# What are the origins of the term slumgullion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 16, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674 "2009-03-16T21:57:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/1 "2009-03-16T21:57:25Z")
My GF says her father in Cleveland makes a delicacy he calls slumgullion. Anyone know where the term came from? ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/2 "2009-03-16T22:43:30Z")
FWIW, Partridge, _A Dictionary of Historical Slang_, has: > [@](#): > > **slumgullion.** ‘Any cheap, nasty, washy beverage’, H., 5th edition.: from ca 1870; ob. Perhaps a fantasy on _slub_ (= _slob_) and the _gullion_ of SLUBBERDEGULLION (cf. SLOBGOLLION); certainly fanciful. A slubberdegullion was a “dirty and/or slobbering fellow” and slobgollion was an “oozy, stringy substance found in sperm oil”. The reference to “H.” is Hotten’s _The Slang Dictionary_ (1859). ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/3 "2009-03-16T23:04:17Z")
It goes back at least a century for sure. There was a HUGE mud slide in southwestern Colorado in the mid-1800s. The slimy yellowish mud earned it the name Slumgullion Slide, and the pass through there is known as Slumgullion Pass. The signage at the overlooks indicates that the term was somewhat akin to “gulash”. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/4 "2009-03-17T00:20:53Z")
It kinda depends on what meaning of the various variations of the word you’re trying to use. For the food term, chiefly US in origin, it was a stew or hash of sorts, watery usually, and cited well back into the mid-1800’s It certainly was intertwined with the mining meaning, which was the dross left in the sluiceway. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/5 "2009-03-17T02:15:48Z")
[This](http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=37.997786,-107.268105&spn=0.042476,0.100422&t=h&z=13) is the Slumgullian Pass section of CO Hwy 149. The slide has started to sprout some trees, but it is still obvious in the photo, and much more so on the ground. Lake San Cristibol in the lower left did not exist prior to the mud slide, the slide dammed the valley below and created the lake. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/6 "2009-03-17T04:16:21Z")
My Dad calls any kind of stew, Slumgullion. There is a bit of a “I don’t like it” tinge. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/7 "2009-03-17T05:48:44Z")
That sounds a lot like “Jamboree Mulligan”, a kind of stew we used to make on Boy Scout camping trips. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/8 "2009-03-17T13:28:57Z")
I make a delicious casserole out of elbow macaroni, ground beef, tomato sauce, Velveeta cheese, and a couple of other things, which according to the recipe book whence it came is called “Slumgulion,” or a similar spelling. There are no slums in Springfield, so I call it Ghetto-gulion. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-origins-of-the-term-slumgullion/489674/9 "2009-03-17T13:47:12Z")
The term surely goes back further than 1870. Mark Twain quotes someone on the western stage route using it when he went west circa 1860 in his book “Roughing it”. Twain wrote that book as a recollection much later, but I think he’s reporting accurately.