Sonovagun Stew: A Folklore Miscellany (Publications of the Texas Folklore Society) - Hardcover

"We skinned our squirrels and quartered them and tossed them in the pot. The stock was already boiling and squirrel parts were cooking tender. Somebody had tossed in some young cat squirrels, heads and tails, and they periodically rolled to the surface to see what was coming next. A young coon and a rabbit were added to the pot, and some uncle threatened the stew with an armadillo that was snuffing around in the brush just outside the firelight." Chow time for West Texas cowboys consists of a traditional food: sonovagun stew. As editor Francis Edward Abernethy explains in his preface, this chuckwagon stew "uses every part of a fat calf except his hide, horns, and hooves." The traditional meal is repeated throughout the United States, although called by different names; the Louisiana jambalaya, the Alaska mulligan, the hobo slumgullion. The common denominator of each is the use of whatever is edible and handy. Sonovagun Stew: A Folklore Miscellany, the 46th volume of the Texas Folklore Society's annual publications, is a traditional Texas literary sonovagun. Abernethy notes that "the cook has put into it whatever was savory and on hand-everything but the horns, the hide, and the hooves." Cowboy ballads, bateaus, gaucho songs, mineral wells, corridos, Aggie war stories, songs of Bob Wills, Baptist kids, coyotes, and old-time cowboys are all simmered together and spiced with discussions of folklore, heaven, neighborhood gatherings, cotton growing, and family characters. The result is a savory literary-gastronomical delight.

Francis Edward Abernethy is Professor of English at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches and is the editor and executive secretary of the Texas Folklore Society. He has edited ten earlier volumes for the Society and is the author of Singin' Texas (1983). A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Abernethy has published poetry and short stories and has lectured widely. He plays the bass fiddle in the East Texas String Ensemble.