Ever Heard of Burgoo? How 4 Classic Regional Foods Came to Be
The best food often comes about when cooks are limited or when circumstances dictate a dish be equal parts nourishing and convenient—stews cobbled together with whatever’s left over in the pantry, hand pies carried by laborers to sustain them over the course of long work days, cauldrons bubbling with the nastier bits of an animal most saw fit to throw away. In conjunction with the release of our newest title, Cook’s Country Eats Local, we’ve compiled the historic backstories of four such dishes.
1. WEST VIRGINIA PEPPERONI ROLLS
When deep-shaft mining became a big industry in late 19th-century America, many workers were recruited from Old World communities, where they had either been doing the same type of work or were so poor that they figured anything in America had to be better. Naturally, where a miner came from largely determined what he brought down the shaft in his lunch bucket. Food that formed its own package, with a filling inside a sturdy dough crust, was the most practical meal for a miner. So Cornish miners in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan ate pasties; Slavic miners in eastern Pennsylvania often carried baked pierogi in their lunch pails; and for the Italian immigrants who came to work in the West Virginia mines, the lunch of choice was pepperoni rolls, invented by a baker in Fairmont in the early 20th century.
2. KENTUCKY BURGOO
Kentucky burgoo began as a way to make use of whatever was hunted or ready to harvest (including cabbage, lima beans, squirrel, opossum, or deer). Today, however, burgoo is a bit more formulaic. The chunky stew is made with tomatoes, corn, potatoes, chicken, and mutton (mature lamb). Locals developed their taste for mutton in the 19th century, when sheep farming was big business, both in the region and elsewhere in America. This unusual local specialty garners lots of attention at the International Bar-B-Q Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky, where mutton is both barbecued and served in burgoo. Outside of Owensboro, mutton isn’t very common, but the residents of Owensboro still devour more than 20,000 pounds of mutton at the festival each year.
3. PROSPERITY SANDWICHES
This sandwich gets political. During the Great Depression, Mayfair Hotel chef Edward Voegeli in St. Louis came up with the recipe for the knife-and-fork “prosperity” sandwich. What’s in the name? Apparently, an insult. The humble, albeit tasty, dish was intended as a dig at then-president Herbert Hoover and his (failed) promises that prosperity was just around the corner.
4. MULLIGAN STEW
Mulligan stew falls squarely in the category of “kitchen sink” recipes for its higgledy-piggledy collection of on-hand ingredients piled into a single pot.
Why This Recipe Works: Hoping to bring order to the mishmash of vegetables, meats, and grains used in this hearty, highly practical stew, we focused on superflavorful ingredients. Beef chuck-eye roast promised moist, tender meat loaded with flavor. We browned it, leaving behind the fond (the flavorful browned bits) to boost the beefy flavor as we added oil, carrots, onion, and allspice. Canned diced tomatoes contributed subtle sweetness, and a smoked ham hock brought incredible flavor and richness to the water-based broth. We added chewy, malty barley before bringing the pot to a simmer and moving it to the oven. We channeled the not-so-subtle Irish “mulligan” moniker, adding potatoes and mustardy turnips with fresh green beans, and left the pot in the oven for another 45 minutes. When the potatoes and turnips were almost tender and the broth was loaded with rich, meaty flavors, chopped cabbage added some hearty texture. After cooking for 15 more minutes, our mulligan stew was ready to go.
For 150 regional recipes like this, be sure to pick up a copy of Cook’s Country Eats Local.
Serves 8
Be sure to use smoked ham hock for this recipe. You should have about 2 ¾ pounds of beef after trimming.
1 (4-pound) boneless beef chuck-eye roast, pulled apart at seams, trimmed, and cut into 1 ½ -inch pieces
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1 ½-inch lengths (2 cups)
1 large onion, chopped
½ teaspoon ground allspice
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes
5 ½ cups water
1 (12-ounce) smoked ham hock
½ cup pearl barley
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
8 ounces green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths
1 ½ cups coarsely chopped green cabbage
1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Pat beef dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add half of beef and cook until well browned on all sides, about 8 minutes, reducing heat if pot bottom becomes too dark. Transfer beef to plate. Repeat with 1 tablespoon oil and remaining beef.
2. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil, carrots, onion, and allspice to now-empty pot. Cook over medium heat, scraping up any browned bits, until onion is just softened, about 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and their juice and cook until nearly dry, about 8 minutes. Add water, ham hock, barley, thyme, beef and any accumulated juices, and 1 teaspoon salt. Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Cover, transfer to oven, and cook for 1 ¾ hours.
3. Remove pot from oven; stir in potatoes, turnip, and green beans. Cover, return to oven, and cook until potatoes and turnip are nearly tender, about 45 minutes. Remove pot from oven, then remove ham hock from stew and let cool for 5 minutes. Using 2 forks, shred meat from ham hock, discarding skin and bones.
4. Stir cabbage and ham hock meat into stew. Cover, return to oven, and cook until all vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.
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