SC Lowcountry Fall Traditions Part One: Hash - The ‘Whatchagot Stew’ of the South

Here's the last S.C. barbecue hash recipe you will ever need, but first, a story.

How to use less desirable farm or wild game cuts to make a great S.C. Barbecue Hash. This is the first of a three-part series on Carolina culinary delights.

“No one knows exactly what the ingredients of Whatchagot Hunter’s Stew are because there is a firm rule against anyone shining a light into it.” – Patrick F. McManus

“Only a fool eats green hash.” – Patrick F. McManus

If your childhood was splendid, as mine was, you grew up lurking around cricks, getting lost in the wilderness, eating Whatchagot Stew on camping trips and reading the late, great outdoor writer Patrick F. McManus.

If not, you may be wondering what in the heck is in Whatchagot Stew, and so has everyone who has ever attempted to digest it. According to my boyhood hero McManus, Whatchagot Stew was a gastrological oddity you had at fish camps or hunting camps when the camp cook – the lunatic who drew the last straw - scrounged the cabin, the cooler, or the freezer, threw everything he found into one big pot, and added some fresh wild game. Depending on whether or not the camp cook was taking his medication that day, and if he had a grudge against the other hunters or anglers, W. Stew could range in taste from downright delightful to the cause of death mentioned in your obituary.

For me, a farm boy and child of the South Carolina Lowcountry, barbecue hash was our Whatchagot tradition. Stewed down pork, beef, sometimes offals (that’s fancy talk for internal organs and other innards), onions and potatoes were ground up, sauced up and dashed up with spices and served over rice in Granny’s kitchen and in many barbecue joints scattered around the Palmetto State countryside.

And, after years spent as an outdoorsman and outdoor writer, former meat cutter and wild game processor, I have learned a few tricks and found a few wonderful recipes.