Friday, March 13, 2009

This Fascinating History of Chicken Stew

By KC Kudra

If you are thinking about a warming, hearty dinner, chicken stew is one of those recipes that always spring to mind. You can make lots of different versions of chicken stew and this dish has a very interesting history spanning thousands of years.

A stew is two or more different foods simmered together in a liquid. Hungarian goulash, beef stroganoff, coq au vin, and beef bourguignon are all stews.

The "Apicius de re Coquinaria" is the oldest cookbook ever discovered. It contains fish and lamb stew recipes, although chicken had been domesticated by then too. There were three Romans with that name living between 1 BC and 2 AD and the book is believed to have been compiled by one of them.

You can actually go back even further because primitive tribes used to boil foods together, which is what a stew essentially is. Amazonian tribes uses turtle shells as pans and would boil the turtle entrails with some other ingredients. Other cultures used large shells, such as clamshells, instead of pans. Archeological evidence points to this type of cookery going back seven or eight thousand years. The invention of pottery, about ten thousand years ago, made cooking stews easier.

Chicken has been domesticated for thousands of years and chicken stew recipes have been enjoyed throughout history too. Different cultures have different types of chicken stews. Examples include spicy Indian curry chicken stew and the chicken in black bean sauce, which is favored in Cuba.

Different Kinds of Chicken Stew Recipes

Chicken booyah is a very flavorful chicken recipe. It is like a thick soup or a thin stew and is very popular in northeast Wisconsin. The first Belgian immigrants arrived in Wisconsin in 1853 and they spoke Walloon rather than English or French. It is thought that the word booyah derived from the word bouillon and a Belgian who did not know how to spell bouillon just wrote down how the word sounded to him.

What is Southern Chicken Stew?

You might have tried southern chicken stew, which is a traditional North Carolina dish. This stew contains a parboiled whole chicken in a milk or cream based broth, butter, salt, and pepper, amongst other ingredients. Southern chicken stew varies in color from white to yellow, depending how much butter has been used. It varies from thin in consistency to creamy and thick. It is common to serve saltine crackers with this dish.

This dish is often served in the coldest months and "chicken stew" can refer to a get together or gathering where this food is served, rather than the food itself. Chicken stew recipes are often thought of as comfort food because they are comforting to eat and simple to prepare. Chicken stew is commonly served at social get togethers, such as church fellowships, community fundraisers, and family reunions.

At these events, the chicken stew will often be prepared in a big stainless steel or cast iron cooking pot, perhaps outdoors over an open fire. You might get rice, coleslaw or grilled cheese sandwiches served on the side.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment