Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Chicken Stew History

By KC Kudra

Many people regularly enjoy chicken stew because it is a tasty, warming meal. Chicken stew recipes are easy to make and there are many varieties of this dish. Chicken stew has a very interesting history and it has been enjoyed around the world for a long time.

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 oldest cookbook ever found, the "Apicius de re Coquinaria", contains stew recipes, although these are fish and lamb stews rather than chicken stews. The identity of the author is unknown although there were three Romans with that name between 1 BC and 2 AD and the book is believed to date from that era.

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

One very tasty chicken stew is called chicken booyah. This is a cross between a soup and a stew and is popular in northeast Wisconsin. In 1853, the first Belgian immigrants arrived in Wisconsin and they spoke a language called Walloon. It is believed that the word booyah comes from the word bouillon and the non-French speaking Belgian just wrote down how the word bouillon sounded to him phonetically.

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.

Southern chicken stew is often served in the coolest months of the year and the phrase "chicken stew" can refer to the gathering itself rather than the food. A chicken stew recipe is usually thought of as a comfort food because these recipes are cheap to make, enjoyed by nearly everybody and they are warming and flavorful. This is a common dish served at social gatherings such as church fellowships, family reunions, and community fundraisers.

At such events, the chicken stew will be prepared in a large cast iron or stainless steel cooking pot and might be made outside over an open fire. You might get grilled cheese sandwiches, rice, or coleslaw served on the side.

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