# Bogg....A Southern Survival food.



## plowhand (Aug 14, 2005)

Another post got me to thinking about a cheap Southern way to feed alot of folks cheap.
It's a common dish in my part of the USA, used for gatherings of all sorts, fundraisers, and feasts of all sorts.
It's simply meat cooked in alot of broth, then maybe seperated off the bones, and cooked with rice in the broth, instead of plain water.

You can use one pot!

A common mix is chicken and smoked sausage. The sausage is cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices. Most of the time the chicken is taken off the bone and shredded or chopped up, so everyone gets a taste of meat.

You can either measure you broth and use 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of broth, or just make sure that broth covers the rice the same amount of distance as the first joint of your index finger. Then you dump in your meat, and cook just like you are cooking a plain pot of rice.

Saffron is nice, but tumeric and cumin are cheaper if you want yellow rice.

Ham, porkloin, guinee, chicken, quail, dove, and squirrel are often cooked like this.

You can cook meat on the bone and bogg it down in rice the same way. Cut up chicken, pork neck bones, ribs, back bone, ham hocks,and gamebirds are often fixed this way. I remember my grandmother cooking some kind of migrating birds...looked like black birds this way.

Lots of onions, garlic, and black pepper if you like it.

You can even cook something like mixed vegetables and rice in this way....one pot sidedish starch and vegetable.

A favorite family Sunday dinner: Chicken bogg, String beans, butterbeans, sliced tomatos, sliced cucumbers, hot biscuits, and fruit salad for desert, course alot of us ate our fruit salad along with our meal....

Chicken bogg reheats well, and a small amount of meat makes a flavorful dish.

You can cook you meat a day ahead, set the broth in the refridgerator and skin off the excess fat for health reasons.


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

Tastes better with the fat in it.


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

Colcannon (Irish dish) is another good survival food. Basically it's mashed potatoes with certain additions. Usually it is kale, leeks, horseradish & cheese. I like to add a bit of bacon or left over ham chunks & sour cream instead of regular cream or whole milk.
Basically it's well rounded with potatoe starch, vegetables for nutrition & fiber and protein & fat from the dairy products.


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## ginnie5 (Jul 15, 2003)

haven't made that in quite awhile....sounds good for this winter though. I like to add some baby butterbeans and corn in mine.


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## calliemoonbeam (Aug 7, 2007)

I had never heard of bogg until someone on here (Vicker maybe?) mentioned it a while back. It sounds like something my first MIL used to make only with macaroni or noodles instead of rice. They were very poor, she had 10 kids to feed, and one chicken had to stretch to feed all of them. 

She'd boil the chicken with some onion and celery if she had it, but usually just onion and some salt and pepper. There were no spices, they were a luxury they never could afford. Then she'd cook the pasta in the broth along with any vegetables she had. While it was cooking, she'd debone the chicken and then stir it back in to heat back up and finish cooking the pasta and vegetables.

The first time I saw her making it, I thought it probably wasn't going to be very good, but it really was, rich from the fatty chicken broth, with a nice mixture of starch and vegetables and just enough meat to flavor it well. She could make a huge pot with just that one chicken.


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

If you add a can of tomato paste you get what my Mom called "goulash". She would make it about once a week to use up the leftovers in the fridge.


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## Sara in IN (Apr 2, 2003)

Over the last quarter century a highly modified Tennessee version of chicken bogg is our family comfort food. We use boneless skinless chicken thighs, a can of chicken broth, garlic salt, basmati rice, Wing Ling chinese sausage - cooked whole and sliced thin on top of the finished dish and have soy sauce, sri racha sauce and other Asian condiments, except for the one kid who wants it with garlic salt only. Family tradition also serves a can of black-eyed peas, must be Bush's cooked from dry peas with bacon as the side dish. 

College age spawn were disappointed that their housemates did not have the undying love of this dish that our family has as a regular Sunday night supper.


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## plowhand (Aug 14, 2005)

She'd boil the chicken with some onion and celery if she had it, but usually just onion and some salt and pepper. There were no spices, they were a luxury they never could afford. Then she'd cook the pasta in the broth along with any vegetables she had. While it was cooking, she'd debone the chicken and then stir it back in to heat back up and finish cooking the pasta and vegetables.

We cook something like that, but we add potatos and carrots, add the noodles last. Any kind of noodles, but homemade are certainly bestmost folks just call the homemade noodles "pastry".

One of my favorites foods is new potatos stewed, and pastry cut about the size of a tablespoon, with plenty of onions cooked in the potatos. The pastry thicken the broth till it's like a thick potato soup.


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## logbuilder (Jan 31, 2006)

plowhand,

I grew up a bit farther south than you - in MS. Primarily from cajun roots, we called that dirty rice. With some tomato, it would be called jumbalia. Crawfish goes real good in it too. More spices and it goes towards an etouffee.

Now living in the northwest, I miss that food. I can't even get good fried catfish and hush puppies. I never see a blue plate special for lunch. Boudin, only a dream.


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## plowhand (Aug 14, 2005)

Folks like catfish here too, fried and fixed up into catfish stew. I had an aunt married a fella from Louisianna, she'd cook jambalya, gumbo, and something called eh-too fay..how it sounded any ...it was all good.
I just hope the catfish don't go the way of our seasonal ocean fish. Last year no one caught hardly any spots and mullets....not too hot this year either.....they say cannery ships are setting off the coast in international waters, dragging them in when the school circles the coast


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## PrettyPaisley (May 18, 2007)

logbuilder said:


> plowhand,
> 
> I grew up a bit farther south than you - in MS. Primarily from cajun roots, we called that dirty rice. With some tomato, it would be called jumbalia. Crawfish goes real good in it too. More spices and it goes towards an etouffee.
> 
> *Now living in the northwest, I miss that food. I can't even get good fried catfish and hush puppies.* I never see a blue plate special for lunch. Boudin, only a dream.


I feel you. I don't live in MS anymore but the catfish here in NC is not even close to as good as what I can get back home. Not. Even. Close. I can't imagine being as far away from home as you are!


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## ejagno (Jan 2, 2008)

Better known as Jambalaya here in Cajun country. LOL


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## ginnie5 (Jul 15, 2003)

Oh how I LOVE me some catfish stew! We grew up eating it but just try to find it anywhere now. Going to the "fish camp" and having catfish stew was a Saturday night ritual.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

We take a rabbit, squirrel, chicken or turkey carcass and boil it with carrot and onion. Remove the carcass and pick off the meat. In a skillet with butter we add some thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, celery and onion, cook until slightly tender. Add some home grown wild rice, stir to mix . Add broth, grated potato and meat, cook until rice is tender. Depends on how much broth, soup bowl or plate. Fish works great too....James


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## Wolfy-hound (May 5, 2013)

We called it dirty rice too.

Most common for our house was some beef, browned in a skillet then dumped into the rice pot with appropriate amount of water. Now I tend to add in whatever vegetables I have on hand and want to eat. Whole kernal corn, black-eyed peas, sweet peas, green beans, carrots and even leftover potatoes. If I have leftover bits of veggies, those get tossed in.

Spices for me are normally just some garlic, onion, salt and pepper, although if I feel frisky, I'll toss in whatever else feels right at the time.

I even make a "quick" version in my rice steamer, with a can of chicken and a can of veg added to the regular rice and water. Steams up nicely and everything is moist and hot, ready in minutes, no mess.


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## PollySC (Jan 17, 2006)

plowhand said:


> ... I remember my grandmother cooking some kind of migrating birds...looked like black birds this way.


My husband reminds me of this every spring when the billion little blackbirds migrate through -- they ate that, too. I'm too Yankee to agree to go out with a shotgun yet, but I will cook a chicken bog every so often (one "g" in bog down here in South Carolina). I put lots of veggies in mine with the meat and rice.


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## scooter (Mar 31, 2008)

I've been enjoying reading these posts, I'd never heard of bogg before.


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## raybait1 (Sep 30, 2006)

plowhand said:


> Folks like catfish here too, fried and fixed up into catfish stew. I had an aunt married a fella from Louisianna, she'd cook jambalya, gumbo, and something called eh-too fay..how it sounded any ...it was all good.
> I just hope the catfish don't go the way of our seasonal ocean fish. Last year no one caught hardly any spots and mullets....not too hot this year either.....they say cannery ships are setting off the coast in international waters, dragging them in when the school circles the coast


Here we have plenty of mullet. We use them as bait for catfish.(brackish water) I never thought about eating them. Their oily like jackmack. How do you prepare them?


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## plowhand (Aug 14, 2005)

Well, mullets used to be a favorite fish for alot of folks born say between 1900 and 1940. A fish called a spot took over after that period, and is still a very popular fish today
Mullet are eaten fried. Folks used to salt them down in kegs, and they were soaked over night, and used alot as a breakfast meat. Some of my mothers older sisters wouldn't eat fish....my grandfather fished in the winter and they had to prepare barrels of salt mullet for sale. Salt mullet, grits, baked sweet potato sliced and fried,and maybe some stewed tomatoes to go your grits was a common breakfast.
My uncle from Louisiana, taught us to skin and fillet a mullet, because that's where alot of the oil is, there is a roll of fat in the stomach that need to be taken out, if you just don't cut the stomach out.
A newer recipe, is to split the mullet open, unscaled, and lay on tin foil on your grill, and slather with a mustardy barbecue sauce, called Carolina Treet. I haven't tried it, because I just prefer my fish scaled.
We prefer to clean our fresh mullet today, then salt them pretty heavy and let them set in the refrigerrator a couple of days to "take" salt. Then fry'em good and brown,
Some folks pressure can them,and use them just like canned salmon.


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## unregistered41671 (Dec 29, 2009)

We used to smoke mullet. Man they were good too.


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## plowhand (Aug 14, 2005)

Oh, I forgot...mullets have a gizzard......good....if you like chicken gizzards...mullet gizzards are pretty good fried.


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## vicker (Jul 11, 2003)

I'm a big proponent of country cured hams as a food prep. They last a long time, and a little goes a long way. Also, one pot meals. I came up with a good one a few years ago that was probably influenced by my exposure to chicken bog. I call it Glop  
Cube up some country ham and fry it with some onions in your pot. Then you add cubed potatoes and just enough water to cover them, salt, pepper and whatnot. When the potatoes are tender, add enough grits or cornmeal to thicken the whole thing up. 
It may not sound too good, but boy does it hit the spot, fill you up and stick with you.


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## Sandhills (Jun 15, 2004)

When my mom used to cut up chickens she would freeze the backs and necks for stock. Then when she wanted to make a pot of chicken and dumplings she would make the stock from them. It wasn't a lot of meat but it made for a good cheap dinner. Mom also used the fat off the top of the pot to flavor the dumplings.


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## EDDIE BUCK (Jul 17, 2005)

PrettyPaisley said:


> I feel you. I don't live in MS anymore but the catfish here in NC is not even close to as good as what I can get back home. Not. Even. Close. I can't imagine being as far away from home as you are!


I have heard that my whole entire married life.My Missouri better half says every time we have fried catfish,these fish aren't as good as the St Francis River catfish back in Missouri.
I say perhaps not,but we ain't in Missouri, and these NC catfish have been caught,cleaned,cooked and now on our plate.So shut up and eat and quit complaining because these are the best I have ever ett.:nana: 



vicker said:


> I'm a big proponent of country cured hams as a food prep. They last a long time, and a little goes a long way. Also, one pot meals. I came up with a good one a few years ago that was probably influenced by my exposure to chicken bog. I call it Glop
> Cube up some country ham and fry it with some onions in your pot. Then you add cubed potatoes and just enough water to cover them, salt, pepper and whatnot. When the potatoes are tender, add enough grits or cornmeal to thicken the whole thing up.
> It may not sound too good, but boy does it hit the spot, fill you up and stick with you.


 Plus take that country ham bone and chunk into a pot of collard greens and cook till the greens are tender.

Mean while, a pan of southern style cornbread is baking in the oven, along with a couple of sweet taters, and the boiled up Irish potatoes will be smashed up with some hard boiled eggs ,and onions for some good old hot potato salad.Folks when you add some, (not to sweet) ice cold iced tea,with a dash of lemon,you will think you'er in Heaven already:angel:Oh,don't forget to kick the cat out of the kitchen.You don't want nothing rubbing up against your leg and putting its life in danger.:runforhills:

PS:Southern Style Cornbread
with 100% white cornmeal 

Not the kind mixed with flour that all it lacks is icing and you have cake,My opinion of course.lol


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## vicker (Jul 11, 2003)

Amen, brother! I found a fellow this summer who runs traps on the river here. He was wanting to sell catfish fillets, $2.50 a pound. I bought 30 pounds  I'm going to have to give him a call soon.


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## galfriend (Nov 19, 2004)

I'm so thankful for bogg meals. Reckon I'd stave to death if I couldn't have my southern survival food(s).


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## plowhand (Aug 14, 2005)

My Grandmaw used to stew a old hen, make chicken and pastry, the fat was saved to use in a Sunday cake along with the unlaid eggs.....then the biggest pieces of left-over hen were floured and fried to go along with Monday morning breakfast.
Folks in this part the world used to squeeze a dollar so tight...old George would just about squeal


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