Booyah! If you are from Minnesota or Wisconsin, you know!

HI,

I have never been to a Booyah, which is a stew similar to Burgoo, served in Wisconsin and Minnesota mostly.

I have not yet been to a Booyah community supper. Meanwhile I am be interested to learn what is served along with it.

Whatever experience you can offer is appreciated.

Regards,

Sorry I can't help. This Booyah thing must be somewhat regional or ethnic specific (a guess). I spent four years up north and never heard of it. However, that general cooking style pervades many a pot-luck table. Throw everything you have into a crock pot and cook it until mushy. Hopefully there is a bottle of ketchup nearby.

Just moved to MN last fall and heard about Booya but haven't been to any Booya events. From what I understand, it's a communal stew/soup that it commonly served at church festivals / events. I've also heard people having their own Booya parties with each person bringing something to "throw into the pot."

I've included a little article from the Heavy Table (link: http://heavytable.com/get-your-booya-before-its-gone/)

Get Your Booya Before It’s Gone!
by Lori Writer on October 22, 2009

If you haven’t had your fill of booya this year, you had better not delay any longer: St. Jerome’s (in Maplewood) Carryout Booya starts at 7am this coming Sunday, Oct. 25 and goes “until they run out.” St. Jerome’s tells us: “It goes fast.” So get there early, and bring your Tupperware!

The Church of St. Agnes held their booya last weekend, Sunday Oct. 18, but sells “Our Famous St. Agnes Booya” pre-packaged, frozen, in the church kitchen on Sundays from 9:30am to 1:30pm. On weekdays, you can contact their school’s development office at 651.925.8809.

Every church or community group that hosts an annual booya, usually as a fundraiser, has its own secret recipe, passed down through the years. Booya stew contains some combination of oxtail, carrots, celery, corn, peas, onions, rutabagas, chicken, green beans, and wax beans. A single-serving bowl of booya, to eat in, will set you back $3-$5. Take-out booya (bring your own container!) is usually priced by the ladle.

Nick Cardinal, who was Second Vice President at St. Paul’s Polish American Club before they closed this past spring, says his uncle made the club’s booya for “booya weekend” for about 25 years, since 1985. Cardinal, who helped his uncle make the booya since he “was a little kid, 10 or 12 years old,” said they would make 360 gallons of booya in the club’s two 60-gallon booya kettles. The week before the booya, Cardinal’s uncle, a retired chef from Aramark, would make stock from chicken bones, oxtail, and whole chickens. Then, on the Tuesday or Wednesday before the booya, the “old timers from the club would do the chopping of carrots, onions, celery, and rutabagas. The beans we’d get frozen. Then, we’d put it together and cook it.” Says Cardinal: “I don’t know if he has a recipe. He would just throw stuff together.”

Cardinal says a good booya, like his uncle’s, “has big chunks of chicken and beef. A whole slew of vegetables.” A bad booya “won’t have flavor or will have meat that is stringy.” Cardinal believes that his uncle’s extra step of making the stock first was a differentiator.

Most groups offer activities, games, charity auctions, and even other food, at their booyas. The Church of St. Agnes sells Monsignor Schuler’s “monster” chocolate chip cookies hot out of the oven for $1 each, as well as sloppy joes, egg rolls, root beer floats, pulled pork sandwiches, and various baked goods. Three adolescent boys at the table next to us, plastic forks in hand, were polishing off a 9-inch cake between them. According to Cardinal, the Polish American Club ran meat raffles and pull-tabs during booya weekend, “as well as a cakewalk upstairs.”

As far as the name goes, Cardinal says: “A lot of people don’t know where booya came from. And neither do I.”

St. Jerome Catholic Church
380 Roselawn Ave E, St Paul
651.771.1209

Church of Saint Agnes
548 Lafond Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55103
651.925.8809

teatpuller wrote:Sorry I can't help. This Booyah thing must be somewhat regional or ethnic specific (a guess). I spent four years up north and never heard of it. However, that general cooking style pervades many a pot-luck table. Throw everything you have into a crock pot and cook it until mushy. Hopefully there is a bottle of ketchup nearby.

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Minnesota and never heard of it. Sounds like a form of hot dish, but I never encountered it.

I associate booyah with the Green Bay area.

I don't remember booyah as being something I experienced in my years in Green Bay. I remember booyah as a feature in smaller towns west of Green Bay such as Birnamwood, Tigerton and Kempster. Places where the local parish, legion hall or volunteer fire departments would serve booyah as a fund raiser on a weekly, monthly or annual basis. If you were a young college kid without much extra cash, a Saturday Night Booyah supper was an enjoyable and affordable date. (Hey-this was 1960's northern Wisconsin after all).

I was born and raised in MN, until after college (Rochester and Twin Cities). Never heard of it as a MN thing.

When I was researching my last trip to the Twin Cities at the beginning of November, I became disappointed to find I had missed all the booyas by a week or two. There seemed to be quite a few in Saint Paul, mostly in October, but I didn't come across a single one in Minneapolis. Maybe they're too sophisticated for such things. This 2010 Chowhound thread has quite a bit of information. The Saint Paul Park District maintains a booya shed (floor plan here), available for rental, outfitted with 5 large booya kettles.

Nelson Algren, of all people, wrote about booya in the late 1930s while he was employed by the WPA's Illinois Writers Project.

In America Eats, Nelson Algren wrote:At the first hint of dawn, the preparations are underway. Ox tails, a meaty soup bone, veal, and chicken—all simmer in a huge vat. The helpers are busy paring bushels of fresh vegetables, opening cans, and putting allspice in cheesecloth bags. The beans have been soaking since the previous afternoon. As soon as the meat is tender it is removed from the bones, cut in small pieces, and returned to the broth. Vegetables, cut very small, are added. When the booya is ready, the separate ingredients have lost their identity. It is neither soup nor stew nor burgoo but something of all three.

He provides a recipe making 60 gallons of booya. It calls for 30 pounds of ox tails and a peck of kohlrabi.

I have encountered booyah in only one place--the food stand at Green Bay's Bay Beach Amusement Park. As served there, it was basically a chicken dumpling soup--and very good.

The Bay Beach Amusement Park is a real treasure. Nicely shaded, short lines, and ride tickets are only 25 cents (the new roller coaster will be four tickets--nothing else is more than two and many are only one). Right off 43 if you're heading toward the U.P.--as we so often are.

An upcoming Booyah dinner was advertised in the local shopper paper:

Saturday 10/15/2011
VFW Post 10568
Springbrook WI

No address or additional information was provided, but Springbrook is very tiny, located on Highway 63 (a/k/a Cty M) in northwestern Wisconsin (about an 8 hour drive from Chicago). I located the following phone number online:

715-635-2303
http://myvfw.org/wi/post10568/

If anyone decides to make the trip, fall colors in that area should be at peak in the next week or so. A Jack-o-lantern fest is being held the same day in Spooner WI, about 15 miles south on Hwy 63. http://www.spoonerchamber.org/pages/eve ... stival.php.

Hayward WI is located about 15 miles north of Springbrook on Highway 63. The Hayward Bakery & Cheese Shop produces very nice rustic breads.

Hayward Bakery & Cheese Shop
10565 Main St.
Hayward, WI 54843
1-800-266-2428
(715) 634-2428
http://www.haywardbakery.com/

A good list of upcoming booya(h)s, mostly in St Paul: Booya Will Flow at Fall's Feeds in East Metro, Western Wisconsin.

In northern Wisconsin, I saw a flyer for an upcoming church social of some sort pinned up at a grocery store. Between the address and the ticket price, it listed some of the reasons to come to the party:

• Food!
• Beer!
• Games!
• Booyah!
• Pie!
• Raffle!

I was actually somewhat bummed when I found out that booyah is a thing...before I learned that, I thought either the flyer's author was trying to drum up some enthusiasm, or got so excited about this event while designing its flyer that "Booyah!" made its way onto the list.

Rene G wrote: There seemed to be quite a few in Saint Paul, mostly in October, but I didn't come across a single one in Minneapolis. Maybe they're too sophisticated for such things.

This Minneapolis-area-raised gal never heard of booyah until this thread. Over in Minneapolis, we are too sophisticated for that sort of thing. We favor jello salads and tater-tot hot dish.

In my early teens the park I played football at did an annual fall festival Booya. Hayden Heights on the Eastside. It was quite the operation. A couple few dozen people would meet up on Saturday morning in the basement of a bar on White Bear Ave to do prep. Peel mountains of potatoes, carrots, onions . . . chop those up along with celery and who knows what else. Trim and cube the various meats. Then it was taken to the park where a couple of big jungle people-cookin' pots were set up under a tent. The booya was slow cooked overnight, and then the next day there'd be a huge line of people. Many eating there, but a good half with containers to fill and take home. Our family would bring a couple empty 5 gallon ice cream buckets

Our neighbor sometimes threw a rare booya party. He'd make a huge batch at his place, and invite tons of people over. He claimed that he put raccoon meat in. Not sure if he was just messing with us or not, but didn't matter. He made a killer booya

Hello,
The type of Booyah you have depends on the cook and if the recipe has been passed down which country the ancestors came from.
Some booyah's are more like chicken soup.
Others have a tomato base.
Some have chicken and beef
others use pork too.
Vegetables-the basics are onions, celery, cabbage, peas, corn, tomatoes, rutabaga, carrots. Cooks Illustrated has a really good Green Bay Booyah that you can use as a jumping off point if you want to make your own on the stove. Booyahs that are cooked over a wood burning fire taste incredible but in a pinch this one is delicious.

In the late summer and fall many churches and organizations sell booyah. Kroll's restaurants in Green Bay have the most Authentic booyah. (Kroll's is near the Green Bay Packer Stadium). You can also get Booyah every Saturday at the River St. Pier on Velp. Ave in GreenBay , Wi. At the Saturday, Green Bay Farmers Market there is a stand selling Booyah. (This one tastes similar to chicken soup in my opinion).

Growing up in the UP, Booyah was very popular. Most people I know used game with the vegetables. It wasn't unusual to have vension, elk, and all of the trappers meats like coon, muskrat, beaver, etc... as the protein. It was a great way to use game meats, especially from the trappers. I remember bringing a Chicago friend to a out of the way pub that was serving venison and beaver booyah that day. It was free, as one of the locals used meat given to him by the trappers. It took me awhile to convince him to eat it, but the end result was great.

Booya season is almost here, MN. Here's the first sighting I've seen . . .

http://www.northstpaul.org/index.asp?Ty ... 7FE45A4%7D

Mark your calendars! Once again, North St. Paul Fire Department will be serving up their booya.
Sunday, October 2
Serving starts at 11 a.m.
Casey Lake Park - 2045 County Road C (17th Ave.)
One block east of White Bear Avenue

This event is a great opportunity to meet and get to know the individuals who serve and help protect North St. Paul. Bring your kettle and an appetite – you won’t want to miss out on this unforgettable meal! Serving starts at 11:00 a.m. until sold out.

Hi!

What is meant by, "Bring your kettle?"

I have visions of the Seinfeld 'Soup Nazi' Episode with Newman running down the street with a large pot to collect leftover soup.

Are you in Minneapolis?

Regards,
CAthy2