Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(
Nashville International (12 miles/19km).
www.thehermitagehotel.com). $$
Wynd-
ham Union Station,
1001 Broadway
(
&
615/248-3554;
www.wyndham.com).
L
$$$
The Hermitage Hotel,
231 6th
Ave. N (
&
888/888-9414
or 615/244-3121;
Hometown Dish
207
Burgoo
All in a Stew
Owensboro, Kentucky
Where that strange name came from is
anybody's guess; just as mysterious is the
source of the original recipe. A quintes-
sential frontier food, burgoo may have
evolved from Irish stew, or from hearty
soups introduced by Welsh coal-mining
immigrants. But in the hardscrabble early
1800s, when Kentucky was first settled,
nobody got too picky about what meat
should go into the pot—anything from
squirrel to possum would do.
Nowadays, hardly anybody outside of
Kentucky knows about burgoo—and
sadly, as chain restaurants and ethnic cui-
sines proliferate, it's becoming harder to
find this down-home comfort food even in
Kentucky. But burgoo is still alive and well
in Owensboro, a western Kentucky river-
front town that prides itself on being a
barbecue capital. (The International Bar-B-
Q Festival held here every May is well
worth scheduling a trip around; see the
Calendar of Food Fairs & Festivals chapter
for more information.)
Barbecue and burgoo are natural menu-
mates; like barbecue, burgoo gets better
the longer and slower it is cooked. At
Owensboro's top barbecue restaurant,
Moonlite Barbecue,
it's made with
mutton—the same meat that's tradition-
ally used in Kentucky barbecue (western
Kentucky is a big sheep-raising region)—
along with some chicken and a bounty
of vegetables. The slight gaminess of mut-
ton balances out the snap of red pepper and
tomatoes; cooking over an open hickory-
wood-stoked pit adds a special smokiness.
It's cooked for hours in a heavy iron pot
(30 hr. is typical), which allows the starchy
ingredients like corn, onion, and potatoes
to thicken the stew naturally—thickening it
until, tradition says, you can stand a spoon
up in it. Moonlite makes 35 to 70 gallons of
the soul-satisfying stuff every day.
Run by the Bosley family since 1963,
Moonlite is consistently voted Owens-
boro's top barbecue restaurant. You'll find
it on the western edge of town, in a low-
slung, functional brick building surrounded
by black asphalt; you can smell the hickory
smoke of the open pit already from the
parking lot. Inside, its warmly lit wood-
trimmed dining room is centered around
stainless-steel buffet tables, loaded up
with burgoo, hickory-smoked, fork-tender
barbecue (mostly mutton, of course, but
also pork, beef, and chicken), and side
dishes like cheesy broccoli casserole,
macaroni and cheese, creamed corn nib-
lets, ham and beans, and butter-drizzled
mashed potatoes—and of course a raft of
homemade pies.
2840 W. Parrish Ave. (
&
270/684-
8143;
www.moonlite.com).
(
Louisville (80 miles/129km).
L
$$
Comfort Suites,
230 Salem Dr.
(
&
270/926-7675;
www.comfortsuites.
com). $$
Holiday Inn Express Owens-
boro,
3220 W. Parrish Ave. (
&
270/685-
2433;
www.ichotels.com).
