Talk:Albion, Illinois

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[edit] Chowder

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)

It was in the 1950's that the Edwards County Commissioners passed a resolution naming all of Edwards County as "The Chowder Capital of the World" not just Albion. User:schaser1 3:15, 15 February (UTC)

I can't think of any good reason for celebrating--far less, for perpetuating--the chutzpah of a bunch of ignorant rubes more than half a century ago.C.Boewe 15:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

How is this for a reason: It is an indisputable fact, whereas your characterization of the Edwards County Commissioners as "ignorant rubes" is merely your own personal, biased, ignorant, opinion.

My friend, whoever you are hiding under that nom de plume, your "witty" riposte is hardly worth replying to. If, like the Commissioners, you are a lifelong resident of the smallest county in Illinois, I suppose the absurdity of Albion--or Edwards County--being the worldwide capital of anything escapes you. I at least have been around the world twice and as a result have a somewhat more expansive view. So the resolution of the ignorant Commissioners is an "indisputable fact"? Once another body of rubes in Wisconsin passed a resolution that the earth is flat, but, believe me, that didn't make it so. C.Boewe 19:16, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Look man, I think you are arrogant and condescending, but thats just my opinion and it doesn't belong here. But neither do yours. What is an indisputable fact is that the commissioners made the resolution, and your traveling around the globe 50 times would not change it. So maybe you should try expanding that view of yours just a little bit more. Also, you might want to check your facts as far as the the smallest county in Illinois as the good folks in Putnam County just might disagree with you. Of course they are probably just a bunch of ignorant rubes too, so why bother — I'm sure you know more than they do anyway. And if you want to know who I am, simply check the history for this page where it is clearly indicated.

There is no arguing with your naïve insistence that a resolution passed--probably as a rustic joke--by a group of legislators in the second smallest county in Illinois gives Albion a distinction that is untrue and the town does not deserve. Nor is it fair for me to continue to match wits with you, since you labor under the handicap of having none. Hence, I leave you now to sputter and fulminate in your own self-satisfied stupidity. C.Boewe 14:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)