Boggy debate
By Becky Billingsley
Originally published in beachlife.style magazine, Autumn 2006
My family moved to South Carolina from near Raleigh, so the first time someone in Myrtle Beach asked, “How ‘bout some bog?” I didn’t know how to answer.
Were they asking if I wanted to mud wrestle? Go off-road with a pickup truck? I took the deaf way out.
“Eh, what’s that again?”
“Bog,” the person across from me at the pig pickin’ table said, holding out a spoonful of rice and meat.
“Oh, sure. Yeah, bog. Of course I want some bog.”
Back at our camp chairs, I whispered to my husband, “What’s in this?”
I was afraid of what the two kinds of meat in there might be, thinking the possibilities could include gator and ‘possum. My husband didn’t have any such worries.
“Hang on, I’ll tell you,” he said, then took a big bite. He smiled, took another bite and said, “I think it’s chicken and smoked sausage.”
The man knows his meat. Chicken bog, a traditional Grand Strand recipe, is so well-loved there is even an annual Bog-Off Festival every October.
Rice eaters
People of Horry and Georgetown counties, at least the ones born and raised there, are rice eaters. Practically the whole area used to be rice plantations, so the readily available grain was often eaten three times a day. Through the decades a big cast iron pot of rice with game meat was a dinner staple and a potluck favorite.
As time passed and fewer people hunted, chicken edged rabbit, duck and venison out of the pot. Slicing up smoked sausage and chunking that in the mix added just the right spiciness to give the meal character.
And that, basically, is chicken bog: Rice, chicken and smoked sausage.
In the western part of Horry County around Loris every bog-cooker thinks theirs is the best, so 27 years ago a festival was created around an amateur chicken bog cooking contest. The tradition continues – the esteemed Loris Bog-Off winner gets $600, a trophy and an apron – and the festival has become a cherished part of Horry County life.
Bog vs. perleau
Don’t tell anyone, but Barry “Randy” Ray, last year’s Loris Bog-Off co-champion, didn’t use a bog recipe.
Sure, his classic Grand Strand dish, made with the help of friend Greg Gasque at the competition, has the requisite rice, chicken and smoked sausage. But this cook was born and raised in Georgetown. In Georgetown, calling the dish chicken bog is fightin’ words. Barry Ray makes perleau.
The difference is in the rice.
“I don’t make chicken bog, I make perleau,” he says. “It becomes chicken bog when you cross the Yauhannah Bridge. From there down to Charleston, they call it perleau. See, people in Georgetown have a phobia about bog being sticky and squishy and gummy.”
And those are words of irritation to folks in Horry County, where chicken bog, with its rice that holds easily to a fork’s shape, is a traditional comfort food.
Down Georgetown way diners want their rice to be fluffy with separate grains. But they can’t agree on how to spell their dish. Barry Ray says it’s perleau, which reflects how it is pronounced, which is PER-low. Others spell it pilau, which is closer to the word’s spelled origin of Persian rice pilaf.
But whether you use more water so the rice is separate and fluffy, or you use less water so the rice is, well, boggy, both variations are pieces of area heritage.
The personal touch
But there is no definitive chicken bog or perleau recipe, despite what individual cooks may say. It seems everyone has his or her own special touch that makes the dish a personalized favorite.
Barry Ray swears by making his own smoked meat stock to use in place of water.
“If you have time the night before, render about two gallons of smoked meat stock from smoked pork neck bones, smoked pig tails, smoked turkey necks or ham hocks,” he says. “It’ll be twice as good. It gives it an awesome smoked flavor. I do that for special occasions when I have time to do it, but you can use chicken broth in a pinch.”
It’s also important to get the fat off the stock by putting it in the refrigerator overnight, then removing the hardened fat that rises to the top before using the stock in the recipe.
That’s one of Ray’s tips for making perleau with dry and fluffy rice. His other tricks are to measure the stock and rice to an exact two-to-one ratio, then bring the mixture to a boil on top of the stove. To finish the cooking process he puts his cast iron Dutch oven in the stove at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
“And I use Blue Ribbon rice to cook small quantities. For large amounts, I use Uncle Ben’s because it’s parboiled and is a lot more forgiving.”
Andrea Inman of Little River uses her mother, Oleta Duncan’s, chicken bog recipe that calls for bulk sausage instead of smoked sausage, which is cooked with the rice to make the bog extra spicy.
“It also calls for cream of mushroom soup,” Inman says. “It’s stick-to-your-ribs, very rich.”
Laney Vallancey of North Myrtle Beach usually makes her bog when company comes in from out of town.
“I can make it ahead of time and then just heat it up,” she says. “I can even freeze it for two or three months.”
Her method, which makes the rice come out “in clumps, like sushi rice,” involves white rice, a whole chicken, kielbasa sausage and Campbell’s Chicken Broth.
Barry Ray also adds onion, as does James Fitch of Georgetown, author of “Pass the Pilau, Please.” Fitch also adds celery, but omits the smoked sausage.
Down in Georgetown at Thomas Café, owner Ernest Brunson had to get used to saying perleau. He grew up in Florence and always knew it as chicken bog, and his mother, Dolly Brunson, makes it with okra and bacon. At the restaurant he changes the recipe around, but basically it’s chicken, stock, smoked sausage, salt and lots of black pepper. It’s a great way to reinvent leftover baked chicken, he says.
“Sometimes I sauté an onion with the sausage and I’ve heard of people putting cream of chicken and other cream soups in it, but I don’t do that…When I do bog at home I put a lot of liquid in it and cook it slow, so the rice plumps up and it’ll be sticky. At the restaurant I use parboiled rice. I hear some people make it real wet with a lot of liquid and they don’t cook it all away.”
Some folks use pork instead of chicken, and then it becomes hog bog. Barry Ray uses chicken, pork, smoked sausage and bacon in his prize-winning dish. His perleau is favored so much he is often asked to cook it for church events and fund-raisers, and he obliges as often as possible. He even doesn’t mind sharing his recipe.
“If God gave you a talent, it’s your obligation to pass that along,” he says. “If they can get as much joy from the people they fed as I do, that’s a blessing as far as I’m concerned.”
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The Loris Bog-Off always takes place the third Saturday in October, which is Oct. 21 this year. There will be more than 100 arts and crafts booths, three stages featuring live entertainment, a children’s area with amusement rides and a petting zoo, an antique tractor exhibit, a car show and an amateur shag contest. Chicken bog plates will go for $6, and the day ends with fireworks.
To stay abreast of plans, visit www.lorischambersc.com or call the Loris Chamber of Commerce at 756-6030.
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Barry Ray’s Perleau
Ingredients: (Entrée, feeds a crowd)
2 pounds smoked meat such as pork neck bones, pig tails, turkey necks or ham hocks
2 pounds smoked bacon
6 pounds boneless chicken thighs
6 pounds boneless chicken tenderloins
6 pounds Boston butt or suitable pork such as boneless country style ribs, cut into 1-inch cubes
4-6 pounds kielbasa smoked sausage, cut into 3/8-inch slices
2 gallons stock
5-6 softball-size yellow onions, chopped into large pieces
1 gallon rice
Montreal Steak Seasoning, to taste
Preparation:
The day before you’re going to cook the perleau, make two gallons of stock by simmering the smoked meat in water for at least a couple of hours. Remove the meat and refrigerate the stock overnight. The next day, remove the fat that has risen to the top of the stock.
In a 20-quart Dutch oven, cook the bacon. Remove the bacon when cooked, then sear the chicken and pork in the bacon grease. Remove the meat from the pot and discard the remaining grease. Put the bacon, chicken and pork back in the pot along with the kielbasa and add the 2 gallons of stock.
Bring to a boil and simmer until the chicken is tender. When the chicken is done, remove it and chop or shred into bite-size pieces. Return chicken to the pot and add the rice and Montreal Steak Seasoning. Stir. Put the onion chunks on top. Bring to a boil, put the lid on the pot and put it in a preheated 350-degree oven for 30 minutes. Halfway through the cooking, remove the lid and stir.
Chicken Bog
From the Loris Chamber of Commerce Web Site
www.lorischambersc.com/bogoff.cfm
Ingredients: (Entrée, serves 10-12)
6 cups water
1 tablespoon salt
1 onion, chopped
1 3-pound whole chicken
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup long-grain white rice
1/2 pound smoked sausage, sliced
2 tablespoons Italian-style dressing
2 cubes chicken bouillon
Preparation:
Place water, salt and onion in a large pot. Add chicken and bring to boil; simmer 1 hour or until chicken is tender. Remove chicken from pot and let cool. Remove skin and bones and chop meat into bite-size pieces. Skim fat from broth. Put 3 1/2 cups of this broth in a 6-quart saucepan. Add rice, chicken pieces, sausage, herbs and bouillon. Put lid on pan. Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook for a total cooking time of 30 minutes. Stir often while cooking. If it’s too watery after 30 minutes, keep cooking, uncovered, until it’s the desired consistency.
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