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| Type | Stew |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | United States |
| Region or state | Western United States |
| Main ingredients | Beef,offal, marrow gut |
Sonofabitch stew (orson-of-a-bitch stew) was acowboy dish of theAmerican West.
Various recipes exist for thisbeefstew, and some sources say its ingredients may vary according to whatever is on hand. Most recipes involve meat andoffal from acalf, though, making sonofabitch stew something of a luxury item on the trail.Alan Davidson's 1999 bookOxford Companion to Food specifies meats and organs from a freshly killed unweaned calf, including thebrain,heart,liver,sweetbreads,tongue, pieces oftenderloin, and an item called the "marrow gut" and much Louisiana hot sauce.
This last item, the "marrow gut", was a key ingredient. Davidson quotes Ramon Adam's 1952Come An' Get It: The Story of the Old Cowboy Cook, which reports that this is a tube, between two of the calf's stomachs, filled with a substance resemblingmarrow, deemed edible only while the calf is young and still feeding on milk. This marrow-like substance was included in the stew and, according to Adams, was "what gave the stew such a delicious flavor". Davidson says this "marrow gut" probably was the passage leading to theabomasum as well as the abomasum itself (said to have a "distinctive flavour ofrennin-curdled milk"). Another possibility is that "marrow gut" refers to the calf's thymus, more commonly known as "sweetbread". Sweetbread is indeed commonly found in traditional European cookery and many books refer to the use of this ingredient, including for the preparation of stews made with offal. In German it is called "Kalbsbries", in French "Ris de veau". A French book originally published in 1928 (Ali-Bab, an alias used byHenri Babinski:Gastronomie Pratique) refers to a recipe involving sweetbread but also the spinal marrow ("cord"). Babinski is known for having traveled around the world.
The stew also contained seasonings and sometimesonion. Babinski's recipe for eight guests contains the following ingredients, which cook together for about four hours at moderate heat in the oven, the excess of surfacing fat being removed before serving:
Frank X. Tolbert's 1962 history ofchili con carne,A Bowl of Red, discusses sonofabitch stew as well.[1] Tolbert suggests that thechuck wagon cooks borrowed the idea for the stew from the cooking of thePlains Indians. He also specifies a recipe that never includes onions, tomatoes, or potatoes.
In addition to "sonofabitch stew", the dish was known as "rascal stew" or "SOB stew", or fitted with the name of any unpopular figure at the time: for example, "Cleveland stew" in honor ofGrover Cleveland, a president in disfavor with the cowboys displaced from theCherokee Strip. "In the presence of ladies", reports a 1942Gourmet magazine piece, the dish was commonly called "son-of-a-gun stew" instead.[2] The "polite" name is used in theGunsmoke episode "Long, Long Trail" in 1961 (7.6), alsoGunsmoke Matt's Love Story in 1973 (19.3) andDisney's 1975 movie adaptation ofThe Apple Dumpling Gang. In the TV seriesYellowstone, the character 'Teeter' cooks the stew for her co-workers, referring to it as "Sum' bitch" (4.4).
