How a Crimean meat kebab travelled thousands of miles to become a South Dakota obsession

Chislic may look like a simple meat skewer, but its journey from the Black Sea to the American Great Plains tells a much bigger story.

At Meridian Corner, a roadhouse amid the corn and alfalfa fields of Freeman in South Dakota, my lunch took about 40 seconds to arrive at the table: five sticks of lamb and five of mutton, deep-fried and served with garlic salt and crackers.

This is chislic – South Dakota's most beloved light bite, often eaten as an appetiser or snack between meals. Here in the town of Freeman, it's ubiquitous, served in bars, restaurants, and homes across this south-eastern pocket of the state. Drive much beyond it, however, and people may have no idea what you're talking about. 

"I grew up eating chislic and never thought much about it," town archivist Marnette Hofer told me. "Then I went to college in Kansas, and nobody knew about it. I don't think people in the Black Hills – in South Dakota! – had a clue."

Chislic may be distinctly South Dakotan, but its roots lie thousands of miles away, around the Black Sea. So how did it become so thoroughly local that, in 2018, the state legislature made it the official state "nosh"?

In the 1870s, Germans from Russia began arriving in what was then Dakota Territory, bringing with them traditions from their former homes around the Black Sea. Hofer, who grew up in the area and serves as the executive director of its Heritage Hall Museum & Archives, took me through its exhibits chronicling the historic passage. As she showed me around its exhibits, we discussed chislic and the unlikely chain of events that brought it here.

While roasting meat on sticks is an ancient technique, peoples living around the Black Sea and the Caucasus traditionally cut their meat into small chunks before skewering it on metal rods, or even swords. Russian troops encountered this style of cooking among Tatars in Crimea and the Caucasus as the empire pushed south towards the Black Sea from the late 17th Century. Called "shashlyk", it was typically made with mutton, marinated in onions or vinegar and grilled on skewers – quick to prepare and easy to eat on the move.

By the late 18th Century, shashlyk had become fashionable in parts of the Russian Empire and was enthusiastically taken up by German settlers who had been encouraged to settle in Russia under Catherine the Great, many of whom later established communities around the Black Sea. But in the 1870s, as Tsar Alexander II revoked privileges long granted to its German settlers, including their religious freedom and exemption from military service, many began emigrating. Among the things they carried with them were recipes.

"And President Abraham Lincoln had eight years previously enacted the Homestead Act of 1862, promising cheap land on the American frontier," recounts Tim Waltner, the Heritage Hall's education and communication coordinator. "If you stayed on five years, the land was yours."

The timing proved irresistible to immigrants from all over Europe, including some 115,000 Russo-Germans – or "Germans from Russia" as they would become known. Among them was farmer-turned-carpenter Johann Hoellwarth, who arrived in the growing town of Freeman in the 1870s. According to the earliest records available, said Hofer, Hoellwarth was the first to introduce shashlyk to Dakotan palates.

"Only," she adds, "his accent was so thick people thought he was saying 'chislic'."

The new name stuck, and more changes were ahead. Hoellwarth quickly discovered that the windswept Great Plains were very different from Crimea's milder landscape.

While sheep farming was well established in the Dakotas by the early 1800s, there was no metal for skewers, no vinegar for marinating, and on the treeless prairies, hardwood was far too precious to burn. Even onions were relatively new.

Like many immigrants before him, Hoellwarth made do with what he had: a cauldron, lard, garlic salt, hand-length sticks whittled from willow bushes, and 10ft (3m)-tall wild grasses that burned fast but hot. This is how a meal that was once marinated, grilled on a sword and eaten with flatbread became a deep-fried, salted bite-sized snack served on a glorified toothpick and eaten with crackers. 

"He would serve it during Fourth of July celebrations in Freeman," said Hofer. And just as Russian soldiers had discovered generations earlier, "it was popular."

At Meridian Corner, the chislic is traditional and the gossip, as the saying goes, could rip the paint off a barn. The roadhouse sits at the heart of the Chislic Circle, a term coined by writer Richard Preheim in 2005 for the roughly 30-mile radius around Freeman where devotion to chislic runs deep.

It has also become something of a culinary bastion. Even after chislic was named the state's official "nosh" and chefs began serving beef, goat and pork versions, the Circle largely held to lamb and mutton. The legislature chose "nosh" rather than "dish" or "meal" because it considered the term a better fit for the snack-sized food.

"When it became the state nosh, the definition of what chislic is really expanded," said Abby Streyle, Meridian Corner's manager, who is of German-Russian ancestry. "It's fun when people do different twists on a food, but it is important to keep some things old-school."

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But chislic has been evolving almost from the start. From Hoellwarth's introduction, as it passed down family lines the recipe picked up local peculiarities reflected in eateries across the area today. In the nearby town of Kaylor, the Kaylor Locker, the butcher supplying most of the Circle for the last 65 years, serves a venison version, the Circle's only acceptable stand-in for lamb or mutton. At Pep's Pub across the street, the chislic is griddled – not fried – with onions. In the town of Dimock, locally made cheese is added as a side along with crackers, while Bud's Tavern in Marion adds jalapeños to the onions and uses only "dirty oil" (previously used) to enhance the flavour.

Some adaptations have been economic. Pep's Pub and Bud's Tavern serve their chislic "loose" – without skewers – a practice Cindy Fischer, owner of The Schnitz Bar in the town of Menno, says helped keep prices down. Others were practical. Over-fried chislic comes out hard as a rock, which may help explain the rise of griddles and air fryers to keep the meat juicy and evenly cooked.

More radical versions were on the horizon at the biennial Chislic Festival, founded by Hofer and her son, Josh, just 45 days after the food got its legislative seal of approval.

"When we began, we had a tasting competition and divided it into traditional and 'New Age Nosh' categories," she recalled. "Even then, there were some who scoffed that nothing other than traditional sheep chislic earned the name. But in the New Age Nosh category, someone wanted to enter alligator! That was going too far."

Beyond the Chislic Circle, however, the rules remain loose. I tried beef chislic at the Blarney Stone in Sioux Falls – an hour's drive from Freeman – that bucked tradition further with horseradish and Carolina BBQ sauces. Delicious, but Hoellwarth's head would likely be exploding. 

"They called it steak tips before 2018," Streyle muttered.

While the recipe continues to evolve, what chislic represents has remained remarkably consistent. 

"Chislic is hospitality in a simple, unassuming dish," Hofer told me. "Kind of a 'come as you are, we're glad you're here' type of food. It is a simple experience that reminds people of a community where hard work and honesty are important values. Where being real, down-to-earth and welcoming are just part of life." 

And one day, maybe even with alligator. 

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