Sunday Supper Booyah

The term "booyah!" has grown popular as an expression of satisfaction or praise. To locals of Brown, Kewaunee and southern Door counties, "a booyah" is also an event - a church picnic, family reunion or any special occasion where the community gathers to savor its one-pot-feeds-all connection. Associated with the Belgian Americans of northeastern Wisconsin, booyah can be prepared any time of the year. Indeed, it's been said that the area's early booyah feasts hark back to settlers' harvest festivals, in particular to the Belgian Kermiss celebrations of the 19th century. It's a broader-based foodway of the Great Lakes region, one probably related to the boiled meals that the area's first peoples prepared over open fires. They shared their soupy stews of wild game (or fish) and vegetables with missionaries and French fur traders, who in turn used their own terms to describe the concoctions. The name that stuck may have the same root as the French bouillon, meaning soup or broth. And sure enough, no matter how many Belgian cookbooks I've pored through over the years, I've never found a recipe that reads like the booyah - soup or event - I know. No matter. Long-simmered, thick with vegetables, booyah is more than a meal, it's a regional icon. Consume vast quantitie Terese Allen on Thursday 09/23/2010

• Ready In: 5 hrs
• Serves: 100

Ingredients

• 1 1⁄4 gallons  smoked pork bones  stock
• 3⁄4 gallon  sliced turkey, chopped
• 3⁄4 gallon ham, coarse chopped
• 2  gallons  turkey bacon, chopped
• 8  cups onions, chopped, browned with meat
• 1 1⁄4 gallons tomato sauce
• 2  gallons green beans
• 2  gallons kernel corn
• 2  gallons  cooked potatoes, diced
• 1⁄2 cup  booyah  seasoning, # 511313
• 3  gallons cooked rice (optional)

• FOR SALAD

• 3  gallons  mixed salad greens
• 40  ounces croutons
• 72  ounces  ranch dressing

• FOR THE KIDS

• 4  dz.  hot dogs
• 4  dz.  hot dog buns
• 28  ounces ketchup
• 16  ounces yellow mustard
• 1  ea.  relish

• FOR THE VEGETARIAN

• 1⁄3  above ingredients without  meat
•  substitute pinto beans for rice

Directions

1. Place beef, pork or turkey in 5 gal stock pot, and 2 each 3 gal stock pot with 1 cup onion plus and some salt and pepper into each pot. Add pork bones for the stock to fill each pot one-third full. Bring to simmer, skimming surface as needed, and cook slowly a half-hour. Add more beef, pork or turkey and enough water or stock to cover meat. REMOVE ALL PIECES OF BONES AND BITS. Continue to simmer very slowly for another hour or two.
2. Meanwhile, chop the vegetables and set aside in separate bowls.
3. When meats are tender, remove them from the broth to cool. Add vegetables (including remaining onions) one type at a time to the broth, allowing soup to return to a simmer before the next type is added.
4. Chop meats; add to pot. Simmer soup slowly for at least two hours. (Water or stock may be added as necessary.) Authentic booyah is brothy, like a soup, but with the vegetable and meat solids melded together the Sunday Supper is very thick, like a stew. Serve over open face buns or cooked rice.