MUSCATINE, Iowa —It has been a tradition in Muscatine’s Public Works Department for around 20 years —workers gathering annually for a lunch of mulligan stew.

The department’s 70 employees gathered at noon Wednesday in the Public Works building’s break room to eat like hobos, dining on the mixture of stew meat and vegetables.

There used to be a variety of departmental lunches, including a chili cook-off, a fish fry, and a Christmas potluck, said Randy Hill, the department’s director and interim city administrator.

“It got to be a bit much,”he said, so an employee survey was taken. It revealed the annual mulligan stew day was the favorite.

Everyone brings a variety of canned goods each year, Hill said. Most of it goes to the Salvation Army’s food pantry. But some is kept to cook with meat that is purchased with proceeds from the department’s pop fund.

Hill said the mulligan stew day usually takes place during the week before Thanksgiving when the department is “gearing up for snow.”

He calls it a nice turnaround meal between fall activities and preparing for winter.

“It keeps morale at a level where people can have a good time,” he said.