A Coastal Georgia Tradition: Brunswick Stew

By Skip Harris

sk 100 folks from the southeast United States how to make Brunswick stew and you’ll probably get 100 different answers! Potatoes or not? Chicken or squirrels? Beef or pork, or both? Okra or not? And on and on…

Ask the same people who makes the best, and you’ll get another 100 answers. My mom, my dad, my uncle, my aunt, my grandma, my granddad, one of many local BBQ joints, and me, of course! You get the picture. There are lots of opinions about how to make Brunswick stew and whose recipe is the best!

Brunswick stew has been a tradition around these parts for more than a century, and most southerners love it. It’s a wonderful meal in

Aand of itself with bread or a fantastic accompaniment to a delicious BBQ dinner. It’s great the day it’s cooked; even better warmed up a day or two later after the flavors meld. And it freezes nicely to be pulled out and warmed up for a quick lunch anytime. It’s especially delectable on a cool wintry day, but equally as good at a Fourth of July weekend party. A big steaming pot of Brunswick stew is always a crowd pleaser. It’s easy to prepare in large batches, easy to serve, and fairly inexpensive to make. What could be better? Given the rather large number of variations in what people think are the best ingredients, it may come as no surprise that historians continued ...

can’t agree on the origins of Brunswick stew or when it was first stewed up. It seems there are several states and at least one foreign country that lay claim to inventing Brunswick stew.

For folks around St. Marys, it seems fairly obvious that it would have been invented just up the road in Brunswick, Georgia, right? Ask around and you’ll find stories of families all around southern Georgia passing along family recipes from generation to generation dating back to the 1800s. Often these prized recipes are closely guarded secrets.

St. Simons island has an annual Brunswick Rockin’ Stewbilee each year that centers around a competition for the best stew. There is a large metal stew pot atop a concrete pedestal at the visitors center claiming the first pot of Brunswick stew was cooked up in that very pot on July 2, 1898. Other similar recipes from this region with different names like camp stew are known to exist prior to the civil war.

As obviously authentic as our local claim seems to us here in St Marys, it is certainly disputed by the good folks up in Brunswick County, Virginia. Now I’ve never been to Brunswick County, Virginia, but I’d be willing to bet that if I’d roam the rural backroads of the county stopping at local BBQ joints and talking to old timers, I’d hear just as many stories from locals about how Brunswick Stew was invented right there in their own backyard. In fact there’s a roadside marker in Brunswick County, Virginia as well, claiming a camp cook named Jimmy Matthews stewed up some squirrels, butter, onions, stale bread, and seasoning way back in 1828, and that’s the original recipe.

Although there is no official monument or marker I am aware of in North Carolina claiming it originated there, I have heard people from North Carolina tell me it comes from Brunswick in their home state. A quick internet search will certainly show there is no shortage of “North Carolina” recipes out there that incorporate North Carolina’s famous pulled pork and Carolina mustard based BBQ sauce.

It turns out there are 15 towns in 15 different states in the “new world” named Brunswick from Maine, to Minnesota, to Texas, to our neighbor just up the road. I haven’t heard any claims that Minnesotans make the best Brunswick stew but there are more possibilities than just the good old USA.

In her 1943 Cross Creek cookbook, author Marjorie Rawlings claims the origins go back to the Victorian era. It is said that it was a favorite of Queen Victoria and originated in the Duchy of Brunswick-Luneburg in Germany. Given that the Virginia county and our neighboring city both share the namesake of the duchy in Germany, there might be some credence to this theory too.

Aside from the mystery of its origins, there are also widespread differences about the basic ingredients. While there’s no mention of tomatoes in the Virginia road marker, I’m pretty sure most every Brunswick stew aficionado would agree that the basic recipe is a tomato-based stew with meat and vegetables. Most recipes I’ve seen include more than one meat including chicken, beef or pork, and the vegetables corn, okra and some type of beans. From there, there is a wide divergence. Some say it must have squirrels to be real Brunswick stew. Others say if it has okra, it’s a gumbo and not Brunswick stew. My good friend Greg and I disagree about potatoes or not, just like the spelling of the word itself. Ketchup or BBQ sauce? Worcestershire? Garlic, green peppers, celery or all three? How much butter? Is it a thin soup-like mixture or thick slurry like my family recipe. Wild game? Opossum? Only smoked meat? Peas or Lima beans? I could go on and on but you get the idea. There does seem to be some regional trends with the Virginia versions being thinner and including potatoes more often than not. The North Carolina versions have smoked pulled pork, and the Georgia versions have okra and no potatoes and are pretty thick. That said, I wouldn’t dare argue with a proud Georgian or Virginian who thickened their stew with potatoes or omitted okra. I might not eat it or like it, but I wouldn’t argue. I’ve been making Brunswick stew a couple times a year for over 40 years. I was taught by my dad who was taught by his dad who was taught by his dad and so on. My recipe is unique to me but closely follows a version my grandfather recorded in his diary back in 1939. He noted at the time he could make 8 gallons for $6.50 or 80 cents a gallon. A far cry from today’s prices. My sister recently found one that she can make in an hour using all canned stuff. Both are great!

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Skip’s Brunswick Stew

I usually start a day ahead of time going through my freezer to see what kind of meat I have. There’s usually some venison, probably some quail, and many times some frozen left-over smoked pork from a Boston butt I’ve smoked that year. Then I’ll run by the grocery store and pick up a whole chicken, some more pork, and a beef shoulder roast plus all the other ingredients I need that I don’t have on hand. Later that evening before bed, I’ll boil all the birds in a large pot, pick and chop the meat and save the broth. Just before bedtime, I’ll put all the meat in a crock pot with some Lipton onion soup mix and water and set it on low overnight.

When I get up in the morning, I’ll shake the meat off the bones and chop it up on a large cutting board. I get my huge Brunswick stew pot from the garage and throw in a whole pound of butter, some chopped celery, a whole chopped onion, a green pepper, maybe a red pepper and a couple of cloves of shaved garlic and fire it up. I cook that a while until the onions are translucent and start adding five or six large cans of diced and/or crushed tomatoes. I’ll add a whole bottle of ketchup, a whole small bottle of Worcestershire, a can or two of Campbell’s tomato soup and salt and pepper to taste. Once I get that mixture to a boil, I’ll add in all the meat I prepared earlier and bring that back to a boil. Depending on how much meat I’ve added, I’ll thin it out using the chicken broth I saved the night before. When I get it to the consistency like I like it, I dump in a whole big bag of frozen corn, a whole big bag of frozen Lima beans, and an extra big bag of frozen cut okra. Finally I’ll add just a little hot sauce to give it a bite, but I don’t add much because I serve it with Worcestershire and Tabasco as accompaniments and you can add as much as you like later. That process takes an hour or two in the morning with the chopping and all. Now it’s time to stew it at a simmer all afternoon stirring it often. My recipe is never exactly the My Granddaddy same, and I never use a measuring cup. Linton Ivy Harris, Sr.’s recipe. It’s better that way. Over the years my continued ...

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Brunswick Stew has had squirrels, elk, bear, pheasant, and other wild things I prefer not to reveal because some folk wouldn’t eat it otherwise even though they never uttered the first complaint as they ladled out their second helping. Even with the differences in meat, it tastes surprisingly similar each time. Served with a big hunk of crusty bread makes the meal complete.

My sister, Lynda, had a batch on the stove last year when we all arrived at her house for Thanksgiving. My brothers and I were floored she took the time to stew up a batch what with all the prep work she had to do for dinner.

After us raving about that for a while, she showed us the hand-written recipe someone had given her earlier that year and told us it only took 20 minutes! It didn’t taste quite as good as mine, but it was a real good impression.

So, regardless of where it was invented and what the exact ingredients are, I think most people will agree that Brunswick Stew is an awesome concoction and a fabulous and fairly easy way to feed a small army on any number of occasions any time of year. Feel free to try these recipes and I hope you enjoy!

Lynda Humm’s recipe.

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