kentucky Burgoo given to me by Mr. Bob Roberts of Mayfield, who is a good cook as well as a good funeral director. During the past four years I have had the pleasure of eating this delicious dish while on fishing trips at Reel Foot Lake, Tennessee."
I YOUNG SQUIRREL I YOUNG CHICKEN I POUND BEEF I POUND FRESH PORK SEVERAL RIPE TOMATOES I RED PEPPER KERNELS CUT FROM SEVERAL EARS OF CORN 5 GREEN PEPPERS 5 ONIONS SALT AND PEPPER Cook slowly for about 5 hours and you have a dish fit for a king. Serves about 10 people.
Miss Bennett adds cryptically, "This should not be confused with Rolly Golly." -And we've never been able to track down the recipe for that. If any reader will send it to us in care of our publishers we will reward her, or him, with any one of our dozen food books. A really good "Rolly Golly" recipe might even be worth two.
A VERY OLD BURGOO RECIPE Maude M. Rose says: "I copied this very old recipe for Kentucky Burgoo from a grandmother's 'long hand' cook book. It serves 300 persons and was used at many famous political rallies, vying in popularity with the whole beef barbecue." 100 POUNDS BEEF 12 CHICKENS 11/2 BUSHELS POTATOES I I PECK TURNIPS I PECK CARROTS I GALLON ONIONS Cook together 24 hours. 30 TOMATOES 12 LARGE CANS CORN 3 BOXES OATMEAL 4 POUNDS SALT 3/4 POUND PEPPER 12 HEADS CABBAGE This is done on the mammoth scale of a Manhattan Clam Chowder in the days of Tammany Hall rallies. But Uncle Jim Looney, the original Burgoo King of Lexington, is famous for even bigger batches of Kentucky's own stew to celebrate Derby Day, horse sales, whisky auctions, etc., and for a hot burgoo sauce of his own concoction that calls for Tabasco, A-1 Sauce, Worcestershire, and other potent condiments. A recent Kentucky Derby winner was named "Burgoo King' in his honor. The Gargantuan recipe calls for 800 pounds of lean "soup meat" (beef without fat or bones), 48 squirrels, 240 pounds fat hens or roosters, 24 gallons canned corn, and a rabbit's foot to be dangled at the end of a string by a colored preacher at the proper mystical moment. Plus 4 bushels onions, 15 bushels Irish potatoes, 60 gallons canned tomatoes, 6 gallons purée of tomatoes, 200 pounds cabbage, 4 gallons canned carrots (or 2 bushels raw carrots). Add "burgoo seasoning" with salt and red pepper pods-and stew in iron kettles over wood fires 15- 20 hours. It is suggested that the ingredients may be reduced proportionately, for private picnic use, but that would require higher mathematics. And, of course, it's as much out of place to do a burgoo in the kitchen as to hold a barbecue there. Only wakes should take place in the kitchen.
A burgoo is a long-simmered meat-and-vegetable stew, and this is the compact version of it: four meats, whatever the garden gives, and five hours. The original assumes you know that a burgoo is a soup, since it never mentions liquid.
- The missing waterNo liquid is listed. Cover the meats with water or stock by two or three inches at the start and keep them barely covered as it reduces; the finished burgoo should be thick enough that a spoon stands up briefly, not soupy.
- The one thing that mattersEverything goes in cold and stays at a bare simmer. Burgoo is meant to cook until the meat falls off its bones and shreds into the broth on its own, which is why five hours is not an exaggeration. A rolling boil will toughen the pork and scorch the bottom before that happens.
- SquirrelA young grey squirrel dresses out at about 8 to 12 ounces of meat, so it contributes flavour more than bulk. It is hard to buy, since sale of wild game is restricted in most places; rabbit is the usual stand-in, and a second half-chicken will do if neither is available. Cook wild game to the same well-done stage as the rest of the pot.
- "1 young chicken"In this period that means a bird of about 2 to 3 pounds, jointed and cooked on the bone. A 3 lb whole chicken cut up is the closest supermarket equivalent; pull the bones out once the meat is falling away.
- Red pepperOne red pepper here means a dried hot pod, not a sweet bell pepper. The five green peppers are the sweet ones. Add the hot pod whole and fish it out when the heat suits you.
- CornKernels cut from the ears go in near the end, in the last 30 to 45 minutes, or they lose all texture over five hours. Reckon three to four ears for this quantity.
- Scale and yieldTen servings from roughly 5 pounds of bone-in meat is generous only because the vegetables carry it. An 8-quart Dutch oven is about the smallest pot that will hold it comfortably.
- The large-batch recipesA peck is 8 dry quarts, roughly 12 to 15 lb of root vegetables; a bushel is four pecks. The 300-serving version's three boxes of oatmeal act as a thickener, and oatmeal turns up in other large burgoo recipes; the cabbage and tomatoes appear to belong to a second stage rather than the start.