Burgoo Transcript
- [Stan] If there's a common symbol that all of them identify with, it's probably the cast iron pot, the big black kettle. All of the stew masters we've met are partial to these black behemoths that hold 50 to 100 gallons. When you fill one of them, you're cookin' for a crowd. For all these people, this has never been a small thing. It was and it is a big deal. There exists in Kentucky a legendary stew tradition called burgoo. While producing a documentary about the communal cooking of Southern stews in huge cast iron kettles, we documented a burgoo tradition in Western Kentucky. But we were only able to scratch the surface of the story of burgoo. Because this stew has a mythic quality about it and is deeply interwoven into Kentucky folk history and lore, folklorist Saddler Taylor and I knew that we would one day return to Kentucky to discover how this stew remains a part of Kentucky folklife in the 21st century. We just entered Anderson County and passed the Wild Turkey distillery, which tells me we are just outside of Lawrenceburg which is hosting the annual burgoo festival. That's our first stop.
♪ A one, two, three, four ♪
♪ Drag out the kettle and sharpen the knives ♪
♪ Something good a'coming ♪
♪ That ain't no jive ♪
♪ Get the fire burning ♪
♪ Gonna cook it slow ♪
♪ Stir it all night, man, don't ya know ♪
♪ Burgoo ♪
♪ Pipin' hot ♪
♪ Burgoo ♪
♪ Hits the spot ♪
♪ Burgoo ♪
♪ A little or a lot ♪
♪ Throw it all together ♪
♪ That's what you've got ♪
- Roadkill.
♪ Tyrone stirring six days a week ♪
- The guy that originally made it here, that has passed away now, he used to tease the kids and tell 'em that he had roadkill in there.
♪ Sunday mornin' service led us bow for prayer ♪
♪ Then it's home for dinner with the local fare ♪
♪ Burgoo ♪
- We got a specialist from the University of Kentucky to come over and give us some pointers, what would make a successful festival? And he said one of the best things you can do to have a successful one is to come up with a theme that centers around food. And so with that in mind, everybody tried to brainstorming what was local here, what was something different that they didn't see somewhere else. And they came up with burgoo because that has been a tradition apparently here in Anderson County over the years from the distilleries to churches, local community gatherings of all sorts to serve burgoo. And so that's kind of how it started.
♪ Burgoo ♪
♪ Hits the spot ♪
♪ Burgoo ♪
- Well, the church been cookin' it for about six or seven years, I think.
- [Stan] And where'd you learn it from?
- Well, I don't know, it was pretty much learned from the Warford's who's been around for, I think, four or five generations cooking around Anderson County.
- [Woman] Ladies and gentlemen, here's our queen.
- Lawrenceburg considers itself kind of the capital of burgoo in this area. And I think it's based a lot on the churches in the area where they've been doing it for years and years as fundraisers. They start out in the morning and go all day long. And at evening, people come and get their favorite burgoo, stand in line to get it.
- You know there's still some people around here that cooks it for their own, for their own gathering. And they'll use rabbits, squirrel, or whatever, you know, wild animal they like.
- I remember going to the festival a couple years ago where they had kind of an informal cook-off. I mean, they're all in a square there. Different families are cooking against each other. They're not saying it, but you can tell it by the way people go around and test it. They go over to the side and talk about who's doing the better job.
♪ In the kettle of the back road ♪ ♪ ♪
♪Pass around the hooch one, two, three ♪
♪ Cookin' up burgoo under the tree ♪
♪ Cookin' up burgoo under the tree ♪
♪ Where's that vinegar ♪
♪ Pour some in ♪
♪ Skin another rabbit ♪♪ ♪
♪ Burgoo ♪
♪It'll cure whatever's ailin' you♪
♪ Skin another squirrel ♪
♪ Throw it on in ♪
♪ Tomato and a hot sauce boilin' to the brim ♪ ♪ ♪
♪ And feed the dog ♪
♪ If it don't taste good ♪
♪ We'll feed it to the hog ♪
♪ Don't taste good we'll feed it to the hog ♪
- There's a family, local family, the Warford family that has been known for cooking burgoo for years, apparently in the community, for a lot of these community gatherings. They have several large kettles, they're familiar with what the amount of ingredients. And so we asked if they would help and they have. They very graciously helped us for several years.
♪ Burgoo cookin' in the deep, black pot ♪
♪ Better get a cup while it's good and hot ♪
- I am a good advisor. I like to advise people on what to do. And I've been advising him this morning about how to get the fire started.
- [Stan] Is that right?
- Yes sir, and he's, you can see he's taken my advice and we have a good fire under both those pots. We cook one at our church and we don't call it a burgoo, we call ours a slumgullion.
- [Stan] A what?
- A slumgullion. I've known Mr. Warford for some time, we've become quite good friends. And we share a cup of burgoo ourselves from time to time.
- Back years ago, you know, when my grandfather started. On the farm and they would, you know kill pigs. You know hogs and stuff? My grandmother would cook lard. And that's mostly what the kettles are for, you know cook lard, you know, cook stuff outside or washin' machine. You know, my grandmother would use it to wash clothes in. My grandfather made that and a little modified. Put in the salt.
- The local churches cooked it before they had a burgoo festival. And so you hear a lot of stories about it. You know that you're actually supposed to use ingredients of groundhog, possum, rabbit.
- [Stan] Wild game.
- Yeah, wild game, stuff like that. But I'm not sure what goes in the original burgoo, I suppose it's what it was. But I think there was a couple of churches that have always had a tradition of cooking burgoo and then they turned it into a festival.
♪ Burgoo ♪
♪ Pipin' hot ♪
- I made it with wild meat.
♪ Burgoo ♪
♪ Hits the spot ♪
- Rabbit, squirrel, groundhog and all that kind of stuff. Raccoon, I put all that. Deer meat.
♪ Throw it all together ♪
♪ That's what you've got ♪
- This is the first time I taste burgoo and it's a little strong and I imagine they put a damned possum in it.
- You'll find fellas to talk to. I thank you very kindly. Uh oh.
- [Interviewer] What's that?
- That must be fixin' to open some burgoo.
- You know, we're kind of in the central region of the state, around here were most beef producers in this area.
- Davey, we want to present this to you and your family. It says presented to the Davis Warford family for your contribution to the Anderson County Burgoo Festival 2005. We thank you, your father, and all the generations behind you that helped make this possible for us.
- [Davey] All right, thank you.
- [Stan] Hollie was your grandfather and we've read in some articles about him that he was called a burgoo king. What's that, what's that title mean, you reckon?
- I think really what they're meaning is because he always, he was known for making it. I mean around these parts, you know, if anybody wanted a soup made, they called him. And I mean, there was a lot of people around that helped, a lot of people that did it, but he just sorta had the name for making the soup. And it just kind of went hand in hand, you know?
- These are just clippings that I'd saved from the paper of Mr. Warford stirring burgoo. And this one was made in 77, this one was made in 80. That's an awful typical picture of anybody ever came around the burgoo used to see good daddy standing there stirring with his--
- [Stan] You remember that?
- He started when he was 10 or 11 years old, happened in Columbus McKee at the Old Joe distillery down on Gilbert's Creek. And she said it was a black man. And good daddy helped with the kindlin' and packing the water and all the stuff you do around the burgoo.
- Why do you think they would cook burgoo at the distillery?
- They do it for the employees and feed 'em at a get-together. And then that's where they used to, you're talking about bringing in different stuff, that's what people bring in. Rabbit and squirrel, that's all they had.
- This is a 1906 supplement to the Anderson News. There's a pretty good picture of what the distillery looked like back at that time. Oh, that's on Gilbert's Creek. This is the Gilbert's Creek Road. And Kentucky River would be about, oh, two mile below there or something.
- Well, we don't know if we're at the site of the Old Joe distillery, but we're at Gilbert's Creek, which is dried up now. And according to Davey, from Claylick United Methodist Church, it's six or seven hills away. I can only assume by the road that we took that we are approximately six or seven hills away, but what that tells me is the folks that grew up around here and just about everybody at Claylick grew up within a five or six mile radius of the church from what we've been told. And directions like that, comments like that reflect a very close association with the landscape, with the land. But the importance is is that it was on Gilbert's Creek and was in this area. And that's where Hollie learned a lifelong, what would be a lifelong passion, an association with burgoo.
- Our recipe is a very interesting story. There was a Colonel Bradley, Colonel E.R. Bradley from Louisiana was very, very big in the horse business. In fact, he was a breeder and a gambler, and he owned a farm here called Idle Hour Farm. And there was a horse that won that he bred and owned that won the Kentucky Derby and he named the horse Burgoo King.
- [Stan] Burgoo King.
- And that was named after a gentleman, a very good friend of his, that helped him run the farm whose name was Jim Looney. And Jim Looney, I guess, had the recipe that they used on that farm. So Colonel Bradley called him the Burgoo King and named the horse after him, the horse won the Kentucky Derby. 1926, I think it was. And my father, when he came here in 1936, became acquainted with Jim Looney and he got the recipe that he used from him. And that's how it started. Saddler, if you and Stan would like to sample our product the Keeneland burgoo, I'd be happy to take you down where we're serving it today at the horse sales.
- [Stan] Oh, can we do that?
- [Saddler] Sounds great.
- Yeah, it would be and you'll enjoy seeing the horse sales, also. It's fabulous.
- [Saddler] Sounds good.
- Well, let's do it then. But on the way down, I'll show you, 'cause right downstairs, the production space that we use to make, we're not making it there today, but during the race.
- [Stan] But this is where you make it.
- Absolutely.
- [Saddler] Oh yeah, I'd love to see that.
- Yeah, it's very impressive. So let's go on down. Here's your burgoo facility, 80 gallons. This is where it happens. I wish we were making it now because to see a guy standing here with one of these, constantly stirring. If you're gonna learn at all about racing and beauty and pageantry of it, you've come to the right place. No question. This is where you will finally sample the burgoo.
- Mm, that's good eatin', Stan. Definitely has the Keeneland signature on it. It's great.
- The Burgoo House was built at the same time this building was built. All of these improvements took place mostly after the repeal of prohibition. So this club house was built in 1933 and the Burgoo House was built about the same time. Colonel Blanton, who was a resident manager here did a lot of entertaining, political rallies, things of that sort. And they served the burgoo at those functions. And this is the Burgoo House. This was the place where they did the job. They're cast iron vessels. Great, big rascals. I don't know what the capacity is.
- [Stan] Yeah, I'd say it looks like a hundred gallons.
- I'd say probably close to it anyway.
- [Saddler] That's a big pot.
- It's a big pot. Just a place that they'd stoke it with wood and keep it burnin'.
- [Stan] And is that a match pot over on the other side of it?
- Yeah, yeah. They had two pots. For a large political rally they'd make both pots full.
- Well, you can say some finely-aged burgoo on the tip of that paddle.
- [Woman] Yummy.
- I've eaten burgoo that was made at this point from that recipe up there and it's good. I like it better than the one they do at Keeneland.
- [Stan] Now is this the Colonel's recipe?
- Yes, it's the Colonel Blanton's recipe.
- [Stan] I wonder where he got it from.
- He had a gentleman that worked with him. Robert Stepp was a black man and he was a excellent cook. And I guess the two of them together came up with the recipe, but it amounts to several different kinds of meats, vegetables, whatever's in season.
- [Saddler] What's your first memory of Colonel Blanton's burgoo?
- [Elmer] My first burgoo that I eat was when I came to work here and ate Colonel Blanton's burgoo.
- It's an oven like I've never seen before. You could put a couple of whole hogs in there if you wanted to.
- I would think they pre-cooked the meat, probably in that oven before they put it in the pot.
- I would think that could serve a couple of purposes. One, it might shorten the time you have to cook it in the pot. And then a lot of folks enjoy that smoky taste of their meat. So it would do that to the meat, as well.
- [Woman] Good and tender.
- Yeah, and you can tell that was done on purpose. This wasn't an accidental set up. Colonel Blanton knew exactly what he was doing.
- [Stan] You knew the Colonel, didn't you?
- Yes, I did.
- [Stan] What kind of fellow was he?
- [Elmer] He was a typical of the Kentucky colonels image. He was quiet. He was very knowledgeable, knew his business and he was a pretty gentle fellow.
♪ Well I've been no longer living ♪
♪ I'll no longer stray ♪
♪ Will the praise be tonight ♪
♪ The Colonel's recipe ♪
♪ Is too where I stay ♪
♪ As the miles pass by ♪
♪ Comes a smile on my face ♪
♪ I'm gettin' closer to home ♪
♪ Gone away and my appetite is strong ♪
♪ To lay back and no longer roam ♪
♪ All the folks will be there ♪
♪ At the family place ♪
♪ Singin' all happy and ♪
♪ Gathered around that old black pot ♪
♪ As burgoo simmers and gets great ♪
♪ I'm gonna lay down my burdens ♪
♪ Goin' down ♪
♪ Down by the riverside ♪
- It's made some vegetables all cooked together. I'm not sure what kind of meat they put in it.
- Well, it's a traditional Kentucky stew that has lots of different kinds of meats in it. Traditionally, it would have game in it. It's often made in enormous kettles, so it's not the kind of thing you make at home, but rather is the type of thing that community groups or often church groups makes and very traditional to Western Kentucky. It's been in Kentucky for almost two centuries. So it's a very old tradition here.
- We have run across the name Gus Jaubert and it seems to be shrouded in some legend. We've heard it first mentioned in the context of Morgan's raiders and it's taken us all the way up to 1930s horse racing in the Lexington area. So is there any way you can connect Gus Jaubert of the 1860s with evidence of his recipe at a racetrack in Lexington in the 1930s?
- Well, Saddler, I guess you have to realize how things get added together over years of time. But Jaubert, he was involved to my knowledge with Southern cooking. He was a chef and he didn't like the grease that was in a lot of the Southern cooking. So he, by this cooking it to death, of these different ingredients created what we call today burgoo. And after the war was over I don't know how old this man was, but during the Civil War, but apparently he became quite a star in serving Kentucky burgoo here in this of Kentucky. Jaubert, through the years, becomes what is called the Burgoo King. And then as he's getting older and during that time to pass on, somebody else steps up to the plate. And there were several. One was James T. Looney who was around Versailles, Kentucky. And so he did a lot of the political functions and a lot of the activities related to the horse races for Bradley for instance, who owned the Idle Hour racehorse farm. And Bradley himself named his horse Burgoo King. And in 1932, it won not only the Kentucky Derby, but it also won the Preakness.
- [Saddler] Now did Looney have direct contact with Jaubert?
- Yes, exactly. And so it's through the death of Jaubert that James T. Looney actually gets his recipe. I would think he was probably already making his own version of burgoo until he got the recipe. Then you have another person, Tandy Ellis in Louisville, who has his job with the Louisville Courier Journal. Newspaper columnist writes about it obviously, and they have, of course, the Kentucky Derby in Louisville. So they have functions around Derby time, as well. And in 1932 is when the Kentucky colonels start their annual event, which still goes on today. So you have this tie from Jaubert to Looney to Tandy Ellis to the Kentucky colonels all in the early 1930s sort of gelling together with the horse, Burgoo King.
- That's how they made it in the old days, you're exactly right. This is an old-days dish. This is burgoo and it comes to us from the old days. And this was used as a fall celebration in settlements all across this part of the country. And people came to the settlement and brought the produce that they had to make a community dish that everybody could enjoy. Now if you were a farmer, you brought produce. If you were a farmer, you brought corn or potatoes. If the men in your family were hunters, then you would bring squirrels or rabbits or whatever it was that you had. And that would go into the big, big pot. Now years ago, this is a pretty big pot, don't you think? But years ago they had even bigger pots, great big pots that would feed the whole settlement. And they'd have three or four guys up there stirring the pot, but everybody brought enough so that everybody in the settlement got to eat and it was a fall celebration. It was a good growing year. We got onions, we got potatoes, we got carrots, we got celery, we got corn. Let's make a big pot of burgoo! Cool enough, huh? Now in the olden days, they used a wooden paddle. In the days of modern health regulations, we use a stainless steel panel. I'll show ya.
- [Child] What is it?
- It's really good, I tried it one. My grandma made it.
- I haven't tried it yet, but it looks really good. And it smells good, too.
- Well, that's one of our biggest traditions here in the state. Food's important to Kentucky and traditions. And we try at the festival to have people who are part of a tradition. They're not vendors, they come as part of their family tradition or community. Burgoo, Russ Kennedy's been doing it for years and he was taught by a person who was very strong in doing political rallies and things like that. So I think he's got a recipe he won't let anybody else know about. And he's just a great guy to come in here. So he kind of fits right in with everybody else.
- [Woman] Thank you.
- [Man] You're welcome. Where are you from?
- We're from Northern Kentucky.
- Jim Conway was called the Burgoo King and Jim cooked in Anderson County, Woodford County and Franklin County. I've known Jim Conway from the time I was a little, bitty girl. And anytime anybody wanted burgoo cook, Jim was the man to call. And when I married into the Kennedy family, when I married Russ and his parents were big VFW people, well lo and behold, the first time they had a big burgoo cook, we went down there, there's Jim Conway. Jim's down there cooking burgoo. And he's got the same title, Jim Conway, Burgoo King, you know, and everybody knows Jim and they ask him the same questions. What do you put in your burgoo, Jim? Hell, I don't know, just whatever I had to throw in there today. You know, I just cleaned out the refrigerator and he'd be laughing back there and hot and sweaty. And he might've been cooking for two days, but he had a good time and he always had a crowd of people around him. It didn't matter. It could be one o'clock in the morning and he's got a crowd of people.
- This actually came over with the settlers. They would do--
- As a matter of fact, Russ' sister, Betsy, she used to stay down there with him a lot of times at the VFW or when he would do the 4th of July burgoo cook. She is the one that could take you to the VFW and meet a lot of Jim's friends that are still there. Jim has passed away and has been gone, I guess, for probably three or four years now. But there's still a lot of the men at the VFW that he cooked with that are still down there, so they could probably tell you some really good Jim Conway stories, the Burgoo King.
- [Woman] And they are doing a documentary on Kentucky burgoo and we're interested in folks who knew Jim and could talk a little bit about the man and their burgoo experiences with him.
- The man was a whole lot better than the burgoo.
- [Stan] Really?
- Yeah, I thought so. He picked up all that roadkill, put it in there. I didn't like it.
- Good man.
- [Stan] Why do you think they call him the Burgoo King? People have been talking about him as the Burgoo King.
- Well, he had his own recipe and everything else and he never would let nobody have it. What's the boy that works over at ? boys, is it?
- [Man] , that boy helped him.
- [Stan] Who helped him?
- , some out at Millville.
- [Man] Works for over here.
- That's the one that lived down at Seven Creeks where we'd have burgoo once a year.
- [Stan] Seven Creek. Tell me what Seven Creeks is.
- It's down behind Millville School. And you go on out towards Little Germany and turn right. And they call it Seven Creeks 'cause you cross the same creek seven times to get all the way down there.
- This is a picture of Jim Conway in his Roadkill Cafe t-shirt down at the Plaza, cookin' the burgoo for the fireworks. And over here, we've got a picture of Jim with his burgoo pot. And this is Ricky Caudle, who also does Jim Conway's burgoo. Oh, he did love it.
- [Stan] John!
- Hi Stan, what are you doing up here, man?
- [Stan] I'm glad you could get over here.
- A burgoo pot.
- [Stan] You're gonna take us from Central Kentucky over to Western Kentucky and over to those Catholic church parishes.
- Well I spent all afternoon tryin' to get some squirrels and rabbits to bring and get in here, but I guess we can't get away with that anymore.
- [Stan] Well look here, I want you to meet some people. Over here is a burgoo cook's wife.
- Hi my name's Susan, nice to meet ya.
- Hi Susan, I'm John Egerton.
- [Stan] John Egerton had introduced me to burgoo in Western Kentucky in the Southern Stew's documentary five years earlier. I invited him to join us as we prepared to head west to Owensboro.
- We were talking about Jim Conway.
- He's a dandy. He cast a long shadow in this town, didn't he?
- He sure did, he sure did. And that's something kind of neat. I mean, Jim was an ordinary kind of guy. Just you see him on the street and he's just another fellow but he had a legacy and he brought a lot of people a lot of enjoyment, a lot of fun for a lot of years doing his burgoo and that's what he was known for. I mean he wasn't on the New York Stock Exchange and he didn't own a yacht, but he made good burgoo and he made a lot of fun for a lot of people.
- And now there's two, three generations that come in behind him who are still interested in--
- That's exactly right. Well, we talk about Jim and we think about him all the time. I was down in Woodford County earlier today and I run into Ricky Caudle and Ricky is another one.
- He's another one.
- He's another one that learned. And he actually cooked shoulder to shoulder with Conway more than I did. I mean, as Jim got older, you know he would always take Rick with him.
- How do you think it happened that Jim Conway got to be so good at this? I mean, where did he get it from?
- I don't know. Rick will know a little bit more about his history. Rick was telling me today the first burgoo they cooked was back on Seven Creeks Road in 1947.
- He's still here even though he's not here in body, he's always here in mind and spirit. And I just kind of the way I honor him a little bit. And a lot of people are gonna be down here that grew up with him and knew him and they liked seeing it. I helped him. He was the burgoo guy and I just still helped him out. He started cooking in 1947. A bunch of 'em, they were teenage kids and when they get done in the house in the back out here, they went down on Oak Creek Road down here by the beech tree with a lard can and a bunch of junk and threw it in there. And that was their first burgoo.
- [Man] Really?
- I think they had more fun drinking the then they did cookin' the goo, so they didn't care. They just had a good time. But he did it every year except for one until he died.
- I guess his first time cooked the burgoo was down Seven Creek Road.
- I got a picture here you might wanna take a look at. But down on the river, he got a place down there probably about two miles from here. All the men would go down there for a week during the fall and they'd fish and do all kinds of things. And on Thursday at noon, this fellow here, old Bill Harris, he'd stay up all night and cook the burgoo for 'em and they'd have burgoo.
- [Stan] Where is this, Ricky?
- This is at what we call Seven Creeks or Four Acre Road, which is as the crow files it's west about two miles, right on the river.
- I think this is a location that you wouldn't be able to find without a little help from the inner circle of the Seven Creeks bunch.
♪ As the miles pass by ♪
♪ Got a smile on my face ♪
♪ I'm gettin' closer to home ♪
♪ Gone away and my appetite is strong ♪
♪ To lay back and no longer roam ♪
♪ All the folks will be there ♪
♪ At the family place ♪
♪ Singing all happy and ♪
♪ Gathered around that old black pot ♪
♪ As the burgoo simmers and gets great ♪
♪ Well, I've been no longer weary ♪
♪ And I'll no longer stray ♪
♪ We will praise be tonight ♪
♪ With Colonel's recipe ♪
♪ It's at home where I stay ♪
♪ Mm, Mm, where I stay ♪
♪ home where I stay ♪
- Well, here we are at Ricky Caudle's river cabin on the Kentucky River. And it's a good way to really kind of transport yourself back to the 18th or 19th century and imagine yourself on the Kentucky frontier, which you know in the 19th century, most of Kentucky was still a frontier. But so you can imagine yourself with your party, your hunting party down here, forging and finding what you could and throwing it in the pot, whether it was called burgoo or hunters stew or whatever name you put on it. And you've got a pile of wood over here. So you got your raw materials to get your fire going. And you've got a fire ring right here. There surely could have been a big cast iron pot right in the middle. You got benches and places for people to sit. And you got a tripod over here to hang a pot on. I'm sure that is location where maybe a smaller pot of hot water is kept to put into the bigger pot of burgoo, but that can just be surmised by how it's laid out. But it's obviously, one thing you do know for sure, it's a place where people gather and it's a place where cooking could happen. And you've got a great view of the river. You got places to sit, you got places to work. So you can just imagine a lot of talking, joking, a general good time happening right there.
- We're in deep woods here. This is a Millville, Kentucky down in a holler. As they say in Kentucky, this is a holler. The hollers are deep and knife-like. They just cut down neat because the Kentucky River runs through limestone and has worn away down to this level. And all these creeks have their own little delta-like flow in there. You've got to drive down in 'em like this. And so this is isolation personified. This is a hard place to get to because there's only one way in here and only one way out. And that is, by definition, isolation. So the people who live here are very close-knit. They have known each other all their lives. And when they come to something like the Hillbilly Daze at Millville, like we went to this this afternoon, and they see somebody cooking a big pot of burgoo like we saw Ricky doin', Ricky Caudle cooking burgoo the way his mentor taught him to cook and the guy before him, there's so much tradition. There's so much repetition. There's so much loyalty. It's not just food, it's so many things tied in together.
And I'm telling you, man, if you were to walk out here and you saw not a motorcycle going by, but King Arthur coming right down this road and he walked right into that community where Ricky is stirring that pot with that cherry paddle, King Arthur would walk up to that pot and he would say you've got Excalibur stickin' right in that pot. Rick Caudle is he is the anointed. He has had the paddle passed on to him by Mr. Jim and he takes that very seriously and so do all the others. They look at him as the new person. He's the anointed one and it's his job to make this happen and he takes that job very seriously.
Okay, now we're on our way down to Western Kentucky, down to Daviess County, where there is an entirely different tradition, an older tradition, actually then Central Kentucky for burgoo. And you remember when we came down here before, five years ago, we went down to Owensboro to St. Mary Magdalene's. Remember that? Around these parts, they've been cooking burgoo for so long nobody's left who remembers when it got started or how it got started or where the name comes from. You can be sure of this, though, burgoo is a close country cousin to other Southern stews, hashes, muddles, bogs and soups that you'll find bubblin' in big, black pots from here all the way to the Eastern seaboard. It's distinctive for several reasons. One being that the main meat, mutton, or a mature sheep, gives it a bit of a gamey, earthy flavor reminiscent of the great hunter stews of old. They're taking this dip that we watched them make this morning and a mop and they're literally ploppin' on to the hams, copious quantities of that real pungent, tangy dip sauce that they make. It livens them up, it gives them color, and it gives them flavor. And it just finishes off this meat. Isn't this a sight, though? Just look at that. 65 yards of barbecue, one end to the other. Fantastic!
They say around here that more mutton is consumed in Daviess County, Kentucky than in all the rest of the United States put together. I'd go a little bit further and say there's probably more mutton eatin' in Daviess County, Kentucky than any place this side of Beirut or Cairo. The only other people on the globe who eat as much mutton as Daviess Countians are the Muslims, the people of the Middle East. But it's big here because there's a history that goes way back to the early 19th century when they raised a lot of sheep around here. And these picnics go back to that time, too. What a phenomenal thing that was to see that barbecue pit that looked like it was as long as a football field and pot after pot of burgoo. They must have had, I mean in my remembrance of it, they had maybe 10 or 12 pots. They cooked so much burgoo and sold it all in a short period of time is amazing. Now you're telling me that they have figured out a way to mechanize the stirring of the burgoo pot. That's astonishing!
- Every paddle we got here, you got a number on it. And this here's got a number there, it matches up.
- [Stan] So each one's individual?
- Every one's individual.
- Matched in the kettles.
- Yeah, matched to kettles.
- So matched to kettles 'cause they're each different.
- [Stan] Did you design these things, too?
- I went up to John Deere and got them. Put it in there 'cause and make it easier to get in and out. When we get it started running. turn it on.
- [Stan] Now did you look at anybody else's motorized?
- [John] We looked at 'em, but I didn't like the way it looked.
- [John] This saves a lot of manpower to do this.
- [John] Yes, it sure does.
- [John] It's like you have to have, how many people, when you were using the wooden paddle, how many people would you have to have?
- [John] We tried to get two people to a kettle.
- [John] Well, that's 14, 28 people. That's a lot of people.
- See if this kettle was done, we want take it out. So we just pull these pins and drop it out. Take it out, that's how we do it. Leave it runnin'.
- [Stan] And you don't have to stop the thing.
- [John] No sir, we don't stop it.
- [Stan] So you designed it so you can take it out while it's running.
- While it's running because if we took it out and stopped all of 'em it'd be hard to start 'em all back again.
- [Stan] I see.
- [Man] Well, the mechanization of stirring should not have any effect on the actual flavor of the burgoo. All it is is a process to eliminate some manpower that was required, you know, to get the soup to the final end point. It's a big help as far as the labor that we don't have nowadays and it makes it a lot easier. And because the system is now mechanized you have more people willing to work 'cause it's not so hard as it used to be. A lot of guys just couldn't stand that long every day and stir.
- [Stan] How long would a fella be on the paddle?
- [Man] Well, if ya didn't get a relief, you'd be on there four and a half to five hours, a full cookin time, 'cause once you got your ingredients started back into the kettle and you start puttin' your potatoes and your starch ingredients back in, it had to be stirred to keep from stickin'.
- We're in Sorgho in Western Daviess County, Kentucky at St. Mary Magdalene Parish. The cooks have been busy. There's been gangs of men and boys working all day. The burgoo is now made, the mutton has been cooked. Everybody that participates, whether it's the casual visitor that buys a meal, or these people that have worked out here literally for days, maybe even weeks preparing, it brings them all together into a fellowship. It brings them all together into a common experience which makes them who they are. Anybody, particularly in Western Kentuckian, that comes to this picnic and partakes of this food is for this hour and a half or so an honorary member of this parish and certainly a mutton glutton in good standing in Western Kentucky.
- This is just something that they've always had around here and people learned to, you know, really love it and stuff. And I guess all the parishes do it.
- It's good. Chicken and mutton and pork.
- Great thing about this stuff is that if you go to Saint Alphonsus next week, it'll be just as good, but it'll be a little different. And if you go to the next parish, it'll be a little different still. All these secret treasured recipes all have got a little spin, a little twist to 'em, a little originality so that you can eat burgoo at a different picnic all summer and never get exactly the same taste twice. We forget the isolation of the farm. We've so romanticized our agricultural past that we forget that for days and sometimes weeks at a time people on the farm never saw another human being except the members of their families. And oh, when it came time for a barbecue, for a sheep killing, this was a festival the likes of which we can hardly imagine because it was so important socially to them. It was so important, not just for the food, but for the experience that took them out of the routine of their daily lives and made something really, really special out of things that were perfectly ordinary. And that's the beauty of something like this barbecue, something like this food is that it becomes not just nourishment, it's a historical document. It is a unique historical part of who we are in Western Kentucky.
- This is a picture of my granddad.
- [Saddler] This is the granddad that started it all?
- Yeah, James Eugene Greenwall that started here at Mary Magdalene.
- [Saddler] And you said he learned from his dad.
- Yeah, he learned from his dad, right, uh huh. And this, this is time here when the burgoo's almost done and I get down to doing the tweaking, so to speak, to get the flavor exactly what you wanted. You know the consistency there is real thick.
- You could bring this pot of burgoo up here for the picnic and people would identify it with St. Mary Magdalene?
- Oh yes, definitely.
- [Saddler] Same stuff. You need this one?
- Who is that?
- That's a picture of dad and granddad and grandma and all of his brothers and sisters.
- [Stan] How many of those men could cook burgoo, do you think?
- Dad. The others just didn't somehow care to do it. They liked eatin' it, but--
- [Stan] Did he know that you had a hang for it?
- Oh yes. Granddad knew that I had a hankering for it back when I was a little bitty kid 'cause granddad would teach me when all the rest of the--
- [Stan] How old?
- I was about 10 years old maybe. And he would take me aside and tell me how the seasoning went and different things. And the other cousin was runnin' around doin' nothin' and just seemed not to care, so granddad, you know, let 'em run. But I liked to do it.
- [Stan] And he knew you were interested.
- He knew I was listening and I'd pay attention and I wanted to do it.
- [Stan] You think if your great-granddad came back and took a sip out of that burgoo pot that he might say, gosh, that's pretty close? Or you think he'd say, what you guys been doin' to my burgoo?
- He would probably, because we spice it a little more than they used to, he'd probably say, what have you done to the recipe? You can take the recipe.
- [Saddler] I can take this across the state line?
- And you can try to duplicate.
- It's an Owensboro stew.
- Did you all know all that?
- No, I didn't know that.
- If you're in Owensboro, it's burgoo. If you're from somewhere else, it's burgoo, but really it's burgoo.
- They eat a lot of burgoo. Can you tell? Look at those cheeks.
- A barbecue champion overall.
- Every church in Daviess County has their own cooking team and take pride in our commodity. We think we have a good product, took 13 kettles and about 75 gallons a kettle and time $12 a gallon. So money-wise, it's a big lick. Everyone expects it. You know, when you go to a picnic and there's some things you have to have. You have to have barbecued mutton, pork, and chicken and you have to have gallons and gallons of burgoo.
- We're a city parish and there are not too many farmers that are in this parish. I was born and raised on a farm.
- It's a lot of responsibility at first, you know? And once you get into it, and you start to learn the crew a lot better and it just falls into place.
- Like Danny, our family's been making burgoo for family uses for many years. We get together and cook big pots and everybody takes a lot home and we eat and freeze and live on that for the winter. We're at a finishing process now, but all we're doin' is really keeping it warm. All the ingredients have been added, we're done cooking.
- I hear a tale that some folks around here are mechanized, they're stirrin' and they're using metal stirrers. What do you think about that?
- I don't think metal is going to make that meat and all that stuff blend together and taste as well as the wooden ones. The reason we have our wooden paddles and the reason we have 'em shaped like we are, we stay back away from that heat. That kettle gets mighty hot. You can't stand up there with a straight paddle over that heat, you gonna bake yourself.
- Right.
- [Man] We cross into Daviess County when we cross the river right there. And you can see I've outlined the county here. It's a pretty good-sized county geographically.
- You know, if history is any guide, burgoo's not in any deep trouble right now as far as its future's concerned as a ceremonial food, at least not in places like Daviess County, Kentucky and up at Millville, that little village deep in that holler that we went to up on the Kentucky River. There are too many people who have too much going for that to just fade away suddenly. You just think about Ricky Caudle and Russ Kennedy and Grady Ebelhar and Dan Thomas, all of these stew masters, these burgoo kings. These guys, they're all telling us the same thing. Yeah, it's burgoo, but it's more than that. It's about a whole lot more than what's down inside this kettle.
- [Man] You can hear that groundhog in there. You hear it? Hear it crawlin', scratchin', tryin' to get out of there?
- Yeah.
- Oh that's where it's boilin', you just hear it vibratin' through the paddle.
- Always concerned me about people that cook burgoo though I wanna make sure they're not tobacco chewers.
- I don't know if they were German or not, but they came through the Cumberland Gap and came into Kentucky and Tennessee. Used to be a lot of sheep that went out of here and sheep and Germans just got to mixin' together and they makin' the burgoo. ♪ Burgoo when the hard days through ♪ ♪ It'll cure whatever's ailin' you ♪ ♪ When the hard day's through ♪ ♪ Burgoo when the hard day's through ♪ ♪ It'll cure whatever's ailin' you ♪ ♪ When the hard day's through ♪ ♪ When the hard day's through ♪
- Well, it's almost like my Kentucky fried chicken, it's finger-lickin' good.
