Talk:Albion, Illinois

message: I deleted “Chowder Capital of the world” to save the good people of Albion from appearing more naïve than they really are. Perhaps I misjudged them, for now the silly assertion has been weaseled back in as “Claims to be the Chowder Capital of the world.” This is also the town that claimed seventy years ago to be “The redtop capital of the world” according to a signboard that greeted travelers at the edge of town on Rt. 130. An ornamental grass grown for lawns, redtop (Agrostis alba) was not really red and was soon replaced in the perennial householders’ battle against crab grass by Kentucky bluegrass (Poa praetensis), which is not blue either. But Albion folk continue to hanker after being the world capital of something.  How about Cloud-Cuckoo-land?
Chowder is not the answer. In the first place, the word “chowder” is an Americanism (vide Oxford English Dictionary) little known in the rest of the world, and even in the United States understood by most people to refer either to the New England or Manhattan varieties of clam chowder. Originating in New England in the eighteenth century, it started out as a fish soup, to which vegetables were added as available.
What people in southern Illinois call chowder has nothing to do with sea food. It was brought to that region by West Salem Moravians who had enjoyed it in North Carolina, where it was and still is called Brunswick stew. Never settled is the dispute whether Brunswick stew was invented in Brunswick County, Virginia, or Brunswick County, Georgia, either place making it incontestably a Southern specialty, and—what has been forgotten in recent years—that it got its distinctive flavor from squirrel meat, either that of the then common red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) or of the grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) that has largely replaced the former. Originally, the dominant vegetable of Brunswick stew was corn (Zea mays), but over the years other vegetables have been added. The earliest cooks of Brunswick stew made it exclusively with corn and flesh of the arboreal rodents called squirrels because, preparing it in the field for hunters, those were the only ingredients they had. 
Although the state health department, in its never-ending quest to protect people from their own better judgment, some years ago ruled out the use of squirrels, it is the Moravians in West Salem who continue to make the most historically authentic “chowder” and, understanding that “the world” is substantially bigger than Edwards County, have never felt an itch to call their town the capital of anything. C.Boewe 19:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chowder 

message: Substituted at 07:06, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

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thread_title:  External links modified