Slang Jang/Slangjang (1907)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

I finally wrote up "slang jang/slangjang." The 1907 citation (in more than  
one newspaper) is worth reading in full.
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I have a feeling that "slang jang" could be in the rare "KKK Cookbook"  
(1894) below. It would be nice if someone would pay my car  fare, UT-Austin parking 
tab...nah, just joking, I don't need money to live.  Course not.
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(HONEY GROVE LIBRARY CATALOG)
Call Number: 641.5 KKK 
Title: K K K  cook book
Author: _Kute  Kooking Klub_ 
(javascript:parent.callNewSearch("refreshCriteria=1&fromFound=1&NewSearch=1&
index1=AU&term1=Kute+Kooking+Klub")) 
Publisher: Rbt Clarke  Co.
Publication Date: 1894

Subjects: 
_Cookery_ 
(javascript:parent.callNewSearch("refreshCriteria=1&fromFound=1&NewSearch=1&index1=SU&term1=Cookery")) 
_Honey  Grove_ 
(javascript:parent.callNewSearch("refreshCriteria=1&fromFound=1&NewSearch=1&index1=SU&term1=Honey+Grove--Cookbooks")) 
--Cookbooks

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(UT_AUSTIN CATALOG)
    _1_ 
(http://utdirect.utexas.edu/lib/utnetcat/full.WBX?search_type=FL&search_text=KKK+COOK+BOOK&next_action=N&next_record_brn=005801311&loc_display_type=
V)     
K.K.K. cook book. / "Kute Kooking Klub," Honey Grove, Texas. /  Cincinnati / 
1894 
641.5  K969K Center for American History USE IN LIBRARY ONLY
 

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_http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/slang_jang/_ 
(http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/slang_jang/) 
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Slang Jang (Slangjang)
 
"Slang Jang” (or “slangjang") is a dish from Honey Grove in Northeast Texas. 
 The ingredients of this hot pepper relish vary, but tend to include oysters, 
 onions, pickles, tomatoes, and hot peppers. The dish is recorded from 1901, 
and  the “slang jang” may simply be gibberish. 


_Dictionary of American  Regional English query_ 
(http://www.americandialect.org/NADS35-1.pdf)  
slang-jang—a dish containing oysters,  onions, pickles, peppers, etc. We have 
a single citation from Arkansas, but a  Google search suggests that this is 
still known, especially in the South and  South Midland. Is this part of your 
culinary background?  
_Dallas  Morning News_ 
(http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/sblow/stories/DN-blow_06met.ART.State.Edition2.3e035b5.html)  
Steve Blow: 
PB and pickles? I’ll take your word for  it 
06:42 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 6, 2006 
(...) 
Of all the  weird dishes I heard about, the topper may have come from Angie 
Rhodes of  Malakoff. “My dad grew up in a small town in northeast Texas in the ‘
30s,” she  wrote.  
“During warm months, families in the community would come together on  
Saturday nights to visit and play dominos. Each would bring an ingredient that  
would be mixed in a giant washtub for dinner. It was a sort of cold stew called  ‘
slang-jang.’ The ingredients were canned salmon, oysters, green onions, dill  
pickles, Vienna sausages and canned tomatoes.”  
Angie and her sisters carry on the slang-jang tradition at times – “when our 
 spouses are out of town.” 

_Honey  Grove, TX_ 
(http://www2.1starnet.com/hallv/Honey%20Grove%20Web%20Pages/Slang_Jang.htm)  
Honey Grove, Texas 
Slang Jang 
By Mary  Anne Thurman  
Slang Jang is a dish peculiar to Honey Grove.  The legend says that a  group 
of men in a grocery store concocted it for lunch one day.  Its  popularity 
grew until there were many people who had Slang Jang picnics at the  City Lake.  
As a child, I can remember many weekends we spent at the lake  playing and 
then eating the delicious chilled Slang Jang.  I was a blue  ribbon winner in the 
Slang Jang Contest during the Honey Grove Centennial in  1973.  
Slang Jang 
Mix undrained canned tomatoes with chopped dill pickles  and chopped onion to 
taste.  Add a can of oysters, chopped.  Add  Tabasco, salt and pepper to 
taste.  Add ice cubes to chill.  Serve  with saltine crackers.  
Many people vary this recipe.  Some add canned salmon or vienna sausage  in 
place of the oysters, or in addition to the oysters. 

Another recipe  is from the Cook Book by the Westminister Guild of the 
Presbyterian  Church, Honey Grove, Texas, 1922.   
Honey Grove Slang Jang 
Mix together two 3-pound cans of tomatoes  and three 2-pound cans of oysters, 
1 large onion, 2 large pickles chopped, add  vinegar, salt, red and black 
pepper to taste, 1 large lump of ice to chill, just  before serving.  Add crushed 
crackers to thicken.  
An article that appeared in sportswriter Tom Lepere’s column in the July, 12, 
 1974, Dallas Times Herald, also told of the lore surrounding Slang Jang in 
Honey  Grove.  It detailed the recipe of Shirley Ausburn, who along with her  
husband, ran the Lake Crockett Lodge at that time.  Her recipe contained  raw 
oysters, boiled shrimp and crab meat.   
I want to thank John W. Wilson, of Dallas, who sent me a copy of the clipping 
 and the Presbyterian cook book recipe.  

_Google  Books_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0841346712&id=WfcLAAAAMAAJ&q="slang+jang"&dq="slang+jang"&ie=ISO-8859-1&pgis=1)  
>From Blinky to Blue-John: a word atlas of Northeast Texas  
by Fred Tarpley 
Wolfe City, TX: University Press 
1970 
Pg. 198:  
Goulash, slumgullion, slang jang, pot licker, and lum golly  can be applied 
to any soup or dish containing vegetables (usually left-overs)  rather than to 
a specific kind of okra soup. 

_Google  Books_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN087565035X&id=Knu0Xn2iJb4C&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=slang+jang&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=LjIehBuAbyZtL3TilujQ0ZdKx
zU)  
Eats: A Folk History of Texas Foods 
by Ernestine Sewell  Linck and Joyce Gibson Orach\ 
Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press  
1989 
Pg. 63: 
SLANG JANG 
1 tomato, fresh from the garden,  chopped 
1 sweet green pepper, chopped 
1 medium onion, chopped 
2  stalks of celery, sliced 
About 1/2 pod of hot red pepper 
A pinch of salt  and sugar 
3/4 cup vinegar 
1/4 cup water 
Combine all ingredients. Add  hot pepper and seasonings to taste. 

17 August 1901, Commerce (TX)  Journal, pg. 2, col. 2: 
About fifteen couples enjoyed a “slang jang” party  at Iceland Monday night, 
where dancing and music was had until a late hour. All  report a most 
pleasant time with the “slang jang” as delicious. 

2 March  1907, Dallas (TX) Morning News, pg. 6, col. 4: 
2 March 1907,  Galveston (TX) Daily News, pg. 2?, col. 4: 
Not long ago the editor of  the Honey Grove Signal went to Austin, and while 
there he appears to have  regaled his friends with a dish about which much has 
been said and little is  known. The Bonham Herald mentions the matter in this 
way: 

“The Honey  Grove dish, their National dish, is slangjang. It is said to be 
made up of what  generally gets in the receptacle for a pig’s dinner, and it 
produces all sorts  of things including nightmares and new candidates. Editor 
Lowry introduced it at  Austin the other night, when the effect was 
electrifying, we hear.”  

There may be and there are people who are interested in this new  culinary 
concoction, known in the locality of Honey Grove as “slangjang.” Editor  Lowry, 
once upon a time, set down and told State Press all about the discovery  of 
the dish, if such an expression is permissible, and also did the best he  could 
do to introduce him into the mysteries of its making. Told in his way, a  
graven image would have become interested in it, and it is almost profane to  
attempt to repeat what he said, so despicable must be the attempt. He said that  
some years ago a party of well-fed Honey Grove men went into the Territory to  
hunt. They took with them much food, such as could be carried in tins. 
Moreover,  they appear to have taken other things. The weather was beautiful and 
game  scarce. The party remained in camp waiting for bad weather, having 
concluded  that only when the deer were so depressed by climatic influences that they 
would  cease to run about and would finally lean against trees, they could be 
killed.  Lying around camp for several days, they became full of lassitude and 
other  things, and the terrible condition was finally reached when each 
declined to  cook. Starvation stared them in the face, though they reclined or were 
stretched  in the midst of that plenty which the canned goods represented. 
Thus flew one,  two, even three days, when some one of them, less obstinate than 
the others,  concluded to minister to his own appetite. He made a fire. He 
placed a kettle of  water on it. He attacked the canned goods. he emptied them 
of their contents of  tomatoes, corn, beans, pineapple, peaches, blackberries, 
ochre, deviled ham,  pickled pork, pickled beef and all the cove oysters into 
the pot. Then added  pepper and salt ad libitum. he removed the pot when it 
began to boil. His  companions arose, every one of them, with such appetites as 
perhaps never man  had before. They shook hands across the steaming agent of 
reconciliation. They  drank deep drafts of branch water, and other things, to 
the eternal health of  all. They crowned the genius who had conceived the great 
dish before them, and  crowned him with oak leaves, one of the members having 
asserted that this is  what they did with conquerors and public benefactors 
in the Roman days. Having  eaten up everything they had brought with them, 
being physically unable to  pursue even a squirrel, they pulled for home. They 
brought back nothing but a  reminiscence, and that was of the dish they had 
eaten. Confused in tongue, down  and out in head, they stumbled on a name for the 
new conception ,and “slangjang”  was born. It is a great dish, so Editor Lowry 
assured State Press; but a man  must prepare himself for the enjoyment of it. 
He must refrain from all other  food for at least three days. During this 
time he must drink copiously of that  which will make horseradish and sauerkraut 
indistinguishable to him. He must  cultivate a sullen, obstinate and mean 
disposition. Then, when having undergone  the ordeals mentioned, he will eat “
slangjang” and call it something beside  which the nectar of the gods is cold, 
stale and funky beer. 

24 September  1989, New York Times, “Reading Food” by Betty Fussell, pg. 
BR36:  
...the Texas hot-pepper relish called Slang Jang. 

 

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