There is no single recipe. Common meats are pork, chicken, beef and mutton, often smoked, and older versions used squirrel, rabbit and venison. Lima beans, corn, okra, tomatoes, cabbage and potatoes go in too. Cooking it is often a communal event, and it funds plenty of church and school fundraisers.
Owensboro, Kentucky, serves it with barbecued mutton. Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn uses mutton, beef and chicken, and the city's barbecue festival, long called the International Bar-B-Q Festival, serves well over a thousand gallons and judges a best burgoo.
Its origins are disputed. Stories credit a Frenchman named Gus Jaubert cooking for Civil War soldiers, freed people cooking for livestock sales, or a Native American hunting stew. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word to Arabic and Turkish words for cracked wheat. Burgoo has long been served around Kentucky horse racing, and a horse named Burgoo King won the Derby in 1932.