“I knew the lunch lady was going to do us all in with that mulligan stew. I mean, what the hell’s a mulligan?” -Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, episode “Earshot”.
The Mulligan stew is the highlight of Saturday night’s main feast at Turning the Tide, an annual Pagan festival brought to you by the Everglades Moon Local Council of the Covenant of the Goddess. But what is a Mulligan stew?
A Mulligan stew is made from available ingredients. Its origins are murky but appear to lie in American migrant worker camps of the early 1900s, and it may be a variation of an Irish stew. A newspaper from the time describes it:
“Another traveler present described the operation of making a ‘mulligan’. Five or six hobos join in this. One builds a fire and rustles a can. Another has to procure meat; another potatoes; one fellow pledges himself to obtain bread, and still another has to furnish onions, salt and pepper. If a chicken can be stolen, so much the better. The whole outfit is placed in the can and boiled until it is done.”
The Mulligan is a community stew and a tasty way to bring people together. That’s why we ask everyone who comes to Turning the Tide to bring an ingredient.
- carrots
- onions
- garlic
- tomatoes
- potatoes
- sweet potatoes
- celery
- frozen veggies such as corn, green beans, and peas
- herbs such as oregano and basil
- spices such as salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder
You don’t need to bring much. With everybody bringing something, we’ll have plenty of Mulligan stew for everyone.