1 pound venison or beef short ribs or shanks
2 quarts water
2 large onions, quartered
2 ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 large sweet bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 cup fresh or frozen okra
1/2 cup diced potatoes
1/2 cup sliced carrots
1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1/4 cup chopped celery
salt and ground pepper to taste
catsup, to taste
Put meat, water, and onions in a heavy soup kettle. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3 hours. Remove meat, let cool, and discard bones, returning meat to pot. Stir in remaining vegetables and simmer, partially covered, for 1-1/2 hours. Season with salt, pepper, and catsup.
Serves 4 to 6.
In 1540, Hernando de Soto visited the Cherokee, an offshoot of the great Iroquois Nation, and reported that they were an agricultural people who lived in log houses surrounded by well tended fields. In the seventeenth century, the tribe established an extensive trade with early Scottish and English settlers. By 1825, forty-seven white men and seventy-three white women had married into the tribe. Sequoya, the famous inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was the child of one of these marriages. By 1828, the Cherokee Nation was publishing its own weekly newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, and the rate of literacy among the Cherokee was higher than that of the white settlers in the region.
This Cherokee version of Pepper Pot Soup, unlike the famous pepper pots of Pennsylvania, does not call for tripe, though on some occasions it may well have been added. Also, though it is a matter of personal taste, Cherokee cooking is not extremely hot and spicy. The pepper in the pot is of the sweet bell variety.