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Lee J. Smits's Boolyaw
The person cooking a stew is like a composer conducting his own orchestra-his only limitations are his genius and the number and quality of the instruments at his command. He starts out to lay the foundation of the boolyaw, that Canadian border hunter's stew originally called Bouillon, just plain broth, by French-Canuck guides who first concocted it; and quickly corrupted to boolyaw, booyaw and even booyou by the Michigan and Minnesota sportsmen who took it over so enthusiastically. If the boolyaw maker has any big, fresh bones handy-say deer shanks-he whacks them thoroughly. He puts the bones in a kettle or pail of cold water and puts them on the stove or over the fire to stew-not boil violently-but to simmer. No seasoning yet. He takes meat-venison, rabbit, squirrel, duck, coon, woodchuck, mudhen-any kind of meat, and he cuts it into chunks of convenient size, maybe an inch or 2 inches square. Now he gives this meat a pan broil. (Pan-broiling is a better method of preparing tender meat, by the way, than frying. The meat for the stew, however, doesn't have to be tender. It should have been hung to cool, of course, but even that isn't necessary.) Pan-broiling is accomplished by dropping the meat in the hot pan and turning it briskly-without grease-until it is seared by the heat. For a stew, this process takes only a few seconds. The meat, with its goodness sealed within it, is dropped into the boolyaw kettle. The simmeringnot boiling-continues. Any time after, say, 2 hours, the stew is ready for vegetables, if any.
Potatoes, cabbage, onions (important), bay leaves, carrots, turnips-cut in chunks of proper size and heave in, after seasoning the stew cautiously with salt and pepper. Say it takes 1/2 hour to bring the vegetables to the proper tenderness, then the boolyaw may be given a final flourish. The personality of the camp cookee reaches its highest expression at this moment. He looks around, and trusts to inspiration. Maybe a dash of vinegar, the dried heel of a loaf of rye bread, half a bottle of ketchup, diced dill pickle, a can of tomatoes, a spoonful of mustard-touches of this sort give the boolyaw its individuality.
Old George Drawbolt, making boolyaw from a young, scrawny buck, killed late in the winter, redeemed his composition from a flatness due to lack of fat by dumping in a goodly quantity of bacon fat. I almost forgot-cubes of good salt pork are helpful in a boolyaw composed of lean meat.
Irene M. Hawkins, Women's Editor of the Detroit Times, who contributed the above to our collection of regional recipes, America Cooks, says further: "Michigan's charm being its north woods, Lee Smits's game stews have made history. For many years he wrote both a column entitled The Sidewalks of Detroit for the Times and outdoor lore on hunting, fishing, and boating. "He is now with the General Wildlife Federation in Washington, but the memory of his great camp cooking lives on in Michigan where he prepared many a steaming cauldron of boolyaw in northern woods cabins for a long line of Michigan immortals such as former Governor Chase S. Osborn, James Hendryx, the author, Harold Titus, woodsman and author, Henry Montgomery and many others. "Lee can stuff a duck and bake whitefish better than any female cook I ever knew. He mixes his stews with a rugged cook I ever knew. He mixes his stews with a rugged philosophy, whetting your appetite with tall tales of camp life as he patiently stirs and adds flavor with true artistry. "Another outdoor favorite, because it's easily tossed together and sticks to your ribs, is: and sticks to your ribs, is:
A narrative recipe rather than a measured one: bones for the base, seared meat, vegetables late, and a final improvised seasoning. A few points make it workable with what a modern cook can actually get.
- Simmer, never boilThe instruction repeated twice in the original is the hinge. A bare simmer around 185F keeps the broth clear and the connective tissue melting; a rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and shreds the meat into cloudy rags.
- The bone stageCracked shanks in cold water, brought up slowly, is standard stock practice and still correct. Allow two to three hours before the meat goes in if you want real body, and skim the grey foam off in the first twenty minutes.
- Pan-broilingA dry, very hot heavy pan — cast iron — with the meat turned constantly for well under a minute a side. Work in small batches; crowding drops the pan temperature and the chunks steam instead of searing. The claim that this "seals in the goodness" is period belief, not fact, but the browning is worth doing for flavor.
- Substituting the gameFor venison, use shoulder or shank rather than loin. Beef chuck or lamb neck stands in perfectly well. Coot (mudhen), woodchuck and raccoon are all strongly flavored and, where legal at all, subject to seasons and bag limits; a mix of dark poultry thighs and stewing beef gives a similar depth without the paperwork.
- Wild-shot meatCheck any bird or animal taken with shot for pellets before it goes in the kettle, and cut away bruised, bloodshot tissue. Raccoon and bear are trichinella carriers, which the long simmer handles, but the meat must genuinely reach and hold temperature rather than sit at the edge of the pot.
- Vegetable timingTwo hours of simmering before vegetables is right for tough game. Stagger them rather than adding all at once: carrots, turnips and potatoes want about thirty minutes, cabbage about fifteen, or the cabbage will be dissolved by the time the root vegetables give.
- The fat problemDrawbolt's bacon fat is sound advice. Wild game is very lean and a stew built on it tastes thin and dry no matter how long it cooks. Four to six ounces of diced salt pork or bacon rendered at the start, or a few tablespoons of fat stirred in at the end, fixes it.
- The final flourishVinegar, ketchup, mustard and dill pickle are all acid and salt — they lift a heavy, fatty broth. Add them a spoonful at a time in the last ten minutes and taste between additions. The stale rye heel works as a thickener; it will need breaking up with a spoon.
- YieldNo quantities are given anywhere. As written for camp, this is a kettle meant for a crowd, though the number fed is not stated. Scaled to a 6- to 8-quart Dutch oven: about 3 lb of meat, 2 lb of bones, and 2 to 3 lb of vegetables total.