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Mountain Soul Food

Scrumptious Stews

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In our families, as far back as memory runs, this season of the year was a time for stews. Rich, filling, savory, and chock full of a myriad of blended tastes, a hearty stew, accompanied by a pone of cornbread or fresh-baked batch of cathead biscuits, offered food which filled the inner being and stirred the soul. Stews also provided a fine culinary antidote to what old-timers variously described as the miseries, winter blues, cabin fever, or most often, a bad case of the mollygrubs. 

One great advantage connected to stews, beyond the essential matter of tasting good, was the manner in which they allowed utilization of pretty much whatever foodstuffs remained at winter’s end. Matters might not have run to quite the desperation of the “stone stew” associated with hoboes during the hard times of the Great Depression. Still, as the grey, grim days of late January, February, and early March held the high country firmly in their sometimes depressing grip, it was time to take stock of what remained from the putting up times of the previous summer and the autumn harvest of corn and other crops. The remaining foods on pantry shelves or other storage areas almost certainly involved various legumes such as crowder peas, limas, leather britches, and October beans; likely included root crops such as turnips, onions, parsnips, and potatoes; and rounded out the vegetable side of the stew equation with anything from winter squash to cabbage. 

 Any number of these ingredients could go into a stew, and use of dried herbs added flavor and piquancy. Yet when it came to the utmost in heartiness and flavor, the capstone of almost any stew involved some type of meat. It might be chicken, a few chunks of well-cured streaked meat, a ham bone with slivers of deliciousness still clinging to the bone and the marrow within promising additional toothsomeness, or wild game. Whatever the nature of the meat, in my family at least it was the making of the stews which gave the fullest measure of pure pleasure. Here’s a sampling using different meats.

Crockpot Beef (or Venison) Stew

In our kitchen, this stew is almost always made with venison. We try to end each fall hunting season with at least two deer in the freezer, but for non-hunters, beef works just as well and is, of course, readily available. The great advantage of this dish, beyond taste, is that once it is in the crockpot you can go about the day’s business knowing that a hearty meal requiring little further attention awaits you a few hours down the road.

Place meat, potatoes, onion, carrots, celery, and mushrooms in crockpot and barely cover with onion soup, wine, and water. Cook on medium for six hours or until meat and vegetables are tender. Add peas (and more wine and water if needed) and increase heat to high. Cook until peas are tender. If desired, the stew can be thickened at this point with a flour and water paste. Sourdough bread and a green salad make fine accompaniments.

Slumgullion

Slumgullion is a somewhat elusive term describing a stew made of leftovers. Jim’s father used the word specifically in reference to the final night’s meal in a fishing or hunting camp, with the ingredients being whatever was available. Unlike the other recipes offered here, this one is rather short on specifics for the simple reason the ingredients can vary so widely. This explains an alternative name used in other parts of the country, whatchagot stew (noted humor writer Pat McManus wrote an autobiographical cookbook, Whatchagot Stew: A Memoir of an Idaho Childhood). Whatever name is used, slumgullion is a great way to use leftovers or cobble together a hearty dish in fairly rapid fashion.

Our standard approach involves sautéing a couple of chopped onions and a garlic clove in a Dutch oven, using just enough saved bacon grease to accomplish the task. Then add some diced tomatoes (or dehydrated ones—we always use the latter and they require additional water). In a separate pan brown a pound of ground meat. When it is cooked, pour the meat and any grease it produced into the Dutch oven and add a couple of handfuls of macaroni, again adding water as needed. Stir, cover and let simmer until noodles are done. If you have other vegetables left from previous meals such as green peas, green beans, or the like, add them at the end. Serve when piping hot when the noodles are ready.

NOTE: The meat doesn’t have to be hamburger. It can be ground venison, ground turkey, a mixture of beef and sausage, game of almost any type, or even leftover roast beef which has been chopped fine.

Kale and Sausage Stew

Pork in general, including sausage, long has been an integral part of Appalachian diet and the region’s most important meat. This versatile stew, which can be varied with substitute ingredients such as turnip or mustard greens for kale, Italian sausage for traditional mountain pork sausage, or about any type of dried bean for cannellini, is wonderfully filling along with being delicious.

Tear kale leaves from the stems, saving the stems. Pile up the leaves and cut into strips with an ulu or knife. Cut the stems into small pieces and set aside. Place oil in a Dutch oven and bring to medium-high heat. Brown the sausage, using a spoon or tongs to turn so it is brown on all sides. Remove the sausage with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the potato and cook for several minutes, stirring a bit, until the pieces begin to brown. Stir in the kale stems and cook for 3 or 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic, pepper flakes, and kale leaves and cook for an additional minute. Return the sausage to the pan and add the drained beans and chicken stock, along with salt and pepper. Adjust the latter two to taste (if the stock was store bought it may already have ample salt). Reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes.

Chicken Paprikash

When Jim was in graduate school at Vanderbilt, he played semi-professional soccer for a local club, the Nashville Internationals. Much of the team was made up of Hungarians who had fled their native country at the time of the 1956 revolution, and we became close friends with them. Any time we got together for a post-game meal or during the holidays, THE key foodstuff was chicken paprikash. 

Heat lard or oil in a Dutch oven, add onion, and cook until tender and golden brown (about four minutes). Add tomato, cook a few minutes, and stir in paprika until you have a deep red color. Add chicken, stir and cook at medium low heat with lid on Dutch oven for two hours or until tender. Mix flour (or cornstarch), salt, and pepper and add to mixture, bringing to a boil. Then immediately reduce heat by adding sour cream and mixing thoroughly. Do not bring to a boil again. Serve with dumplings or over noodles. 

Squirrel Brunswick Stew

Although things have changed dramatically over the course of the last two generations, there was a time in our youths when squirrel hunting was the most popular of all American field sports, and the animal’s meat featured prominently in Appalachian fall and winter menus. Our families welcomed squirrel as a main dish, and a stew was one way to make just a couple of bushytails go a long way.

Cut squirrels into pieces. Heat four quarts water to boiling and add salt, onion, beans, corn, bacon, potatoes, pepper, and squirrel pieces. Return to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for two hours. Add sugar and tomatoes and simmer for an hour or until squirrel and vegetables are tender. Ten minutes before completing stew, add butter pieces rolled in flour (this helps thicken and flavor the stew). Heat to boiling again and taste to see if any seasoning adjustment is needed. Serve piping hot with a pone of cornbread or cathead biscuits. Contents can be doubled to feed a larger group.

About the author: Jim Casada’s latest book, A Smoky Mountain Boyhood: Memories, Musings, and More, was recently published by the University of Tennessee Press. Copies are available at jimcasadaoutdoors.com or the standard Internet sources.

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