Booyah
This evening we head to our first booyah (though our hosts spell it without the “h”).
Not to be confused with sportscaster Stuart Scott’s or money guy Jim Cramer’s exuberant catch-phrase, the booyah under discussion here is a thick meat-and-vegetable stew boiled outdoors in a huge pot. It is also the name of the event at which such fare is served to the public.
Booyah is a Midwestern thing, and more particularly Upper Midwestern. A booyah is a long-simmering broth-based stew, almost always involving chicken, vegetables, and spices, and often beef and/or pork. It is cooked in purpose-built, steel “booyah kettles,” which can hold 50 gallons or more. Booyahs are often held as fund-raisers for churches, schools, fire departments, or VFWs.
Wikipedia, always a dependable source, tells us that in 1976, Green Bay’s Lester Rentmeester (b. 1919) recounted to the Green Bay Press-Gazette that his father, Andrew, had originated the booyah, possibly around 1905. (I was unable to find the purported original newspaper article online.)
Lester’s account includes a plausible explanation for the odd name. His father was Flemish and the stew he prepared for the first booyah was a traditional Belgian recipe. When Andrew went to the local newspaper to garner publicity for his planned fund-raiser, the young reporter on duty asked him what he would be serving. “Boullion,” Andrew replied, pronouncing it in the proper French manner. The kid reporter wrote down what he heard and the booyah was born.
A slightly different origin story, with a similar cast of characters, is told on the UW Green Bay website.
The Pioneer Press annually runs a list of upcoming public booyahs around the Twin Cities. Here is 2015’s list; booyah season is nearly at an end.
The booyah we are attending isn’t public, and isn’t on the foregoing list. A neighbor we don’t know yet slipped an invitation into our front vestibule a couple of weeks back (I have anonymized it for our hosts’ privacy). I assume that they invited folks from a few blocks around.
If you had told me a few months ago that I would be going to a booyah, I would have stared at you blankly. The word doesn’t signify anything to this Easterner. However, the local people to whom we have mentioned our plans all just nodded as if attending a booyah in the fall were the most natural thing in the world.
Sounds like perfect food for a fall gathering!
That it does! Congrats, Ellen, you get First Post honors.
Sounds like a fun event. I love fall festivals with good food. Tomorrow we are going to the “Shalom Ya’ll” Jewish Food Festival. Today we had Latin food from a great food truck at an Arts Festival. When the weather gets really cold up there please plan a trip to come see us. We’re all settled in and the guest room is really nice for visitors!
Hi Gaye, and thanks — we’ll be on a plane to Savannah this winter, you betcha!
To be honest with you, I had never heard of a Booya either, until I started working for the city of Roseville. The fire department hosts an annual fundraiser each year. I grew up in Minnesota and have lived here most of my life. Did you go, and was it any good?
Hi Julie, yes we went. It was a fine party and we met some more of the neighbors. The booyah was very good. This one was cooked for “only” 12 hours — the hosts got up at 4:30 in the morning to get it started. Some I read about simmer for two days.
Huh. For what it’s worth, I both grew up in the Midwest (Indiana) and live in Minnesota (since 1998) — and today’s the first time I’ve ever heard of this.
Makes me wonder what other stuff is going on out there . . .
Hello Dave, welcome to the party. Finding out the other stuff going on out there and letting the world know about it is the job of this blog! I’m not surprised that an Indiana upbringing wouldn’t have acquainted you with the booyah. The sources I read said its geographical extent is northern and northwestern Wisconsin, around the Twin Cities, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Was fun to see you both there. I’m enjoying your blog — almost feels for me like rediscovering MN through your eyes. Keep sending us your thoughts and impressions. 🙂
I grew up with bouyas, my uncle would come from Seattle and stay up all night making bouya in huge black kettle, stirred with a wooden paddle, with beef, chicken and all kinds of vegetables. It was a fun way to have a family gathering. It’s delicious. I have made it myself.
Hi Laureen. Interesting, did your family spell it that way, or where did you encounter that spelling? I don’t see many references online to “bouya”; “bouja” is more common, but “booya[h]” rules the roost.