It’s the best week of the year for our two dogs when I’m breaking down quarters of venison in the kitchen. It’s good for their keepers, too, for as with many prairie households, venison becomes our primary protein in winter. We have a great variety of venison dishes, some of which are time-consuming, but when we want something quick and simple, with ties to the traditional culinary culture of the region, there’s an easy answer: chislic.
I remember our first encounter with this savory dish, some thirty years ago, in Richardton: the last installment of a Hauck family tradition, serving morsels of lamb to their neighbors. I loved those juicy bites then, as I do now. I still like to pull in at Meridian Corner, the junction of highways 81 and 18, for a basket of skewered lamb.
Freeman, South Dakota, declares itself the center of the Chislic Circle, from which the popularity of the dish has emanated, but how did it get there in the first place? The tradition of chislic, or shashlik, comes from the Turkish-speaking Tatars of the Caucasus region. Germans settling in the Black Sea colonies of the Russian Empire picked up the tradition and brought it to the Great Plains of North America in the 1870s.
A focal point for such immigrant settlement was Freeman, in Hutchinson County, Dakota Territory, but it remains a mystery why chislic became a thing in this locality of the plains, whereas elsewhere, the tradition remained isolate or disappeared entirely. Local historians say the popularizer of chislic in Freeman was a carpenter named Johann Hoellworth, who had a shop on the main drag. I explain it more in terms of chaos theory: sometimes an imported tradition roots and flourishes, sometimes not, for no concrete reason we can identify.
Chislic proliferated in the recent culinary culture of South Dakota in folk fashion, mainly as bar food. Sometimes it’s lamb or mutton, more often, the farther you get from Freeman, it’s beef. It’s more commonly deep-fried than shewered. Seasoned hardly at all, with just garlic salt or seasoned salt. The common practice is to serve it with saltines, a faint echo of the flatbreads of the Caucasus.
In 2018 State Senator Stace Nelson, representing Hutchinson County, brought Senate Bill 96 to Pierre, proposing to designate chislic the State Nosh—snack, or appetizer— of South Dakota. The impetus was not just cultural tradition, but also tourism, promoting a signature food for travelers. Governor Dennis Daugaard was skeptical; he called the bill a waste of time; but he signed it. Be it noted that Gov. Daaugard is of Danish immigrant stock, not German-Russian. That same year, 2018, Freeman launched the first annual South Dakota Chislic Festival, which was an immediate success.
Sure, South Dakota has dibs on the popular tradition of chislic, but its historical roots are more general, it belongs wherever the Black Sea Germans settled. Taverns in North Dakota, especially in German-Russian Country, would do well to add it to their offerings.
At our house, chislic works for any cut of deer meat, just cube it. I marinate mine in a bag with Worcestershire, tabasco, black vinegar, a drizzle of molasses, a splash of sour mash, garlic, black pepper, and salt. Grill the skewers hot and fast. We dispense with the saltines and serve it on couscous. Be careful, this stuff is like popcorn. I can’t stop eating it, but Dr. Kelley saves a morsel for each of our canine kids.
