Booyah - 09/16/03 06:14 PM
In the latest issue of The Living Church -- a weekly newsmagazIne for the Episcopal Church -- there appears an article about how Saint Matthew's Church, Fairbanks, Alaska, celebrates "Golden Days" by selling bowls of "booyah." The rector, the Rev. Scott Fisher, describes booyah as "a sort of Midwest harvest stew ... containing darn near everything ... cooked for 24 hours in a steel pot on the church lawn." A photo graph accompanies the article and it depicts a banner in front of the church which reads: "Booyah Feed and Bake Sale." Everyone who knows anything about American churches knows "bake sale" but "booyah"!?
I assumed that this was a contrived word, made up by Alaskans during the long sunless winter when they had little else to do.
According to the Urban Dictionary, there IS such a thing as booyah: "Booyah is a thick chicken stew that many believe was created in Northeastern Wisconsin by Walloon Belgian settlers. Mary Ann Defnet, a respected historian of Walloon culture in Wisconsin explains the origin of the rather unusual word in a letter sent to K. Fleurant, who had suggested to a reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette that the origin was bouillir, the French word for to boil. Although variations of this dish are found in many cultures worldwide, the wonderfully hearty dish called "booyah" can only be found in Wisconsin."
The last sentence is obviously untrue, in that booyah can be found at Saint Matthew's Church, Fairbanks, at least if you show up during Golden Days.
I went on to find two recipes for this non-fictitious stew:
http://www.uwgb.edu/wisfrench/kitchen/booyah.htm
http://www.recipegoldmine.com/soupstew/soupstew59.html
They both combine chicken, beef and pork with vegetables.
I even found a song dedicated to the consumption of this stuff:
Cheese curds, booyah and beer,
That's what I like to hear.
I may be kinda pokey,
But I say "okey-dokey!"
To cheese curds, booyah and beer.
-- from "Belgians in Heaven," by Frederick Heide & James Kaplan
The things that one learns on one's lunch hour! Booyah.
I assumed that this was a contrived word, made up by Alaskans during the long sunless winter when they had little else to do.
According to the Urban Dictionary, there IS such a thing as booyah: "Booyah is a thick chicken stew that many believe was created in Northeastern Wisconsin by Walloon Belgian settlers. Mary Ann Defnet, a respected historian of Walloon culture in Wisconsin explains the origin of the rather unusual word in a letter sent to K. Fleurant, who had suggested to a reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette that the origin was bouillir, the French word for to boil. Although variations of this dish are found in many cultures worldwide, the wonderfully hearty dish called "booyah" can only be found in Wisconsin."
The last sentence is obviously untrue, in that booyah can be found at Saint Matthew's Church, Fairbanks, at least if you show up during Golden Days.
I went on to find two recipes for this non-fictitious stew:
http://www.uwgb.edu/wisfrench/kitchen/booyah.htm
http://www.recipegoldmine.com/soupstew/soupstew59.html
They both combine chicken, beef and pork with vegetables.
I even found a song dedicated to the consumption of this stuff:
Cheese curds, booyah and beer,
That's what I like to hear.
I may be kinda pokey,
But I say "okey-dokey!"
To cheese curds, booyah and beer.
-- from "Belgians in Heaven," by Frederick Heide & James Kaplan
The things that one learns on one's lunch hour! Booyah.
