Eat this, Kentucky! Transcript
Prologue
(Gentle folk music starts)
Domita Pettus-Love: It bothers me to hear “I’m hungry.” You know, I’ll feed a stranger. I have you know. And it's just, food is good for your soul. A piece of cake can tell a story.
Gwynn Henderson: I am confident, just like today, there were men or women, traditionally, the inference is women who were known far and wide for their cooking skills, in the past. There's no doubt in my mind. I just wish we knew their names and I wish we had their recipes. So that we could honor them.
Sarah Bradley: To look back at how did our grandparents do it? This is how they ate, they didn't eat when things were out of season. And if they did eat it when it was out of season, it was because they had preserved they had canned it. They had put it up.
Austin Carter: Hey Ariel!
Ariel Lavery: Hello!
Austin Carter: So I’m going to paraphrase wrestling icon, The Rock, here, to ask, from those clips ‘can you smell (Drawn out)…
(The Rock: “If you smell what the Rock is cooking” audio)
Austin Carter: ...what I’m cooking’ for this episode?
Ariel Lavery: (Confused) Um… I know the Rock but I have no idea what this paraphrase is you’re talking about.
Austin Carter: (Disappointed) You’ve never watched “wraslin’”? (Ariel laughs) Oh nevermind. Well what do you think we’re talking about today?
Ariel Lavery: (Cautiously) Well, I guess it’s fair to assume that you’ve been talking to some folks about food!
Austin Carter: You’re absolutely right! And more specifically, food traditions in Kentucky, some of which I grew up with and still enjoy and some that are being rediscovered. And I really want to talk to you about this! And I was wondering if you have any meals or recipes that just make you think of a specific person or time in your life?
Ariel Lavery: Sure! I guess spaghetti and meatballs always just conjure up an image of my dad laboring over the stove. He had a very specific way of doing it. And he would make a huge vat that he would then put in the fridge and we would eat from for the entire week.
Austin Carter: I think everybody has those foods that conjure up things for them and Kentuckians are no exception.
(Inspirational Folk Theme Starts)
Austin Carter: But that shared experience is one of the amazing things about how people relate to food. So I want to kind of explore this idea of what all a recipe can do. How it can take you somewhere. How it can tell a story. How it can revive something that’s been lost.
Ariel Lavery: I love talking recipes. My experience of Kentucky food has admittedly been limited, but I think learning about family recipes or regional recipes can help tell a story...tell the history of a place. Do you have a recipe picked out to share?
Austin Carter: Of course! And I am stirring up a very meaty stew for you today. I’m Austin Carter.
Ariel Lavery: And I’m Ariel Lavery. And from WKMS and PRX. This is
(Austin and Ariel Together): “Eat This, Kentucky!”
Ariel Lavery: Hey that was pretty good.
(Both laugh)
Austin Carter:: On, Middle of Everywhere. Big stories from the small places we call home.
Scene 1 - Burgoo
Ariel Lavery: Okay Austin, so what’s a recipe that just screams Kentucky for you?
Austin Carter: Well, I can tell you that it’s not Kentucky Fried Chicken even though it’s pretty tasty. But one that immediately comes to mind is a dish that I not only associate with Kentucky but also with my Dad called burgoo.
Ariel Lavery: Oh okay yeah. I’ve heard of it through you and some other folks here at the station but it was not something I was aware of before I moved to Kentucky. I’d never heard of this.
Austin Carter: I most associate it with the Owensboro area because that’s where my dad was from and always where I was offered it. So I spoke to a burgoo expert named Keith Cook, he manages Old Hickory Barbecue in Owensboro.
Keith Cook: A lot of people don't know what Burgoo is. It's kind of like a vegetable soup. Only we cook, mutton, pork and chicken in with ours. Everybody kind of does it a little bit different. It originated from a Brunswick stew, which a lot of people would use squirrels or rabbits as the meat in and just throw in their vegetables in it. And it just kind of once it got to this region, with the sheep already being here at the time, it just kind of adapted to that.
Ariel Lavery: I know about mutton but you’ve told me that’s also kind of a specialty there too right?
Austin Carter: Yep. Barbecued sheep for those who don’t know, which was immensely popular with the early Scottish and Irish settlers of this area. And at Old Hickory they smoke their mutton about 20 hours with hickory smoke in these huge smokers. And they sell literal tons of it on its own and add a healthy amount to their burgoo too.
Ariel Lavery: So the burgoo is just kind of like a really meaty frontier stew?
Austin Carter: Exactly. Does that sound appetizing to you?
Ariel Lavery: Well my household usually trends vegetarian but I am always open to a new food adventure!
Austin Carter: Well that’s good because I’ve got some from Old Hickory for us to try later on. But I think it’s also kind of interesting that you mention the word “frontier” because burgoo does have some more similarities to a bygone time. In fact, Old Hickory Barbecue itself kind of tells one story of Kentucky. John Foreman is the 4th generation owner of the restaurant.
John Foreman: My great great grandfather, he was a blacksmith and the Catholic churches kind of started doing their picnics and stuff and he started to help cook for them. And I guess it just kind of took off from there. He did really well then for a while, his blacksmith shop he had the blacksmith on one side and the pit on the other side. And he would kind of do both until the blacksmith obviously faded out. But he used to, he would sleep there he had a cot and he would just stay there all night and I think I’m pretty sure he died in that cot next, you know in that room next to his pit.
Ariel Lavery: Wow. That’s dedication to your craft.
Austin Carter: Barbecue is serious business!
(Both laugh)
Ariel Lavery: So I can’t wait to try this, but I’m curious about the origins of this dish. So before the mutton came in, it was kind of this big wild game stew right?
Austin Carter: Exactly. And Kentucky still has a huge hunting culture. My family liked to hunt squirrel and many people I know hunt deer, turkey, rabbit, quail, ducks and anything else there’s a season for. And actually, when I was a kid, we were mistakenly taught that Native Americans used Kentucky exclusively as a hunting ground and didn’t actually live here. And thus the origin of the word Kentucky in their languages meaning, “dark and bloody ground.”
Ariel Lavery: “Dark and bloody ground”? I’ve never heard that before, that’s so crazy. So what’s the mistaken part?
Austin Carter: Well, pretty much all of it. It was a pioneer myth, based off a comment from a Cherokee named Dragging Canoe, that got turned into a justification for selling land in Kentucky, that was supposedly not claimed by any group. A myth that made its way into “history.” But the idea of there being an abundance of wildlife though is pretty accurate.
(Thoughtful music starts)
Ariel Lavery: So obviously, today we know that native peoples lived in Kentucky for millennia right? Since you brought them up, and this whole episode is about food, it makes me wonder what they were eating.
Austin Carter: Me too. Let me introduce you to someone I talked to who knows a lot about the first people of Kentucky
Scene 2 - The Communal Stew
Gwynn Henderson: My name is Gwynn Henderson. I'm the Education Director at the Kentucky Archaeological Survey. My research interest is the native peoples who live in the Ohio Valley, particularly in Kentucky.
Austin Carter: So when I first talked to Gwynn, I asked her about some accounts I’d read from early Europeans in Virginia, that said native people there would have a near constant stew pot going where those who hunted or gathered food for the day could add to or eat from as needed.
Gwynn Henderson: Well that sort of reminds me of Burgoo. You know, the pots on the fire. You're putting a diversity of meats and vegetables in. You take out you add you take out you add. Kentucky Burgoo is all different kinds of meats., but it's my understanding that Burgoo initially was mainly wild animals, you know, like deer, and bear and elk and possums and raccoons and rabbits and squirrels and that kind of thing.
Ariel Lavery: That constant pot of stew you can eat from all day long, that’s like my ideal culinary scenario! (both laugh) So people in Kentucky could have been eating something like burgoo for a very long time!
Austin Carter: Exactly. But the answer to your question of what native peoples ate is a little more nuanced.
Gwynn Henderson: It sounds like a rather simple question, right? What did native peoples eat. But you know, when you unpack that, it's significantly more complex. Of course, native peoples were eating animals and plants, but it depends on what time as to what animals and what plants.
Ariel Lavery: Oh yeah okay. So at different times through history or in different places people ate different things. But What would an example of that be.
Austin Carter: Of course. And one example Gwynn and I talked about was native nut trees in Kentucky. She said at one point in time, native people ate a whole lot of Black Walnuts. But then at a certain point in time, they changed over and started eating a whole lot of Hickory nuts.
Ariel Lavery: Interesting. Did she say why?
Austin Carter: She said they don’t really know. It could have been some environmental change like more nuts of one tree being produced, or just a change of taste. But about 3000 years ago, something significant happened.
(Delicate music enters)
Gwynn Henderson: Around 1000 BC, native peoples throughout Kentucky started experimenting with plant domestication. And some of the best evidence is in the dry rock shelters of Eastern Kentucky, but also in some of the caves. And so these folks were domesticating native plants for the seeds so they ate the seeds but also the leaves. But they also domesticated squash, local native squash, and so they would grow these plants in gardens and so they would be eating these plants side by side with the wild ones that they continued to collect.
Austin Carter: And over the next two millenia, native peoples in Kentucky and all across the Americas would continue to domesticate plants and save seeds. And by way of exchange with other native peoples, by 900 AD, people in Kentucky had implemented a method of growing 3 of these important plants in harmony, corn, beans and squash.
Ariel Lavery: The Three Sisters!
Austin Carter: You’ve got it!
(Delicate music swells and fades)
Scene 3 - The Three Sisters
Austin Carter: Okay Ariel. So tell me what you know about the Three Sisters.
Ariel Lavery: Well, I know they are three plants, corn, beans, and squash, like you said, that were grown together, as if a single crop, by native peoples. The way these plants grew they support each other’s growth. The corn, being tall and stable served as a sort of trellis for the beans, the squash shaded the ground around the bottom of the crop, keeping out weed overgrowth and It was a truly amazing trio.
Austin Carter: I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that as a mostly vegetarian you’d know about this relationship that Gwynn called an “agricultural triumvirate.”
Ariel Lavery: See my vegetarianism comes with some pretty cool background.
(Both Laugh)
Austin Carter: Fair enough! But do you know why the Three Sisters is so cool from a scientific and agricultural standpoint?
Ariel Lavery: Sort of, but I could use more explanation.
Gwynn Henderson: It depends on a plant like corn which is a tall nitrogen removing plant. Beans, which is a vining plant, which is a nitrogen fixing plant.
Austin Carter: Which means it converts nitrogen from the air and returns it to the soil as a plant nutrient.
Gwynn Henderson: And then squash which grows down on the ground and covers so when you plant corn, beans and squash in a hill, you have this complementarity this sustainability
Ariel Lavery: Its so amazing how that works! And how native peoples were able to discern these beneficial relationships between the plants.
Austin Carter: I know. But it came from intimate knowledge of these plants gained over thousands of years of growing and experimenting with them through curiosity and necessity. You don’t need a formal scientific explanation of why it works, only the time and hard earned lessons of experience and observation. Gwynn explained it simply.
Gwynn Henderson: They were organic farmers and they had the fresh stuff. There wasn't any option to not be fresh unless they had dried it, you know, something salted it and dried it that kind of thing.
Ariel Lavery: That’s so funny to think about it in those terms. We think about things like “organic farming” or “farm to table” as these modern inventions when it’s really just kind of, the way it’s always been. Or at least used to be.
Austin Carter: Exactly. And Gwynn brought up another great point about how much is involved with being able to rely on a certain food as a dietary staple.
Gwynn Henderson: You know, it's not just the food eating it's knowing how to grow the food, how to capture the food, how to process the food, how to store or, or preserve the food,
Ariel Lavery: Living in that way is a totally different awareness of where your food comes from and what it takes to preserve it than most people have nowadays.
Austin Carter: So true. And Gwynn also mentioned that food was just one aspect of knowing these plants and environment. Native people also knew which parts of plants could be used for dyes, or fiber, or medicine so that nothing went to waste.
Ariel Lavery: I wish we were more concerned with reducing or repurposing waste.
Austin Carter: Me too. But when it comes to recipes the amazing thing is that those traditions are carried on in some way when you prepare a three sisters meal or a bean-y chili, or even burgoo, though we may not know exactly the recipes of Kentucky’s first people. Gwynn said one thing is for certain. There have always been people among us, renowned for their cooking abilities,
(Gentle Banjo Music Starts)
Gwynn Henderson: I just wish we knew their names and I wish we had their recipes so that we could honor them.
Ariel Lavery: What a great sentiment. I wish that too. But maybe we kinda honor them in growing and preparing the plants that these people worked so hard to establish and preserve for the future.
Austin Carter: I agree. And also by embracing a more intimate awareness of your food and not letting it go to waste. But every culture has those traditions that are enshrined in their recipes, and people who delight hungry mouths by profession or conviction. After a short break, we’ll meet two people who have different backgrounds but are both amazing cooks.
Scene 4 - “Mama Jo”
Ariel Lavery: So Austin, before the break we started to talk about the people who are renowned for their recipes or cooking ability.
Austin Carter: We did. And in this current landscape of celebrity chefs and fine dining, we know of many people who are celebrated for their cooking in that way. And we’ll talk to one of them soon. But, I met someone who is a completely self-taught and intuitive cook, and her food stirs up just as much pleasure as any 5 star restaurant.
Domita Pettus-Love: I’m Domita Pettus-Love. I’m from Hopkinsville, KY.
Austin Carter: It’s more likely though that you’ll hear folks call her by a different name.
Domita Pettus-Love: I love taking care of people. And I gained that name Mama Jo, because of that. (laughs) I got that name by helping others and just they Mama Jo Mama Jo. Some of them older than me, some of them old enough to be my grandmother. But I'm Mama Jo with them. And I love that, you know, I love it when they call me Mama Joe,
Ariel Lavery: I love her already.
Austin Carter: I know. She really has that effect on people. I’ve been quoting Mama Jo to my wife like everyday since I met her. But a quick aside about Hopkinsville. People think of Kentucky usually as a pretty white place right?
Ariel Lavery: Since I live here now, I know that is untrue, but I think that’s what a lot of people outside Kentucky think.
Austin Carter: So that perception is not wholly untrue in some parts of the state, but, without going into a lot of history, Hopkinsville has always had a significant and vibrant African American community. Of which, Mama Jo is a part.
Ariel Lavery: I think this is the first time you’re passing up an opportunity to give us a history lesson.
(Both Laugh)
Austin Carter: I know! And it’s only because I want to focus on Mama Jo here and the wisdom she’s so willing to share.
Domita Pettus-Love: You know a lot of people holla, you know, “we have nothing to eat.” My logo is if you have a loaf of bread. You got a meal. So I've done so much with a piece of bread.(laughs) But it's just my passion.
Ariel Lavery: She sounds like she truly loves to cook. And loves to help people.
Austin Carter: She really does. And she started learning to cook early in life. Her mother passed away when she was 8 years old, but despite that tragedy, she was lucky to have aunties, uncles, and grandparents around to guide her. And that’s how she learned to cook.
Domita Pettus-Love: On Sundays they would like, “you cook this,” you know and tell someone else “you cook that.” Because they knew the tasting and the difference in the food where you was good at. So if I made the best dressing, at Thanksgiving I did the dressing. You know and if one was good, my sister was good on green beans. “You cook the green beans.” And it was just all the love and the flavors. We just put it together and have a good time.
Ariel Lavery: That shared experience of preparing food is a beautiful thing. And it may have been a bit more common in the past.
Austin Carter: I think maybe it was and I feel like it also hearkens back to some of the Native American traditions we talked to where different people in a tribe would contribute to common meals at certain times. But Mama Jo’s cooking is just good, southern home cooking as she described. And as a southern boy who always loved to watch my grandma in the kitchen, I had to ask Mama Jo how she deals with one of my favorite southern staples, gravy.
Ariel Lavery: Yum.
Domita Pettus-Love: Red Eye gravy is a very hard gravy. Old boy gravy.
Ariel Lavery: Wait, what is “Red Eye Gravy?”
Austin Carter: Okay so red eye gravy is a gravy made with the grease from country ham and coffee.
Ariel Lavery: Ohhh-kay. (with trepidation)
(Country Theme Starts)
Domita Pettus-Love:I had one to walk in at a place that I worked at. And they were from some part of Kentucky. I knew it was the hills you know. And I was eavesdropping. And I heard the lady say, “please Is there anybody in here knows anything about red eye gravy?” And I had some of them much older than me 65 and 70 kind of patting and making pies and stuff. I laughed and she was panicking. I just went to the stove. Found a piece of country ham in the refrigerator I put it into the skillet. Then I got a cup of coffee. Poured it on top of the skillet. Put a little bacon grease got me a tablespoon of flour kind of sizzle around black pepper, and watched it for about 30 minutes and let it boil got thick. Poured a little bit of Coca Cola in it. When I got through, She just come and hug me like to pick me up off the floor. She said they left you a $20 tip. She said they said they never taste the red eye gravy like this in their life. And I told her I said babe and my granddad was 96 when he passed away. I watched him do that every morning. And I was like What is he doing? And he will pour it over his biscuits. I said why is he pouring coffee over it. I thought he was kind of going crazy. And only difference was he watched a Nana make it but then he just didn't put the thickener in it.. So I went from there with granddad and watched him and added a little flour. And he started doing it himself. And I'll say your gravy about better than mine. He said I know it's my recipe. (Both Laugh)
Ariel Lavery: So after hearing this clip I’m adding bacon to our grocery list. (laughs) She’s such a storyteller!
Austin Carter: I know. The day we talked I told her I could sit and listen to her tell stories all day! She told me another great story about an asparagus casserole.
(Thoughtful Music Starts)
Domita Pettus-Love: I cooked for our older couple retirees up to where they was both one was 96. And one was 97 here in Hopkinsville and she asked me to fix an asparagus casserole. And I laughed because I didn’t like asparagus and I'd never heard of it. And I said “baby, I don't know anything about an asparagus casserole.” She said do not take wrong what I'm fixin to say to you. I say Yes, ma'am. She was 97 years old. She say can you read? I kind of looked at her. She said can you write? I said yes ma'am. She said read everything and follow everything that that piece of paper says. She said you cooked it then, it’s done. And it stuck with me all my life from there to now, you know, I like if you got a recipe and you follow it and do exactly what the papers say. It might turn out just right. So that's what I do I listen well, and I really twist some things for a new flavor or something. And if it's a boo boo, I don't say nothing about it. But if it kind of take off then I make sure I remember every step that I took to make sure that stays the same, you know, consistent with it. I try not to change something somebody already fell in love with I try to keep it the same then I write it down as a recipe. And then I continue to follow that.
Ariel Lavery: It’s interesting you described her as an intuitive and experimental cook, because she also seems to have a respect for following recipes.
Austin Carter: You’re right. She does a little bit of both. But when it comes to her recipes she’s a little tight lipped. She even made a joke to her niece when she called asking for a recipe.
Domita Pettus-Love: She called me one Thanksgiving. She said “auntie.” I said “Yes”. She said, Please give me the recipe to your macaroni and cheese. That's my baby. That's my heart. Right? I said, Well, you know, we from the Bush family, you know, and I'm the dog and I hope we can’t give away nothing. She said, I promise you Aunt Jo, I’ll take it to my grave with me. And she’s still like that.
Austin Carter: But it’s not all about following a recipe for Mama Jo. She likes to explore flavors and make use of what she has on hand.
Domita Pettus-Love: Once you learn that dish, you twist it and feed and cook it the way you want to. Because you have the basic and it's excellent and I'm tasting it but if you want to add bacon sometime I add tomatoes and chicken. You know to macaroni and cheese. You know and twist it so a lot of times they thinking they’re getting the same macaroni Aunt Jo cooked for 34 years. No they don't I twist it sometimes. You know cause I get tired, but I want a different flavor you know.
Ariel Lavery: Man I’m getting hungry. Did you get to sample any of her cooking?
Austin Carter: Oh my. Yes I did. The day I went she’d made ribs, green beans and potatoes and cornbread and we sat, socially distanced on her front porch and ate lunch and just talked. It may be the part that made me feel like I understood her passions the most. She loves to feed people, make them happy, and she loves to just sit down and talk about each other’s lives over a warm meal.
Ariel Lavery: That’s sounds so wonderful. Did you get any recipes?
Austin Carter: Well, she shared one from her childhood that I think calls back to what we were talking about earlier of not wasting food and making the most of what you have. And it also just happens to be another meaty stew.
Domita Pettus-Love: My grandmother, Mary Helen Bell, she's deceased. I watched her. She had a heart. She had kidneys. She had two onions. She had potatoes, brains, everything from a cow. I didn't know what it was. And I kept smelling the aroma. Oh my god, you know, it's like you’re cooking beef roast. It was called pluck stew. Its made from every organ of a cow. You cut it up, you fry it. You batter it a little flour. You saute it and get a crisp body. Then you get your potatoes cut up. Ah a little bit of chicken beef broth, whichever but I like to use beef broth, bullion. Make a little kick with it. Stir constantly, add your warm water until it thickens and you have a plucks too.But that was number one in a black family coming up in the heart days of coming up. You didn't throw nothing away.
(Sentimental Music Starts)
Ariel Lavery: So even though Mama Jo comes from a different background than the native Kentuckians we talked about earlier, her tradition embraces the same principles as those early people, use what you have available and make the most of it. Don’t let anything go to waste.
Austin Carter: Yeah and that is what really stuck with me the most from talking with Mama Jo. And it has affected the way I’ve been cooking at home. The idea that we shouldn’t let things go to waste and it’s kind of a tragedy to let food just spoil is really, really important. But we live in such a culture of waste that I think we forget about that a lot of times. So it’s really stuck with me. And there is another trend in recent years that also harkens back to those traditions.
Scene 5 - Sarah Bradley
Austin Carter: Ariel, with the pandemic you may not have eaten out much lately, but I’m sure you’re familiar with this trend in restaurants of being “farm to table.”
Ariel Lavery: Sure. It’s exploded over the past few years as people have more interest in eating local and knowing where their food comes from, especially in urban and suburban areas.
Austin Carter: Yep. And even here in western Kentucky, we have a celebrated chef who runs a farm to table restaurant in Paducah. Her name is Sarah Bradley, and among her accolades, she was runner up on Season 16 of Top Chef.
Ariel Lavery: Yeah! I’ve been to her restaurant, The Freight House. It’s awesome!
Austin Carter: I know, right? So Sarah’s family includes both Appalachian coal miners and Jewish immigrants, with both sides calling Kentucky home. And she sees some similarities in both of their cooking traditions.
Sarah Bradley: I think that the common thread between Jewish cooking and Appalachian cooking is the ability and the almost pride in using ingredients that are off cuts. Using ingredients that are inexpensive, using ingredients to the fullest and not wasting a single bit of them. And so I think that that gave me a lot of the outlook that I have today where we are a “waste not” restaurant. We really strive to not put anything in the trash.
Austin Carter: Sarah also said that it sometimes takes takes new customers a little bit to come around to the way they do things.
Sarah Bradley: We are a hyper seasonal restaurant. We may only have strawberries for a month. You know, we may only have asparagus for a month. And right now you're not going to see asparagus and strawberries on our menu because they're not in season. I think one thing that's hard for people to realize around here is tomatoes. Like we only serve tomatoes when they are perfect and ripe and beautiful. So we get about three months out of tomatoes, and then they're gone for the rest of the year. You know, when people say well, I want a tomato on my burger and we're like, sorry, its the middle of January we don't have tomatoes and and I think that that's taken some people getting used to but some people really appreciate it.
Ariel Lavery: I think a lot of people, myself included, don’t often think about how amazing and sort of unnatural it is to be able to get whatever food you want, anytime of year at the grocery.
Austin Carter: Yeah. It’s really kind of a new phenomenon, and some people would argue that the mass produced vegetables you get out of season, lack a lot of the flavor of fresh veggies from the garden or farm stand.
Ariel Lavery: Right. I try not to buy tomatoes from the grocery store any more because they just don’t taste good.
Austin Carter: What’s not new though, is farm to table. It’s really the way most people have always eaten. What is unique about restaurants like Freight House and Sarah’s approach to cooking is the way she reinterprets classic Kentucky dishes like “The Hot Brown,” which has a very pragmatic origin.
(Playful Music Starts)
Sarah Bradley: So the Hot Brown, yes, obviously The Brown Hotel.
Austin Carter: An historic hotel in Louisville, Kentucky.
Sarah Bradley:The hot Brown was created to feed drunk people. It's two o'clock in the morning. People are down partying in the bottom of the Brown Hotel. What can the chef come up with? And it's like bread with shaved Turkey and cheese sauce all over it and bacon and tomatoes like this wasn't a fancy meal.
Ariel Lavery: The hot brown doesn’t really sound all that appetizing to me if I’m being honest.
Austin Carter: No. Well listen to how Sarah does it.
Sarah Bradley: So ours is served on local Kirchoff’s Big Boy bread that they bake just for us. It has like cheddar and carmelized onions in it. So that’s the bottom of the dis. We toast that on our griddle. Next it's a sweet tea brine chicken breast that's butter poached to cook it. So we're not just doing shaved turkey we're doing these really nice chicken breast. Brining them in sweet tea so we don't have to throw the sweet tea away at the end of the night. Poaching it in butter to heat it so it's super tender, super juicy, covering in an mornay which is you know, like the classic French bechamel but it has lots of cheese in it. Sometimes when we're trying to explain it to people we just say like it's a cheese gravy, heirloom tomatoes, big slice of heirloom tomatoes and then we topped it off with a double cooked piece of slab bacon. We crush that up on the griddle and put it right on top. So we've recreated the whole entire dish. We've just thrown a lot more attention to detail in every single aspect of it.
Ariel Lavery: Wow. I need some napkins, my mouth is watering.
Austin Carter: Mine too. The Hot Brown is pretty famous though. Sarah also talked about other Kentucky staples that are lesser known.
Sarah Bradley: I think the ones that people forget to mention that have some historical significance are like barbecued mutton. And then you know you talk about that then you got to talk about burgoo. I kind of like to call it like Kentucky's gumbo, you know, it's this really meaty, dark rich stew with lots of meats in it you know, lots of wild game and that was done because it was you know, it was a necessity. This is what they had these parts and those parts and they put them in a pot and stir them up.
Ariel Lavery: I should have known you’d bring it all back to burgoo somehow!
Austin Carter: I know, I’m pretty transparent.! It just kind of makes me really happy to think about people in KY, from the present to the distant past, whose lives and cultures can seem so different, all sharing a love for the cultivation and preparation of these similar recipes.
Ariel Lavery: That shared connection can feel really gratifying. Especially if you’ve grown, harvested and prepared the food. Or even just knowing it was locally or organically grown. I think people are rediscovering how fulfilling it is to be more intimately involved with the food they eat and how to prepare it. But since you brought burgoo back up, and we’ve talked about all this amazing food, is it finally time for me to get to try it?
Austin Carter:: Okay Ariel. I will let you try some now. Are you ready to take part in this truly Kentuckian experience?
Ariel Lavery:: Yes, please.
Scene 6 - Conclusion
Austin Carter:: Let’s warm up our Old Hickory Barbecue burgoo!
[Microwave cooking noise and timer beep]
Austin Carter:: All right. So that felt like it took forever.
Ariel Lavery: Well it takes longer to actually make the stuff, like 3 or 4 hours right?
Austin Carter: Yeah. So what do you think so far? The smell, the look.?
Ariel Lavery: It smells really good. Good. I'm a little bit glad that we're not doing this in front of him because this is reminding me of a dish that they used to make in my elementary school cafeteria. The smell. It could have been sloppy joes. I can't remember. It's been a long time
.
Austin Carter: Well, hopefully, hopefully that's somewhat of a good memory you know, I guess I mean, it smells. I know having had their barbecue sauce like that's part of the kind of barbecue smell you're gonna get. But I don't know. Are you ready?
Austin Carter: Or we just want to try it.
Ariel Lavery: I'm ready to dig in right?
Austin Carter: Let's go.
(Eating Sounds)
Austin Carter: What do you think?
Ariel Lavery: It's very tasty.
Austin Carter: Super flavorful.
Ariel Lavery: And I'm really liking those like little crunchy vegetables I'm getting in there. That's really nice texture. Honestly, I think what I was expecting was something much chunkier. Like, maybe when I hear stew I'm thinking of like big chunky vegetables and chunky pieces of meat. But this is very smooth in a way.
Austin Carter: Yeah, that's good. Mm hmm. It's definitely you know, my memory of it. I was kind of afraid of it as a child just because it's, you know, it's just a big stew and I didn't really like vegetable soup and wasn't a huge mutton fan. But, you know, as an adult, it's it's, it's pretty good.
(Gentle Folk Music Starts)
Austin Carter: Do you feel like more of a Kentuckian now that you’ve tried burgoo?
Ariel Lavery: Not necessarily more Kentuckian, but... But I’m thinking more about how this whole thing started with your memories and experience of burgoo. And this whole idea of the stew pot. And it’s always going and people can add and take away. But it’s always there. And that kind of seems like a fitting metaphor for recipes as a part of culture. Cultures renew and change recipes as time goes on. They borrow and blend. Just like that stew cooking away.
Austin Carter: I think that’s a great way to view it. No matter how recipes and food change and evolve over time. We’re all connected to this fundamental experience. Adding, taking away, blending and sharing. On and on, forever.
Episode Credits:
You can find lots more information about our show at our website middleofeverywherepod.org. While you’re there you can sign up for our newsletter so you’ll always be the first to know about exciting updates and new episodes. This episode of Middle of Everywhere was produced by me, Austin Carter, with editorial help from my cohost, Ariel Lavery. Our Editor is Naomi Starobin. Our theme music was composed and recorded by Time on the String sound studio in Paducah, Kentucky. Other scoring was from APM music. Marketing and sponsorship support comes from Dixie Lynn. Our intern is Serenity Rogers. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at middleofeverywherepod. Middle of Everywhere is a production of WKMS and PRX. This program is made possible, in part, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private organization funded by the American people.