BRUNSWICK STEW
-- by John Clary

Brunswick stew, according to most history books and The Virginia General Assembly (proclaimed February 22, 1988), was first cooked in Brunswick County, VA on the banks of the Nottoway River in 1828 for a hunting party of Creed Haskins by a gentleman known as Uncle Jimmy Matthews. He probably used squirrel (killed by the hunting party) as the main meat and then combined whatever vegetables and seasonings he had.
In 2007, most of the stews cooked in Brunswick County, VA use chicken as the base meat. Usually, bacon, fatback, hog jowls, or smoked midlin meat is added as seasoning meat and of course to add fat for the cooking process. Quite a few of the cooks, better known as stewmasters, add some type of beef as well. The basic vegetables are white potatoes, tomatoes, onions, butterbeans and corn. Some stewmasters add carrots, string beans or other vegetables to their liking or as probably in the “olden days” whatever they have leftover from the week. Seasonings are generally salt, red and black pepper and some use sugar.
Brunswick, Georgia does not have a foot to stand on as far as the original home of Brunswick stew. I have a newspaper article from 1987 with a picture of the stew pot they had on display at the rest area on southbound I-95 stating the first stew cooked there was in 1898. Low and behold, in 2005 when I was traveling through their area, the plaque had been changed to stating it was cooked in the early colonial days. Guess they figured they were proven wrong and needed to change history and most travelers would not know the truth. I proceeded to put one of the Brunswick County, VA “Original Home of Brunswick Stew” stickers on the pot and photographed it for my records. The “Stew Wars” have been used as a valuable economic tool by all concerned and hopefully will continue.

Brunswick stew or a facsimile is cooked all over the country using different ingredients and called different things. In Greensville County, Virginia, they cook a chicken muttle, in Kentucky they cook Burgoo, in South Carolina they cook Carolina Hash and I am sure other areas cook something similar and call it something else.
Cooking Brunswick stew and becoming a stewmaster has been a labor of love for me. It has afforded me the opportunity to meet some wonderful people and travel to some different places to share this delicious stew with others around the country.

My training began in 1973 when I joined the Lawrenceville Volunteer Fire Department and was lucky enough to be a friend of McGuire Thomas, the stewmaster for the department at that time. McGuire was off from work on Tuesdays, so that is when we cooked the stew. Back then we would cook only two – three times per year. McGuire provided me with detailed instructions on stew preparation and how to adapt to the changes that may need to be made based on ingredients you have for each stew. When the lack of other helpers on Tuesdays forced us to cook on Saturdays, I assumed the role of stewmaster, probably in 1974- 1975. I was assisted by fellow stewmasters Harold Blick, Lonnie Moore and Phil Batchelor. We worked together as a team then and Lonnie, Phil and I still work together today. In 2004, we apprenticed Chiles Cridlin from Richmond, VA through a program with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities based in Charlottesville, VA. We began apprenticing Tim Bendall from Prince George County, VA in 2005 and in 2006 Rodney Elmore from Bracey, VA.

The 50-gallon cast iron stew pot that I first cooked in belonged to Robert F. Pecht ( Pa Pecht to most of us) of Lawrenceville, VA. He had purchased the pot in early 1930’s to cook stews to raise money for the local St. Louis Cardinals baseball farm team. In 1986 or 1987, Mr. Pecht purchased a 75-gallon stainless steel pot and had it mounted on a trailer. The popularity of Brunswick Stew was really taking off at that time as the stew was being used in the wars with Georgia. The publicity the wars generated brought in a lot of new people to enjoy this wonderful stew and the increased sale of stews for raising money for various churches, civic, and other groups. Now, instead of cooking 50 gallons at a time, we began cooking both pots for a total of 125 gallons. In 1988, Mr. Pecht had the original 50-gallon pot mounted on a trailer which enabled more people to use his equipment to cook the stews all over Southside Virginia.

In 1987, Brunswick, Georgia and Brunswick County, Virginia started the stew wars to use as an economic development tool. The Virginia General Assembly agreed with Brunswick County, Virginia that it was the original home and so proclaimed it on February 22, 1988. On that day history was made again. Mr. Pecht was asked to get a crew together to prepare Brunswick stew at the State Capitol. Having been long time friends with Harold Blick and a member of the Lawrenceville Volunteer Fire Department, he involved us in this history-making event. Since we decided to take both of the pots, we needed a large crew to handle all of the preparation and cooking for that day. Since Harold, Lonnie, Phil, David “Chunk” Gibson and I had worked together on stews for the Fire Department, Mr. Pecht asked us to head up the cooking while he handled all of the other logistics. We named ourselves the Proclamation Stew Crew. Everything went as planned and the event was a huge success.

With both of Mr. Pecht’s pots being mounted on trailers, we were able to travel to various locations to cook stew. The first trip as a group outside of the state was to Brunswick, Georgia for a cook off. This was in November 1988 and the Proclamation Stew Crew won The Peoples Choice Award. Since then, Lonnie and I purchased and mounted two additional pots (Lonnie’s is 55 gallons and mine is 90 gallons). With Mr. Pecht’s, Lonnie’s, and my pots, we have been fortunate to be asked to cook in various Virginia areas including the State Fair of Virginia and other locations in Richmond, Chester, Chase City, Virginia Beach, Blacksburg and Charlottesville. In the summer of 2007, the Proclamation Stew Crew, composed of Lonnie Moore, Phil Batchelor(now deceased), Chiles Cridlin, Tim Bendall, Rodney Elmore and myself will be cooking in New York City and Washington, D.C. In 2009, P.L. Baisey joined our crew.