When Russ Kennedy talks about burgoo, his smile crackles; his mustache bobs; he gesticulates more than usual. That’s my first clue that, for the Frankfort native, burgoo is more than food, and the burgoo pot more than a cooking vessel.
It’s about bringing people together, he explains while I sit a generous 8 feet away on his front porch. I adjust my mask, appreciating the irony. The porch boasts a grill, a smoker, a griddle, a swing, ample seating for guests, and an outlandish array of signs, knickknacks, wind chimes and visual jokes. In normal times, I’ll bet this porch doesn’t go begging for company.
Russ claims to be retired, but don’t let him fool you. His various hobbies, side jobs and volunteer projects amount to at least a full-time gig—not the least of which is Kentucky’s Best Burgoo, LLC. With help from longtime friend David Snyder, Russ supplies the traditional Kentucky dish to the Firehouse Sandwich Shop at Buffalo Trace Distillery and Staxx BBQ in Frankfort, in addition to cooking burgoo at about eight events each year. Kentucky’s Best Burgoo lived up to its name in 2019, when it was named the best in Kentucky in the USA Today 10Best Readers’ Choice contest.
A signature event for Kentucky’s Best Burgoo is the Oaks Day Festival at Buffalo Trace. Russ says he’s met people from 22 countries at the event, and everyone wants to learn more about burgoo; everyone wants a turn stirring the pot.
“That’s beyond cooking, beyond salt and pepper,” Russ says. “Now you’re part of the event. You’re included. Everybody’s the same—they’ve all got a spoon and a cracker.”
The product itself is a hearty dish of smoked meat and vegetables, “somewhere between a soup and stew.” Meant to feed a crowd, burgoo usually is cooked over an open fire in a cast-iron pot. But burgoo isn’t a recipe, according to Russ. It’s a gathering.
“You can get online and find a thousand recipes,” he says. “They’re all good. But think of it as an event where people gather ’round to have fun, to trade stories, to enjoy food. That’s what a burgoo is.”
No, really, what is burgoo?
It’s a long story. According to a short history provided by Russ, burgoo was a “product of harvest-time celebrations” on the Kentucky frontier, with community members all contributing to the pot whatever they could provide in the way of vegetables and wild game. Later, many sources point out, 19th century chef Gustav Jaubert was known as “the Father of Burgoo.” According to the online magazine Epicurious, Jaubert might have cooked for Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan, and it’s certain that, following the war, he was hired to cook for employees at Buffalo Trace Distillery, where two of his burgoo pots are still displayed.
Since the mid-19th century, burgoo has become an established feature of Kentucky culture with ties to Derby Day, political events, church picnics, fundraisers and community festivals. Recipes vary widely (and Russ uses only U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved ingredients), but the method—low heat, slow cooking in a cast-iron pot—remains a distinguishing feature.
“What I like most about it is the history and tradition,” Russ says. “The deeper I got, the more I got into what it was. The name—where did it come from? Beginning there, you learn about the history, then its history in Kentucky. That’s what captured me.”
Russ is my neighbor, but being a relative newcomer to South Frankfort, I didn’t know him well before this assignment. When Steve Vest asked me to write a story about Russ’ burgoo operation, I jumped at the chance. Here’s an initial observation about Russ: He’s almost frenetically cheerful, bursting with energy, quick with a quip or a compliment, eager to be of assistance, passionate about friendships and community.
What drives him? Russ has seen enough life that the answer is bound to be complex. When I ask him, though, he’s quick to point out one influence—his dad.
Jack Kennedy was a veteran, a “career activist” in the local VFW, a local postal service employee, and an “all-around good guy.” Jack began his career as a letter carrier and finished as superintendent of mails. He was twice offered the position of postmaster—once in Georgetown and once in Danville—but he turned down each offer.
“He had no interest in moving,” Russ explains. “He was Frankfort-born and -raised, and this was his town, and he had no interest in going to Danville or Georgetown.”
Russ grew up watching his dad serve others, build connections and reach out to people from all walks of life.
“There’s one thing that he taught me that I’ve tried to carry with me my entire life. He said, ‘If you can make someone else’s day a little better just because they happened to bump into you, you have a gift.’ And I carry that.”
It’s been a tough year for Kentucky’s Best Burgoo, with events canceled, restrictions on gatherings, social distancing, masks. But Russ agrees to pull out one of his burgoo pots—a 35-gallon cast-iron beauty—for a photo. He keeps the kettle at the home of David Snyder, his friend and “right arm in burgoo.”
“He is as passionate about it as I am, and he will carry it on when I am gone,” Russ says.
It’s 9:45 a.m., and the weather is unseasonably cool when my sister, Rebecca, and I pull into David’s driveway on a Saturday morning in August. Russ isn’t there yet, David explains, because he’s a notoriously slow driver.
“If there’s a ballgame in Lexington [22 miles away] at 8,” David says, “we’ve got to leave here by 6.”
While we wait, David walks us through some of the things that make Kentucky’s Best Burgoo unique. It’s a two-day process—the meat is smoked on the first day and slowly bubbled with vegetables and secret spices on the second day until the mixture cooks down. It’s done when the paddle can stand straight up in the pot. Other burgoo outfits might serve a more watery mixture that goes farther, but not Kentucky’s Best Burgoo. It’s thick, and they’re proud of it.
When Russ arrives, he and David don matching red aprons with embroidered names. David’s reads “Dee-Mon,” a variation of his childhood nickname. Russ’ “Burgoomeister” needs no explanation.
For the benefit of the camera, Russ goofs off with his burgoo paddle. First it’s an AC/DC guitar, then it’s a microphone fit for crooning. But there’s one paddle in Russ’ collection that’s no joke. It’s one of the paddles that belonged to James Conway, Frankfort’s now-deceased “Burgoo King.”
“Everybody’s got a burgoo king,” Russ says. “But James Conway was ours.”
After the Burgoo King’s passing in 2001, one of his disciples, Rick Caudle, gave a Conway paddle to Russ. For Russ, the paddle is a link to the past—it transmits a bit of tradition in every batch.
“They haven’t printed enough $100 bills to buy this paddle,” Russ says. “It’s not for sale for any price. And we take it everywhere we go.”
Before we leave David’s house, he hands us a bucket of frozen burgoo from a batch he cooked with Russ’ youngest son, Jack, and Russ hands us four collectible burgoo bowls made by Louisville Stoneware. They’re no longer in production, so Russ keeps an eye on eBay and buys them when he finds them. It makes sense that even Russ’ burgoo bowls should have a story.
In sourdough baking, a living culture of yeast is refreshed daily, living from loaf to loaf, and sometimes from generation to generation. For Kentucky “burgoomeisters” like Russ, culture is transmitted from batch to batch. It’s a culture not of yeast, but of storytelling, memory and community, reminding us that we are bound to one another—bound not only to those in the present but also to those who came before us and to those who will come after.
Maybe it’s a bit of that culture that makes me wax philosophical while I heat up our gifted bucket of burgoo when I get back home. As it bubbles on the range, a smoky aroma fills the kitchen. When it’s hot, I test it. Sure enough, a wooden spoon stands upright in the pot on the stove.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to worm its way into every corner of our lives, but in this kitchen, good neighbors are with us—not in body, but in spirit. And when I dip into the bowl with my family, we’re part of a bigger story.
“I hope we, as people, never ever let the old traditions die,” Russ—who with his wife, Susan, have another son, Scott, and a scads of grandchildren—had said during our first phone interview. “It’s OK to modernize traditions, but you’ve got to keep them. We need our photographs, our storytellers and our big old cast-iron pots. If we can have somebody stir the pot, get their picture made, and go home to wherever they may be from and tell the story, we’ve preserved history.”