About Burgoo
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What is burgoo?
Burgoo is a soup made from chicken, beef, and vegetables, cooked for several hours until the flavors have blended and the ingredients have become a thick stew. Arenzville burgoo is cooked in iron kettles over a wood-burning fire, which imparts a special smoky flavor to the soup. (See below for a link to the All-New Burgoo Review, an article written about the 1996 process for making Arenzville Burgoo.)
The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that burgoo was originally a thin gruel or porridge made by sailors in the 17th century. The name may have come from "bulghur," a form of cracked wheat, or "ragout," a French word for a well-seasoned stew. There are many different recipes for burgoo in other parts of the country, but Arenzville burgoo is unlike any other soup you will ever taste. Early versions of the soup were made with wild game such as venison or squirrel, but current state health laws prevent selling soup made from game, so only chicken and beef are used. Today's Arenzville burgoo is made from a secret recipe, handed down over the generations, and the only place you can get this brand of the soup is in Arenzville, Illinois, during the late summer festival.
(Tip: In Arenzville, we pronounce it "BURR-goo" or "burr-GOO," but not "BEAR-goo" or "BEAR-goh.")
Other Illinois towns who host burgoo festivals include Franklin (July 4th), Meredosia (usually early July at the River Fest), and Chandlerville (late August), Alsey, Bluffs, Glasgow (Saturday of Labor Day weekend), Gillespie, Roodhouse (fall), Winchester, Woodson, and Utica (October). It is best to make contact with a local spokesperson before making plans to attend. Many of these festivals are hosted by small organizations who are dependent on volunteers, and their plans can change from year to year.
A similar soup-making tradition occurs in southeastern Illinois, though the result is called chowder (this is nothing like New England-style clam chowder!) Communities in Edwards and Jasper Counties in Illinois regularly host chowder festivals.
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Homemade Stew
How is Arenzville burgoo made? Preparations start several days in advance, and the recipe has been used for many decades. Ingredients go into the kettle in the wee hours on the night before the soup is to be eaten. All night long, volunteers tend the kettles, making sure that once the soup starts boiling, each 50- to 75-gallon kettle is constantly stirred to avoid scorching. Custom-designed motorized stirring machines are used on most kettles today, but long wooden paddles are used when the soup is nearly ready to serve, after about 14 hours of cooking. The work of organizing and producing the soup and the festival events is done entirely by volunteers, organized into various committees. Each job is important to the success of the event and helping hands are always welcome. The All-New Burgoo Review (below) will tell you more.
What about those custom-made stirring mechanisms? See the sections below for photos and descriptions of the electric stirrers crafted by Herb and Ed Tegeder for use by the Arenzville Burgoo. Though there were others who made the stirring mechanisms after the first few were pioneered, most people I spoke to credited the Tegeder brothers with making the first ones.
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Community Involvement
When did Arenzville start making burgoo? For over a hundred years, members of the Arenzville community have gathered to make burgoo. No one really knows who made the first burgoo in Arenzville or how it came to be an annual tradition. Some speculate that the practice originated with the Indians or, more likely, was brought into the region by settlers from Kentucky or Virginia. The first mention of "burgoo" in the Village records is a request to the town board in 1906 from a group of citizens who asked for permission to block off street traffic for a burgoo. However, most people agree that the Arenzville burgoo-making tradition existed long before then. A local butcher had an annual tradition of cooking soup for a gathering of the men in the community, and eventually, the practice became a community-wide festival.
Read the 1953 newspaper article about the "Arenzville Homecoming."
Read the 1965 newspaper article by Charles Ater.
Stirring the Soup
In past decades, the soup was stirred by hand, requiring dozens of volunteers. Then a couple of farmers (Herb and Ed Tegeder) figured out a better way... Wooden paddles (usually used when making apple butter) were used to stir the soup for many years. There are no formal plans or drawings for these inventions, but clever mechanics (i.e., most farmers) can probably craft a similar apparatus by lo
These paddles are still kept to stir soup because there is still a need to keep the soup stirred when the electric stirring mechanisms have been removed from the kettles.
Arenzville burgoo starts with all fresh ingredients in an iron kettle over a roaring fire, so there is a need to keep the contents of the kettle moving to avoid scorching the soup. In this photo, you can see an electric stirrer, originally created by the Tegeder brothers (Herb and Ed), from an old washing machine motor and other mechanical parts.
The stirrer is mounted across the top of the kettle on an iron beam that is secured to the kettle. Each stirrer is separately powered by electricity. If necessary, the cooks can disconnect the power and remove the apparatus.
A stirring mechanism on the kettle, assembled and ready for use. Tony Thomas notes that his father recalled that there were a few experimental models before a successful design was achieved. The inventors got only one chance a year to test their ideas! Dale Winkelman said the Tegeder brothers salvaged parts from a John Deere 227 cornpicker for the gear mechanism.
An example of a set of the paddles for one kettle. The inventors experimented with different types of stirring paddles. One important criterion is that one part of the paddle must freely rotate close to the bottom of the kettle to keep ingredients from sticking.