This past weekend, Shockoe Bottom here in Richmond filled up with liquid again. Except this time, it was not murky water from a Gaston-ish flood but a murky, gastronomical flood of Brunswick Stew that swirled and puddled around hundreds of people who jammed the streets as contestants tried to out-cook each other into vatted oblivion while hoping to claim the $2,000 top prize. Of course, a team from Brunswick County won. Duh. The heavenly aroma of the churning ingredients – everything from chicken, corn, pork, spices and possibly carburetors, took me back to a five-gallon tub in my past where my Uncle Ellis toiled and boiled a brew he called Camp Stew. But a little controversy before we sip a cup of confusion in a pot.
Seems that two places in the South claim ownership of the ubiquitous stew’s birthplace: Brunswick County, Virginia, and Brunswick County, Georgia. Kentucky also claims the mixture is just a bastardization of the old Kentucky Burgoo, whatever that is. Burgoo sounds like the last thing you want to put in your mouth, but read on, because the ancestors of Brunswick Stew were a little on the gamey side of the bowl as well.
Virginia’s stewheads say an African-American chef, Uncle Jimmy Matthews, made the first pot of Brunswick Stew at a Brunswick County, Virginia, hunting camp in 1828 using squirrels, butter, onions, seasonings and stale bread. I think I just threw up a little.
The Georgia crew dates their Brunswick stew back to 1898, and they still have the 25-gallon pot to prove it. Even though it appears that Virginia’s claim beats Georgia’s claim by a lot of servings, Georgia can claim the best description of the stew, when Peach State humorist Roy Blount said, “Brunswick Stew is what happens when small animals carrying ears of corn fall into barbecue pits.” Amen, Roy.
Somewhere in our ancient past, Southeast Indians crock-potted up a stew of hominy, groundhog, squirrel, rabbit, bear, deer, fresh corn and squash. I doubt they stopped there if they also had some toenails, old hides and a few dirty teepee towels to toss into the mix. Geez, in reading about the pedigree of Brunswick Stew, I am wondering why anyone would be fighting to lay claim to the ghoulish, clusterforked concoction. Southerners will fight about anything.
With my Uncle Ellis I, too, have an ancestor who made a name for himself by boiling chicken, pork, corn, onions, butter beans, fatback, potatoes, tomatoes, salt and pepper into what he called Camp Stew. He’d start before dawn, build his fire, chop up all his ingredients and crank it up in a big tub that looked an awful lot like the old bedpan I saw in the corner of his house. By afternoon, he’d have a tasty mush that the whole family devoured like banana pudding. When something is good enough to make you forget the image of it cooking in a bedpan, you have created a serious food product.
Years later I found out he may have also used squirrel, rabbit, deer, frogs, possum and some old brogan boots that went missing from my grandfather’s house around 1963. Brunswick Stew, Camp Stew, Burgoo, Doo Doo, no matter what you call it, few people really want to know what goes into those pots. Just grab a spoon and don’t burn your tongue.
As I watched folks in Shockoe Bottom ladle steaming portions of the Brunswick Goo into cups and stroll the streets discussing the finer points of something that possibly has no finer points, I was struck by my continued attraction to the nebulous staple of this sturdy redheaded stepchild of stewdom. Then again, what better way to get rid of nearly everything laying around your house than by having a garage sale in a pot?
