Brunswick stew cooks at the historic Magnolia Grange plantation house in Chesterfield, Virginia, circa 1925. Courtesy Chesterfield Historical Society of Virginia.
BRUNSWICK STEW
We crossed the stream upon a shaking plank laid from bank to bank, and strolled down the slope to the scene of operations. An immense kettle was swung over a fire of logs that were so many living coals. The smell of Brunswick stew had been wafted to us while we leaned on the fence. A young man, who had the reputation of being an epicure, to the best of his knowledge and ability, superintended the manufacture of the famous delicacy. “Two dozen chickens went into it!” he assured us. “They wanted to make me think it couldn’t be made without green corn and fresh tomatoes. I knew a trick worth two of that. I have worked it before with dried tomatoes and dried sweet corn soaked overnight.” He smacked his lips and winked fatuously.
—Marion Harland, Autobiography: The Story of a Long Life, 1910
American author Mary Virginia Terhune was born in Amelia County, Virginia, in 1830. Her pen name was Marion Harland, under which she authored several books. She lived to the ripe old age of ninety-one. In her autobiography, she vividly described a Virginia barbecue held near Powhatan, Virginia, in 1844.1 The enticing aromas of barbecuing meats and Brunswick stew made with a perfectly seasoned mix of meat, tomatoes, potatoes, corn and butterbeans filled the air. The pit masters tending the barbecue pits and the stew masters constantly stirring simmering pots of Brunswick stew entertained and tantalized the hungry crowd as they eagerly waited to partake of the feast. Such events were frequent during the months of May through October in nineteenth-century Virginia.
Virginia’s Brunswick stew recipe, declared “a gastronomic triumph” by newspaper reporters, has stood the test of time.2 Over the centuries, some have even compared it to the stew that Jacob used to tempt his brother Esau. In 1905, a lover of the stew suggested that we should have great sympathy for Esau simply because no one can resist the savory stew.3 Others have expressed pity for anyone who hasn’t tasted the mouthwatering delicacy. In 1903, a writer described his “deep regret” that “millions of good people have been born, walked and fretted their allotted time upon earth, and died without the happiness of having eaten of a dish of it.”4 The sympathy for those who have never enjoyed a bowl of Brunswick stew may be rooted in this claim made in 1926: “After a dinner of Brunswick stew you will have a song on your lips and a smile of oceanic expansion, and if your youth has departed, it will return.”5 American poet and native-born Virginian John Bannister Tabb (1845–1909) expressed his tender affection for Brunswick stew in a poem titled “The Tryst”:
Potato was deep in dark underground,
Tomato, above in the light.
The little Tomato was ruddy and round,
The little Potato was white.
And redder and redder she rounded above,
And paler and paler he grew,
And neither suspected a mutual love
Till they met in a Brunswick Stew.
In nineteenth-century Virginia, the Brunswick stew season started in March or April and continued into the late fall. It went into full swing in August, which is harvest time for what’s called “the Virginia trinity,” comprising corn, butterbeans and tomatoes.6 Still today, Virginia’s Brunswick stew and barbecue traditions live on. People all over Virginia get together to hold a “Brunswick stew” (some call it simply “a stew”), where family and friends enjoy the delicious dish cooked outside in a large kettle or pot.7 Moreover, charity organizations have learned that Brunswick stew is a very popular and effective way to raise money for good causes. In fact, some regions in Virginia nicknamed Brunswick stew “church-builder chicken.”8 Many Virginia barbecue restaurants still serve it because it remains a perfect side dish for Virginia-style barbecue. Recognizing that fact, a writer for the Evening News commented in 1905 that without Brunswick stew “a Virginia barbecue would not be complete.”9
Brunswick stew cooks at the historic Magnolia Grange plantation house in Chesterfield, Virginia, circa 1925. Courtesy Chesterfield Historical Society of Virginia.
Over the last two hundred years, Brunswick stew became popular all throughout the United States, even as far south as Florida, north at least as far as Michigan and west as far as Texas and California. The fact that Brunswick stew masters have prepared the dish at barbecues and other public gatherings over the last two centuries is a monument to its timeless and universal appeal.
Just about every modern recipe for Brunswick stew calls for butterbeans, tomatoes and corn. After that, recipes vary. A Florida variety calls for beef, pork, chicken or mutton, and some add beef heart or pork heart.10 A Tennessee version includes ham, like some southeastern Virginia recipes.11 There is a Michigan version that includes beef shank.12 A California version of Brunswick stew, noted as being “a Virginia dish,” which is a nod to its Virginian origins, includes rice in the recipe, like some North Carolina versions of the stew.13 Old Georgia versions call for milk and beef liver, and vegetables.14 People who live in some parts of Appalachia use mutton, ground beef or ground pork in Brunswick stew. Some there also add ketchup or steak sauce to the recipe.15 Kentuckians have cooked their share of Brunswick stew. They have even sold it by the bucket much like the famous chicken that bears their state’s name. An advertisement in a 1908 edition of Kentucky’s Paducah Evening Sun exhorted, “Bring your bucket and buy some of this delicious [Brunswick] stew.”16
Quarts of Brunswick stew ready to be served. Author’s collection.
BRUNSWICK STEW IN VIRGINIA
Frontiersmen and settlers in Virginia have eaten squirrel meat since the earliest days of the colony. John Smith wrote that Powhatan Indians introduced the colonists to dishes made with Virginian squirrels. Settlers often cooked the thin colonial and Federal-era squirrel soup in large iron pots over open fires seasoned with salt and red pepper. Red pepper—or “home-raised” pepper, as some called it—was popular because, unlike black pepper, settlers on the frontier could grow it. It was a cheap and readily available substitute for black pepper.17 At some point, Virginians improved the squirrel soup by transforming it into a rich, hearty, hash-like stew. That set the stage for the birth of the dish we now call Brunswick stew.
Most Virginia-style Brunswick stew recipes call for butter, black pepper and red pepper regardless of the type of meat used. Virginia-style Brunswick stew must be rich and highly seasoned to make it “racy of the soul” (spicy), and generally, it should be thick rather than soupy.18 In the past, people ate the stew while hot or cold, although nowadays people usually eat it while hot. When cold, a properly prepared Virginia Brunswick stew will have a consistency similar to headcheese.19
Virginia’s Brunswick stew has created millions of fans over the last two hundred years. The stew is considered to be such an irresistible delicacy that Judge John Y. Mason (1799–1859) of Virginia traveled all the way to Europe in the mid-nineteenth century to introduce the stew to people in Paris, France.20 Called the “Virginia dish that cannot be too highly recommended,” Brunswick stew has been inspiring regional variations and heated stew feuds for more than a century.21 Its “ambrosial” qualities—such as the rich broth, tender meats, tangy tomatoes and sweet corn—compel people in regions where it’s popular to jealously claim it as their own.
Virginians have hallowed rules for making the stew, and disagreements over them have divided Virginia stew masters into several, for lack of a better phrase, “Virginia-style Brunswick stew sects.” The original Brunswick stew recipe requires squirrel meat and middling or bacon and onions, with bread crumbs to act as a thickener. In the 1830s, that changed when people discovered that potatoes, tomatoes, corn and butterbeans were delicious additions.22 As Brunswick stew moved from plantations and farms to urban areas, squirrel meat became scarce. Therefore, the recipe changed to allow for chicken, beef, veal, pork, rabbit or lamb. Alternatively, you can include several types of meat in the same pot.23
Stirring forty gallons of Brunswick stew in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Author’s collection.
During World War II, veal became a popular choice in Virginia for Brunswick stew because, unlike chicken, it wasn’t as susceptible to frequent shortages.24 There is an old recipe from Hampton, Virginia, that calls for a mix of veal, beef and chicken.25 Another Virginia recipe, published in 1941, calls for a “veal shin” and a whole chicken.26 A version of Brunswick stew from Buckingham County, Virginia, includes fatback, beef fat, pork and turkey, as well as carrots, cabbage, garlic and bell peppers.27 A Brunswick stew recipe from Farmville, Virginia, specifies mashed potatoes.28 Traditionally, potatoes in Virginia’s Brunswick stew cook so long that they disintegrate into it, acting as a thickener. Adding precooked mashed potatoes serves as a time-saving step. Speaking of potatoes and variations, folks in Millers Tavern, Virginia, make a thick Brunswick stew using white potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots in addition to meats such as chicken, beef, bacon and veal.29 Other unique Virginian versions of Brunswick stew only contain either smoked pork, fresh spare ribs or fatback. Although the use of butterbeans is strongly encouraged, neither they nor potatoes are always required in Virginian versions of the stew.30
Controversial ingredients (at least among Virginians) such as peas, okra, garlic, wine and Worcestershire sauce show up in some Virginia recipes. In 1903, a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch was excited about the start of the “Brunswick stew season.” He enthusiastically described the stew served in and around Richmond that contained all kinds of vegetables including an unusual ingredient in Virginia-style Brunswick stew: peas.31
The Brunswick stew recipe printed in the 1885 edition of the Virginia Cookery-Book explained that it should be “cooked until the ingredients of which it is made cannot be distinguished the one from the other.” The recipe includes the typical Virginia Brunswick stew ingredients, with the addition of nontraditional ingredients such as a cucumber, squash, a carrot and okra, along with the note that you can add “some of every vegetable that you can get, except rice—there must be none of that.”32 Most Virginia stew masters would agree that rice shouldn’t be a part of the recipe. However, most would disagree with the claim that “some of every vegetable you can get” is allowed in Brunswick stew.
Soon after Virginia’s Reconstruction era, R.T.W. Duke Sr. incorporated both Worcestershire sauce and okra in his Virginia-style Brunswick stew recipe.33 Some Virginians have even added a little sherry to the recipe from time to time.34 However, such additions to the stew recipe can cause distress among traditionalists, who often consider such ingredients “heresy.” Virginian W.H. Boyle wrote to the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1946 because he was “distressed” over a recipe for Brunswick stew distributed by the Richmond Chamber of Commerce. Living in Atlanta, Georgia, at the time, Boyle recounted a description of the Brunswick stew served at local restaurants in Atlanta as “a slopping plate of coarse canned corn and tomatoes boiled with a handful of hamburger meat.” Boyle added that it was “doused with Worcestershire sauce until you could not tell what was in it except by looking.” He went on to explain, “Brunswick stew is a [country] dish,” and those “city touches do not belong in it.” Boyle concluded that the Richmond Chamber of Commerce was destroying “the glory of Brunswick stew” by “disseminating a recipe that includes Worcestershire sauce,” wine, cabbage, tomato puree and celery.35 The writer of a letter written to the Richmond Dispatch in 1891 supports Boyle’s assessment of “city” stew, writing that Brunswick stew “made according to the usual city formula is an unmitigated fraud and humbug.”36
MRS. M.E. BRODNAX, RUX, VIRGINIA, TO DR. TAYLOR, COCHRAN, VIRGINIA, MAY 6, 1907
My brother, Robert, has brought me your letter asking about the origin of “the Brunswick stew.” It was first made by an old man—a retainer of Dr. Creed Haskins, who lived at Mount Donum, on the banks of the Nottoway River. This old man, James Matthews—“Uncle Jimmy,” as everybody called him—was a good cook and an inveterate hunter, particularly of squirrels. He always killed the squirrels and made “the stew” at picnics and public gatherings as long as he lived—and delighted to do it. After his death Dr. Aaron Haskins succeeded him; and Cousin Jack Stith was his successor. After Jack Stith moved away the office descended to Col. W.T. Mason (Colonel Tom), whose stews were enjoyed throughout Red Oak for years. Old Uncle Jimmy Matthews made his reputation for good “stews” about 1828. The original stew was made with squirrels, butter, onions, stale bread and condiments. The addition of tomatoes and other vegetables finally became customary, but they were never a part of old Uncle Jimmy’s stews. It is difficult for people to learn how to make the stew as originally made. Only experience can perfect one in cooking and seasoning properly.
I.E. Spatig, Brunswick County, Virginia: Information for the Homeseeker and Investor, 1907
Marion Cabell Tyree’s (1826–1912) cookbook Housekeeping in Old Virginia, published in 1879, contains several recipes for Virginia-style Brunswick stew. Tyree was Patrick Henry’s granddaughter. Her cookbook is a compilation of recipes shared by nearly 250 Virginian women. One Brunswick stew recipe in Tyree’s cookbook calls for boiling and mashing potatoes before putting them into the pot. Various meats are called for in the different recipes, including squirrel, chicken, “a twenty-five cent beef shank,” middling and bacon.37 In a 1905 cookbook titled The Way to the Heart: A Collection of Tested Virginia Recipes, written by Carrie Pickett Moore of Bon Air, Virginia, there is a recipe for Virginia-style Brunswick stew that doesn’t call for salt or black or red pepper. However, it does specify bacon rather than fatback and Worcestershire sauce added just before serving.38 A similar Virginia recipe titled “Chicken Brunswick Stew,” published in 1941, prescribes “bacon drippings,” and it, too, omits the salt, black pepper and red pepper.39 However, based on the majority of recipes, salt, black pepper and red pepper are ubiquitous ingredients in Virginia-style Brunswick stew, and one wonders if the authors simply neglected to mention them.
The most popular meats used in Virginia Brunswick stew nowadays are bacon or middling (other names for it include fatback, salt pork or white meat) with chicken. Most Virginia cooks chop the pork before adding it to the pot, and some chop the other meats in Brunswick stew after they are tender and return them to the pot.40 Generally, the proper Virginia version continues to cook until the meat turns to shreds, the beans are very soft and many if not all of the potatoes have melted into the stew.41 The meats in a properly made kettle of Brunswick stew should have a similar consistency to barbecue hash. In 1891, readers of the Richmond Dispatch were instructed, “The stew ought to have a liberal quantity of meat and be boiled down to a thick consistency, or until but little liquid is left in it.”42 Moore wrote in her cookbook, “The secret of a good Brunswick stew is long, slow boiling.” The long simmer results in many of the ingredients becoming very soft and almost disappearing into the stew. Another recipe for Virginia-style Brunswick stew, published in 1894, instructs the reader, “When properly made no one is able to detect any of the ingredients.”43 This description of a hash-like Brunswick stew is slightly overstated when it comes to a proper Virginia-style Brunswick stew, but not by much. The butterbeans are usually identifiable, and so is the corn unless cream-style corn is used.
Although most Virginians agree that Brunswick stew must simmer for a long time, there is some disagreement over the consistency of the corn used in the dish. In an effort to correct the errors of city dwellers in Richmond, Virginia, in 1891, a stew enthusiast admonished them, writing, “Canned corn should never be used.”44 A recipe in Housekeeping in Old Virginia calls for the corn to be grated. Some cooks used to split the corn kernels with a knife before cutting them off the cob. Others simply scraped the corn kernels off the cob before putting them in the pot. These techniques ensure that the corn melts into the stew after long cooking. The starchy liquid from the corn kernels helps to thicken the stew. Nowadays, instead of scraping or splitting the corn kernels, some Virginia stew masters use cream-style corn.45 In spite of that, others in Virginia prefer the texture of the corn in Brunswick stew to be crisp. Cooks accomplish this by adding whole corn kernels no more than thirty minutes before serving.
Now, before someone decides to chop the meat while cooking Brunswick stew, they need to first consider the fact that some in Virginia won’t stand for it. There are Virginia Brunswick stew cooks who hold that meat should only be pulled from the bones and then pulled into shreds before returning it to the pot. Under no circumstances should anyone ever cut the meat in any way when removing it from the bones of the carcass. With this technique, where the meat is “pulled” rather than being chopped, the individual meat fibers cook down into what stew cooks call “strings.” There are versions of barbecue hash and burgoo that also share this characteristic. Mrs. Thomas Thweatt, “born and reared in Brunswick County,” shared these instructions in 1947. Referring to the Brunswick stew pot monument that Georgians erected in 1946, she wrote, “It amuses me when other places try so hard to get the credit for the origin of this delectable dish.” She continued, “I get the big laugh when they begin to indicate the vegetables that go in it.” She was a purist when it came to Brunswick stew and held to the original recipe. According to her, the stew “has not one vegetable in it except onion.” She explained, “Vegetable stew is good, I grant you, but it is not Brunswick stew.” Moreover, the only acceptable meats are squirrel or lamb unless you are cooking at home in your kitchen. In that case, chicken is acceptable. The only acceptable seasonings for Brunswick stew are butter, salt, black pepper and red pepper. Her preferred way of thickening the stew was with bread. When served on a plate, Mrs. Thweatt wrote, “We like it thick.” When served in a bowl, it “should be thinner.”46
Although not traditional, some in Virginia use leftover meats in their Brunswick stew. Some restaurants there even use leftover barbecued pork or barbecued chicken. I have a good guess that Mrs. Thweatt would be horrified at such a thing. Perhaps all of us should be. Leftover meats go into hash, not Virginia-style Brunswick stew.
BRUNSWICK STEW IN TEXAS
People in Texas have served Brunswick stew from time to time.47 People there make a version of it according to the basic Virginia-style recipe that contains chicken. However, some there took to calling it “Hopkins County stew.” Described as the “sweetest poetry” and the “loveliest flowers stirred with a magic spoon and blended until it transforms into the soothing influence of song,” Hopkins County stew is certainly another one of the Lone Star state’s culinary achievements, even if its contribution to it was just giving it a Texas name.48 Texans have cooked Hopkins County stew since at least the late nineteenth century in and around the city of Sulphur Springs in Hopkins County, Texas.49 The recipe includes potatoes, tomatoes, corn, bacon, chicken, chili pepper pods and salt. Originally made with squirrel just like the Virginia version, nowadays it often includes beef or fowl.50
BRUNSWICK STEW IN NORTH CAROLINA
Brunswick stew is very popular in North Carolina. People in Brunswick, North Carolina, have even made claims that it originated there. However, there was a time when some North Carolinians felt the need to rename it “corn muddle.” The basic recipe for corn muddle is the same as Virginia’s Brunswick stew recipe, with the exception that it may include any available small game. Unlike Virginia’s version, squirrel isn’t required and never was the first meat of choice for the stew in that state.51 In 1954, a columnist for the Greensboro Daily News declared that Brunswick stew only attains its “finest flowering” in eastern North Carolina. The stew, according to the writer, is “far beyond the capabilities of the residents” of Virginia, and a Tennessean “hardly understands food to begin with.” The debauchery of West Virginians’ cuisine is testified to by the large amount of money they spend on canned soup. True North Carolina–style Brunswick stew, the writer asserted, “just happens.” There is no recipe for it. The cook uses whatever ingredients are on hand, be it fresh or leftover. Above all, the cook “must simply not give a hoot,” and the stew must not be “hurried along.” There is no need to stir it. After the ingredients are put in the pot on the stove, it’s time to go sit on the front porch. Only when the cook reluctantly rises from his or her nap, roused by hunger or the smell of smoke, is the stew done. The author concluded by explaining that the finest Brunswick stew in history will “one day be prepared by a catatonic cook.” Therefore, to cook North Carolina–style Brunswick stew, you must observe two words: “Relax yourself.”52
BRUNSWICK STEW IN GEORGIA
Georgians love Brunswick stew as much as any people in the South and have for a long time. In fact, they have long considered Brunswick stew to be a “necessary adjunct of a first-class barbecue.”53 In 1909, President Taft couldn’t resist the Georgia version of Brunswick stew served to him in Atlanta along with that other Georgia favorite, “’possum and taters.”54 Brunswick stew is so popular in Georgia that Georgians are convinced that they must have invented it. In addition to versions of Georgia-style Brunswick stew that are similar to Virginia’s version, some Georgian versions of the stew reflect a uniquely Georgian twist.
Like Virginians, Georgians are dogmatic about what constitutes “real” Brunswick stew. During the observation of “Georgia Week” in 1946, a Washington, D.C., restaurant served what it billed as “Brunswick stew.” The stew wasn’t authentic. Congressional representatives from Georgia were outraged. One complained, “I wish you could have seen the mess they were serving under that sacred name! It might as well have been creamed chicken, with a few pieces of liver and lamb and a scattering of green peas.”55 Such reactions help explain why it is said that “Brunswick stew is as important to a genuine Georgia pit barbecue as is the bride to a lovely garden wedding.”56 In 1894, a visitor to Georgia from a northern state related this account of his first Georgia barbecue:
You take a piece of plain bread. The meat is carried around in great bowls. You hold out a piece of bread. The man who carries the bowl of meat gracefully flicks a chunk of meat upon the bread. Another attendant usually is near with what is called “Brunswick stew.” It is a mysterious compound whose ingredients I tried to discover, but without success. It appears to be composed of green corn, tomatoes, and red pepper, but I don’t know. I do know that it is very good. A spoonful of Brunswick stew is ladled out upon the chunk of meat; then another slice of bread, a good, thick slice—none of your fashionable afternoon tea kind—is laid upon the whole. You give them a little squeeze to keep them together and begin to bite.57
Brunswick stew being cooked at a barbecue in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1898. From Strand Magazine, October 1898. Author’s collection.
Some versions of Georgia’s Brunswick stew are actually barbecue hash and Brunswick stew hybrids. Consider the previous accounts of Georgia-style Brunswick stew. First, the poorly made stew served during “Georgia Week” in 1946 contained liver, which is a hash ingredient. Second, the waiter at the 1894 barbecue served the stew as a sauce on a barbecue sandwich, which is a hash-like use of the stew. These details reveal the fat that some Georgians have served hidden hash masquerading as Brunswick stew. A Virginian living in Georgia in 1946 noticed this fact. He wrote to the Richmond Times-Dispatch about Georgia-style Brunswick stew, “[T]he local concoction is not a stew but a moist hash.”58
As mentioned earlier, some recipes for Georgian-style Brunswick stew call for milk and liver.59 An 1897 edition of the American Kitchen Magazine described Georgia-style Brunswick stew as a “celebrated dish” made with liver, tongues, heads and tails (and so on) of “the barbecued meats.” Added to the meats were “a generous seasoning of peppers, salt, sweet herbs and vegetables.” After boiling it until “it is smooth,” guests ate it by itself or it was “used as sauce for the meats.”60 This may explain why Georgians are so fond of the bizarre practice (from the viewpoint of a Virginian) of putting barbecue sauce in their Brunswick stew. At any rate, clearly Georgians combined hash with Brunswick stew and created their own version of the dish.
In 1920, an author for the Macon Telegraph compared and contrasted Georgia-style Brunswick stew with breakfast hash. Like breakfast hash, the author explained, people eat Brunswick stew even though they can’t tell what’s in it. In contrast to breakfast hash made with leftover meats, Georgia-style Brunswick stew included fresh ingredients such as “the haslet of the hog, the heart, liver, lights, kidneys, the goozle, [and] the head and feet of the hog.”61 Some Georgian versions also call for dairy products, which is similar to old cream hash recipes.62 All of those are barbecue hash ingredients. In Virginia, where Brunswick stew originated, cooks have never put such ingredients in the stew, and while I suppose some Virginians have, using Brunswick stew as a sauce for barbecue sandwiches was never a widely observed custom in the Old Dominion.
A Georgia stew master revealed his “Brunswick stew” recipe in an 1895 account of a barbecue in Atlanta, Georgia. His instructions for cooking Georgia-style Brunswick stew are as follows: “Well, yer see, yer jest takes de meat, de hog’s haid, an’ de libbers, an’ all sorts er little nice parts, an’ yer chops it up wid corn an’ permattuses, an’ injuns, an’ green peppers, an’ yer stews and stews tell hit gits erlike, an’ yer kain’t tell what hit’s made uv.”63
That recipe makes it clear that either late nineteenth-century Georgia “stew dogs” (what some in Georgia call Brunswick stew masters) were serving hidden barbecue hash masquerading as Brunswick stew or they combined Virginia’s Brunswick stew recipe with barbecue hash recipes to create the original version of Georgia-style Brunswick stew.
THE GREAT BRUNSWICK STEW CONTROVERSY
For well over a century, Brunswick stew enthusiasts have thought of the stew as “a dish fit for the gods.” That explains why it was embroiled in the “Great Brunswick Stew Controversy” for more than one hundred years.64 Brunswick stew is so irresistibly delicious that at least seven counties in Virginia alone have claimed to be its birthplace. There was even a heated dispute among the residents of Brunswick County, Virginia, about exactly where in that county it was first cooked. One faction claimed that people on the banks of the Meherrin River first cooked Brunswick stew. Another faction contended that people on the banks of the Nottoway River first cooked the stew.65 However, that was just the beginning of the stew wars.
The controversy heated up sometime in the late nineteenth century, when “wordy wars” erupted. However, by 1903, the debate had pretty much been settled that Brunswick County, Virginia, was the original home of the stew.66 Nevertheless, that period of peace didn’t last long. The stew wars were not over, and the first to strike back were Georgians. In 1946, Georgians rekindled the debate by erecting a monument in Brunswick, Georgia, dedicated to, presumably, the first pot of Brunswick stew.67 The monument is an iron kettle said to have come from a former slave ship named the Wanderer with an inscription proclaiming that people on nearby St. Simons Island cooked the first pot of Brunswick stew on July 2, 1898.68
In addition to arguing with Virginians over the origin of Brunswick stew, Georgians still argue about it among themselves. Some Georgians claim that a British sailor recorded the original recipe for Brunswick stew in 1728 while he was encamped near Brunswick, Georgia, on St. Simons Island.69 However, according to them, it would be another forty-three years before the sailor’s recipe for “a good and wholesome stew” would be cooked in Brunswick, Georgia, under the direction of General James Oglethorpe, the founder of the city, in 1771.70
Unsatisfied with the 1898 and 1771 origination theories, a third Georgian theory for the origin of Brunswick stew holds that followers of the Methodist evangelist John Wesley were the first to cook the stew using wild game and vegetables in Brunswick, Georgia, in the 1730s.71 This appears to be the oldest Georgian claim for the origin of Brunswick stew.72
By 1988, it appears that some Georgians felt the need for yet another Brunswick stew origination claim. In that year, a Georgian placed a black kettle monument near the Georgia Welcome Center along Interstate 95. The inscription on the monument’s plaque displays the claim that people “in the Brunswick Golden Isles area in early colonial days” were the first to cook Brunswick stew.
The manufacturer made changes to labels on cans of James River Brand Smithfield Chicken Brunswick Stew over the years. The image on the left depicts pre-1980s cans. Courtesy Isle of Wight County Museum. Used by permission.
By 1844, and possibly as early as 1840, people in Virginia were cooking a stew they called “Brunswick stew.”73 The National Cookery Book, published in 1876, described Brunswick stew as “a well-known Virginia dish.”74 By 1886, twelve years before the date on the 1946 Georgia Brunswick stew monument, a Macon, Georgia newspaper printed an article that proclaimed Brunswick, Virginia, to be the origination place of Brunswick stew.75 In 1887, the Janesville Daily Gazette claimed that Brunswick stew had a national reputation for being “the famous Virginia dish known as Brunswick stew.”76
There is an advertisement in an 1871 edition of the Savannah Daily Advisor for “Old Virginia Brunswick Stew” being served at a local restaurant in Savannah, Georgia.77 It is doubtful that a Georgia restaurant would serve the Virginia “copycat” version of the stew instead of the “original” Georgia version if it existed at that time.
As far back as 1867, A.P. Hill, a native-born Georgian, shared a recipe for Brunswick stew in her cookbook but didn’t call it by that name. She called it “camp stew.”78 The Pulitzer Prize–winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953) visited Brunswick, Georgia, in 1942, hoping to sample the presumably original American version of Brunswick stew that she thought was brought to America from Braunschweig (aka Brunswick), Germany. She was surprised that she could find no one in that town who had ever heard of the dish. She wrote, “Lifted eyebrows greet a request for the dish in inns of that small city.”79 Going back even further, in 1862, a Georgia newspaper reprinted an article from the Atlanta Confederacy that included a recipe for “Virginia stew,” which just so happens to describe the exact recipe for Virginia’s Brunswick stew. The author quipped, “If, after a fair trial, you pronounce this an unpalatable dish, then your loyalty to the Southern Confederacy ought to be questioned.”80 In contrast to Virginians cooking Brunswick stew well before the start of the Civil War, according to an eyewitness account of Georgia barbecues in the early 1870s, we are told that “there was no Brunswick stew in those days.” That testimony strongly implies that Brunswick stew wasn’t a regular feature of barbecues in Georgia until at least the last two decades of the nineteenth century.81
Charlette Woolridge, Barbara Jarrett Harris, Barnard Jones Sr. and Nancy Watson were part of the stew crew in Richmond, Virginia, on Brunswick Stew Day in 2017. Author’s collection.
By 1863, street vendors in Virginia were offering Brunswick stew for sale, and soldiers in Virginia enjoyed meals of real Brunswick stew in Virginia during the Civil War.82 Some were also the victims of unscrupulous vendors from time to time. On one occasion during the Civil War, authorities arrested two vendors in Petersburg, Virginia, and whipped them with thirty lashes for trying to sell Brunswick stew to Confederate soldiers that they made with dog meat.83
It appears that Brunswick stew wasn’t a popular stew in Georgia until after the Civil War ended. It is possible that Confederate soldiers returning home to Georgia after serving in Virginia carried the recipe back to Georgia with them after the end of the war. The recipe may have gained popularity in Georgia from letters, newspapers, traveling barbecue cooks or even a cookbook that has been lost to time. Another possible explanation for how Brunswick stew arrived in Georgia is through settlers who went there from Virginia. By the 1850s, there were so many Virginians living in and around Wilkes, Cass and Cherokee Counties that people called the region “Little Virginia.”84 Moreover, by the 1840s, Georgians were holding events that they called “old Virginia barbecues.” Because “a Virginia barbecue would not be complete” without Brunswick stew, this is a very plausible explanation for how Brunswick stew was introduced in Georgia years before it became widely popular there.85
Even though Georgians have a lot of enthusiasm for Brunswick stew, the evidence they have for it originating in Georgia is inadequate for a convincing argument. Even the New Georgia Encyclopedia credits Brunswick, Virginia, as being the original home of Brunswick stew.86 As Edwin T. Williams observed, “It is very evident that our Georgia friends were misled by the coincidence in names.”87
Virginians are as vehement in their claim of being the inventors of Brunswick stew as are Georgians. In recent times, the controversy between the two states has been spirited. In 1999, Virginians and Georgians competed in a “stew off” in Lawrenceville, Virginia, to determine who made the best Brunswick stew. A Virginia team won the first-place trophy. A few days later, the trophy showed up in Brunswick, Georgia, on the mayor’s desk. No one claimed to know how it got there. The Virginia team’s stew master threatened, “If they don’t send it back, we’ll just go down there and win it again.”88
Charlette Woolridge (left) serving up award-winning Virginia-style Brunswick stew in Richmond, Virginia, celebrating Brunswick Stew Day in 2017. Author’s collection.
The legislatures in Georgia and Virginia both passed proclamations and resolutions declaring that their state is the rightful birthplace of Brunswick stew. In January 1988, the Virginia General Assembly attempted to put the debate to rest by issuing a proclamation citing Brunswick County, Virginia, as “the place of origin of this astonishing gastronomical miracle.”89 In 2002, the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate designated the fourth Wednesday of each January as Virginia’s official Brunswick Stew Day. The team that wins first place at the annual “stew off” held in Alberta, Virginia, during the Taste of Brunswick Festival has the honor of cooking a huge iron kettle of Brunswick stew on Virginia’s Capitol Square grounds in Richmond. The stew is served freely to all who get there within the short amount of time it takes to empty the ninety-gallon iron kettle.
BRUNSWICK STEW LEGEND AND LORE
Over the centuries, people have cooked up an entertaining collection of stew stories to explain the origin of Brunswick stew. James Cresap Sprigg Jr. bought the Smithfield Ham and Products Company Inc. in 1925 and remained active in running the business for several decades. He claimed that Brunswick stew originated in fifteenth-century England. According to Sprigg, what we call Brunswick stew was a “Mag” stew consumed in the summertime in order to, as he put it, “load up” on vegetables in an effort to prevent diseases like scurvy and beriberi. Because Sprigg’s sales brochures for Brunswick stew claimed that his product was “[p]repared according to an old Virginia recipe dating back to colonial times,” one must assume that he believed English colonists brought the recipe to Virginia in, according to the labels on the cans, “early colonial times.”90
In 1916, avid hunter and Civil War veteran Horace Hilliard Heartwell, one of Brunswick’s “oldest and most prominent citizens,” claimed to be the inventor of Brunswick stew. At around the turn of the twentieth century, he directed the preparations for many barbecues held in that county. Before he died in 1916, Heartwell claimed that the first Brunswick stew was prepared at his home in Brunswick County, Virginia, with his help.91 If he mentioned the actual date of that momentous achievement, no one recorded it.
In 1927, Mr. R.L. Justice shared an old account of the origin of Brunswick stew at a barbecue he hosted in Columbia, Tennessee, where he observed what the news reporter called “the old Virginia custom.” According to Justice, long ago in Brunswick County, Virginia, an old Virginia colonel served the first Brunswick stew to his friends. To acquire the ingredients for the stew, the colonel went hunting early in the morning. He returned later in the morning with several squirrels and birds and gave them to his butler along with some vegetables that he picked from his garden. Unknown to the colonel, his butler had been drinking all morning and continued to do so throughout the day. Inebriated, his butler put all the meats and vegetables into a pot and left them to simmer all day long. Only discovering that his butler was intoxicated soon before his guests arrived, the colonel had no choice but to serve the stew to his guests for dinner. However, the colonel was pleasantly surprised at how delicious the stew was, and his guests also enjoyed it greatly. From that time forward, the colonel regularly served the stew to guests. At one dinner, the colonel asked his friends, “What should I call this delicious dish?” They all agreed that it should be named “Brunswick stew” to honor its county of origin.92
Perhaps the colonel referred to in the story above is a fellow known as Colonel Homes. Another account of Brunswick stew’s origin that is similar to Mr. Justice’s account tells how a prominent citizen of Brunswick County, Virginia, named Colonel Homes first cooked Brunswick stew after he and his hunting party returned from a successful squirrel hunt. Being hungry, the hunters raided a neighbor’s garden for vegetables and cooked them in a large pot with the squirrels, and Brunswick stew was born.93
In 1901, stew master Augustine Royall of Powhatan County, Virginia, told his version of the first Brunswick stew. Sometime in the eighteenth century, according to Royall, some men from Powhatan County, Virginia, camped in Brunswick County during a hunting trip. They chose one member of the hunting party each day to perform cooking duty. One of the hunters was lazy, and on his appointed day to cook, he haphazardly threw random foods into a large pot, added salt, black pepper and red pepper and let it simmer. When the hunting party returned to camp that evening, they were angry that there was only one pot of food prepared. However, after tasting the stew, they all praised the lazy cook and demanded that he share the recipe. Someone suggested that the lazy chef name his one-pot meal “Brunswick stew” in honor of where it was first cooked. The others agreed, and Brunswick stew was born.94
In 1978, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services published a booklet claiming that people in Jamestown, Virginia, were the first to cook Brunswick stew. Colonists, they claimed, learned to cook it from the Powhatan Indians. The stew’s ingredients included corn, beans and wild game that the Powhatan Indians simmered for hours in large earthen pots. How the dish came to be called Brunswick stew, the story goes, “is a mystery lost somewhere in the dusty archives of Colonial history.” Of course, officials in Brunswick County were not happy. Brunswick County administrator Jesse L. Fowler bristled, “I am personally offended; the county should be offended.” He formally expressed his displeasure in a strongly worded letter addressed to the agriculture commissioner, the department’s director of information and the editor of the booklet.95
In support of the claim that Powhatan Indians in Jamestown, Virginia, cooked the first “Brunswick stew,” some have offered old accounts of Governor Spotswood’s visit to Fort Christianna in 1716. Located in what is today Brunswick County, Virginia, Governor Spotswood established the fort in order to provide Christian education and protection for friendly Native Americans who lived in the region. During Spotswood’s 1716 visit to the fort, he dined on an “unnamed stew” provided by his Indian guests. When officials established the Brunswick County government in 1732, the people of Jamestown celebrated the event by reenacting Spotswood’s visit to the fort. They hired an Indian family who lived near Jamestown to prepare a stew like the one enjoyed by the governor that was, supposedly, created from descriptions of it in records that were available at that time. Jamestown officials and several people who had lobbied for the creation of Brunswick County attended the feast. This Brunswick County “Indian-style” stew, proponents of this theory claim, was actually the first Brunswick stew in history. Although first cooked in Brunswick County, it received its name from the people of Jamestown.96 Interestingly, some in Emporia, Virginia, claim Spotswood’s Brunswick County Indian stew as the ancestor of their famous chicken muddle.
You know Brunswick stew is done when it is thick enough to hold the paddle up straight. Author’s collection.
Ladling the stew in Richmond, Virginia, on Brunswick Stew Day in 2017. Author’s collection.
The local tradition in Brunswick County, Virginia, is probably the most well-known account of how Brunswick stew was born there. The county proudly displays its tradition on roadside historical markers all around Brunswick County, Virginia, for all to see.97 With the headline “The Original Home of Brunswick Stew,” the markers display the following account of the origin of Brunswick stew:
According to local tradition, while Dr. Creed Haskins and several friends were on a hunting trip in Brunswick County in 1828, his camp cook, Jimmy Matthews, hunted squirrels for a stew. Matthews simmered the squirrels with butter, onions, stale bread, and seasoning, thus creating the dish known as Brunswick stew. Recipes for Brunswick stew have changed over time as chicken has replaced squirrel and vegetables have been added, but the stew remains thick and rich. Other states have made similar claims but Virginia’s is the first.
Although claimed by Brunswick County’s local tradition, there is no credible written record that hunters there first cooked Brunswick stew in 1828 during a hunting trip. In fact, the best records available indicate that the first Brunswick stew master cooked it there at least twelve years earlier.
THE BIRTH OF BRUNSWICK STEW
In 1906, a newspaper printed an account of the first salvo in the twentieth century revival of the Great Brunswick Stew Controversy. According to the article, the originator of the delicious dish was one of two men who lived in antebellum Brunswick County, Virginia. The inventor of the stew was either a fellow named Mr. Haskins or a fellow named Mr. Stith. According to the article, both men claimed to have been the first to cook Brunswick stew. However, the author lamented, both of those men died before resolving the controversy.98 Unknown to the author at that time, a well-documented account of the origin of Brunswick stew was about to be published.
In 1907, the Brunswick County, Virginia Board of Supervisors published letters written by people with firsthand knowledge of the stew’s origin. The “Brunswick stew letters,” as I call them, represent the most reliable accounts of the origin of Brunswick stew available. The letters also corroborate an older account of the origin of Brunswick stew published in a letter in 1886.
It is probable that the tomato is served and cooked in a greater variety of ways than any other article of diet known. Just here hangs a tale. It has long been a disputed point as to what was the origin of the Brunswick squirrel stew. Now, gentle reader, don’t be startled when I say that the squirrel stew was made some sixteen years before the tomato was known in this country. During the War of 1812, between the United States and England, there was a man by the name of James Matthews who was a soldier in said war. He was from the Red Oak neighborhood in Brunswick county, VA.—It appears that he claimed his brother’s house as his home, but being of a roving disposition and a man of refinement he was a most welcome visitor wherever he stopped, in fact made himself useful in doing little odd jobs in the household department, particularly in the kitchen. He was also a great squirrel hunter, and it was his way of cooking the squirrel which gained him such popularity and éclat among the ladies. His mode of cooking the squirrel was quite simple, as follows: After dressing it nicely, the squirrel was set to cooking early in the morning, so that it might be ready for a two o’clock dinner. It was kept stewing continually, water being added to supply evaporation, until it was thoroughly done that the flesh would separate from the bones, which were taken out and the stew seasoned to taste, not having any vegetable whatever in it. This was the first Brunswick stew, of 1816, and continued to be until 1830–32, when the tomato had become better known as a most excellent vegetable. About this time a man by the name of Ned Stith [from the same county] conceived the idea of improving “Matthew’s stew” by the addition of the tomato, onion, corn, potatoes, middling, fresh butter and lightbread. I will now proceed to give the original recipe, after the tomato was known to bear so important a part in luxurious living: Take one squirrel fresh and nice, a half-pound of middling cut thin and with skin off, and water in sufficient quantity. Put on at 8 o’clock to cook for five hours, when the flesh will leave the bones of the squirrel, which should be taken out. Now add one quart of tomatoes (peeled), one small onion, one-half pound of butter (fresh) and one good size Irish potato, two ears of corn with the grains split down each row before cutting from the cob. Then a sufficient quantity of sweet lightbread should be added with the tomatoes just one hour before dinner. Now season to the taste with both black and red pepper and you have the genuine Brunswick squirrel stew. It is a remarkable fact that no other flesh will impart the delicate flavor as the squirrel, hence there is nothing whatever to take its place. It is true that a good stew can be made from fowls, veal or lamb; but I think that the best made (after squirrel) is from the common snapping turtle, which makes a most delicious dish, in imitation of the genuine stew. But an epicure will detect at once that the wild squirrel flavor is wanting and cannot be imparted by any other flesh.
Signed, Tar Heel
Macon Telegraph, “Brunswick Stew,” August 19, 1886
In 1886, twenty-one years before the publication of the Brunswick stew letters, the Macon Telegraph, in Georgia of all places, printed a letter originally published in the Petersburg Index-Appeal signed with the pen name “Tar Heel.” Tar Heel’s account of how “Brunswick squirrel stew” was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, long before tomatoes became popular in the United States in the 1830s, is remarkably similar to the Brunswick stew letters’ account. The Tar Heel letter focuses on a veteran of the War of 1812 who lived in Brunswick County, Virginia, named James Matthews. Matthews, the story goes, was a great squirrel hunter who first made his legendary squirrel stew in 1816. According to the article, Matthews started cooking early in the morning by simmering squirrels in a large pot of water. When the meat was at the right level of tenderness, he separated it from the bones, which he discarded. He then returned the meat to the pot. The stew was ready to eat by two o’clock in the afternoon. Matthews did not put vegetables of any kind in his stew.
Matthews’s original recipe changed little until the early 1830s. Around that time, a fellow named Ned Stith, also of Brunswick County, decided to improve on “Matthews’ stew” by adding tomatoes, corn, butterbeans and potatoes, thus giving us the classic Virginia-style Brunswick stew recipe.99 This 1886 account of Brunswick stew’s origin differs little from the account in the 1907 Brunswick stew letters. In addition to containing more details about James Matthews than the 1907 letters, the 1886 article mentions Ned Stith. Needham (Ned) Langhorne Washington Stith was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1800. He married Lucy Gray Haskins on July 20, 1825. They had eight children. He is descended from the first clerk of Brunswick County, Colonial Drury Stith. He died in 1840.100 Matthews turned squirrel soup into squirrel stew. Ned Stith put the finishing touches on the recipe by adding the vegetables, and Matthews’s stew became Brunswick stew as we know it today.
The witnesses of so many credible, firsthand accounts of Brunswick stew’s origin in Brunswick County, Virginia, make it clear that Brunswick stew is a genuine Virginian dish. The following paragraphs comprise a summary of the best accounts of the history of Brunswick stew.
When Governor Spotswood established Fort Christianna in 1716 in what is today Brunswick County, Virginia, it was an untouched wilderness on Virginia’s western frontier. People used to say of Brunswick County in those days, “A squirrel could go from one end of the county to the other without ever touching the ground.”101 Fort Christianna attracted the first flood of English settlers to the region, and they immediately started clearing land in order to establish plantations and farms. After farmers started growing crops, you can bet that squirrels were there to exploit the abundance of food surrounded by the safety of tall trees. In response, the farmers organized squirrel hunts to rid their fields of the pests. Naturally, people there became expert at preparing barbecued squirrels and squirrel soup. By 1732, the Brunswick County government had been established, complete with a courthouse and a prison.
Chiles Cridlin of the Proclamation Stew Crew stirring a huge kettle of delicious, old-fashioned Virginia-style Brunswick stew. Courtesy Chiles Cridlin.
In the early nineteenth century, a man named James (“Uncle Jimmy”) Matthews lived at Mount Donum on the banks of the Nottoway River in Brunswick County, Virginia. Matthews was a veteran of the War of 1812. He was also an avid squirrel hunter. His skills were no doubt put to good use protecting local farms from the destructive little tree dwellers. His squirrel hunting skills, combined with the fact that he was a good cook, made him particularly suited for perfecting delicacies made with squirrel meat. Sometime around 1816, he improved the thin, colonial-era squirrel soup by transforming it into what would become his famous, hash-like squirrel stew. Unlike the watery squirrel soup people were accustomed to eating, Matthews’s stew was rich and flavorful. Similar to hash recipes, Matthews’s squirrel stew was cooked until the squirrel meat was very tender, it contained a generous amount of onions and was thickened with bread.
By 1828, Matthews was an “old man” and a “retainer” of a Virginia legislator named Dr. Creed Haskins (1796–1848). Haskins lived in what was called “the Grove” in Brunswick County.102 Haskins’s family goes back in Virginia to the year 1689, when Edward Haskins arrived from England to settle on the James River near Richmond, Virginia. Often, Haskins employed Matthews to cook for his guests and for public events that he hosted. Matthews simmered his delicious hash-like squirrel stew made with middling, onions, butter, stale bread, salt and pepper for several hours until the meat was tender and the broth thick. There were no vegetables in Matthews’s original version of the stew; those who preferred vegetables ate them as side dishes. By 1828, Matthews was regularly cooking the stew at picnics and public gatherings, which gained Matthews a stellar reputation as a squirrel stew master.
After Matthews’s death, Dr. Aaron Haskins, who occasionally added a little brandy or Madeira wine to his version, became the caretaker for the “original squirrel stew” recipe. His cousin Jack Stith was his successor. William Thomas Mason (1820–1897), called “Colonel Tom” in the letters, succeeded Jack Stith. By the 1830s, tomatoes were becoming a widely popular food in the United States. Although Jack Stith was the caretaker of the original recipe, it was in that decade that Ned Stith added the tomatoes, potatoes, corn and butterbeans to Matthews’s squirrel stew and the “gastronomic miracle” was born.103 Named after the Virginia County in which it was first cooked, Brunswick stew became a famous dish in Virginia and all over the world.
Dr. Creed Haskins and Ned Stith’s association with the invention of Brunswick stew is consistent with the 1906 article about the first argument over who invented the dish. Both “Mr. Haskins” (Dr. Creed Haskins), who became the caretaker of Matthews’s “original squirrel stew” recipe, and “Mr. Stith” (Needham Stith), who improved it by adding vegetables, played roles in transforming James Matthews’s squirrel stew into Brunswick stew. However, Haskins was simply a caretaker of the recipe. The real credit for inventing the stew belongs to James Matthews for transforming squirrel soup into his delicious version of squirrel stew and Needham Stith for perfecting it by adding potatoes and the Virginia trinity.
In addition to the Tar Heel letter and the Brunswick stew letters, there is also the letter written to the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in 1946 by Colonel William Thomas Mason’s (mentioned in the Brunswick stew letters) daughter-in-law, Mrs. Bell K. Mason. Mrs. Mason was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1865. In her letter, she recounted the many times she enjoyed Brunswick stew cooked under the supervision of “Colonel Tom” in the Grove at the home of Jim Haskins. She stated that Brunswick stew “originated with the Masons, Haskins, and Stiths of Brunswick” County, Virginia.104
FROM MATTHEWS’S STEW TO BRUNSWICK STEW
In addition to Brunswick County, Virginia, people who live in just about every other locality in the United States with a city, town or county named Brunswick have claimed their spot to be the stew’s original home.105 Brunswick stew enthusiasts who lived in places not named “Brunswick” explain that the stew didn’t receive its name from a city or a county. Instead, people named it in honor of Caroline of Brunswick, wife of King George IV.106 As mentioned earlier, others, specifically Texans and North Carolinians, simply changed the name of the stew in unsuccessful attempts to bring peace to the stew wars galaxy.107
According to the best records available, Jimmy Matthews’s stew masterpiece was known simply as “squirrel stew” while Matthews was alive. It wasn’t widely known as Brunswick stew until the 1840s. Two years before stew master Creed Haskins died in 1848, the stew was just beginning to be widely known as Brunswick stew.108 An account in an 1846 edition of the Richmond Enquirer described a squirrel stew with the note, “called by some a Brunswick Stew.”109 In 1853, the famous nineteenth-century Virginia barbecue cook Thomas Griffin used to advertise “stewed squirrel” on his menu along with Virginia-style barbecued pork and barbecued squirrels. When reminiscing about the “past glories of old Tom Griffin’s incomparable concoctions” in 1881, a writer for the Daily Dispatch referred to Griffin’s “stewed squirrel” as “Brunswick stew.”110 By 1849, Virginians were recognizing Brunswick stew as a “genuine South-side dish composed of squirrels, chickens, a little bacon, corn, and tomatoes, ad libitum,” which was a nod to its southern Virginia roots in Brunswick County.111
MEADE HASKINS, BLACKSTONE, VIRGINIA, TO DR. T. JAMES TAYLOR, COCHRAN, VIRGINIA, MAY 22, 1907
My Dear Doctor,—In response to your request to tell you what I know of the origin of “Brunswick stew,” I send you a copy of the receipt given me by my father, Dr. Richard Edward Haskins, in his life time for what was known to him as the original “Brunswick stew.” It is labeled “Original Squirrel Stew, by Dr. A.B. Haskins, of Brunswick County, Va.”
This is it:
“Parboil squirrels until they are stiff (half done), cut small slices of bacon (middling), one for each squirrel; one small onion to each squirrel (if large one to two squirrels), chopped up. Put in bacon and onions first to boil, while the squirrels are being cut up for the pot. Boil the above until half done, then put in butter to taste; then stale loaf bread, crumbled up. Cook this till it bubbles, then add pepper and salt to taste. Cook this until it bubbles and bubbles burst off. Time for stew to cook is four hours with steady heat.”
Note.—While cooking keep a tea kettle of hot, boiling water to add to pot as necessary. Vegetables are not in the original “Brunswick stew.” Those who prefer vegetables add them after the stew is done, in their plates.
I.E. Spatig, Brunswick County, Virginia: Information for the Homeseeker and Investor, 1907
There is no record that Matthews, Stith or Haskins were the first to name the stew after Brunswick County, Virginia. That honor goes to the people of Petersburg, Virginia. Dr. T. James Taylor of Cochran, Virginia, who wrote one of the Brunswick stew letters, described the process of how, sometime in the 1830s, the people of Petersburg, Virginia, started bragging on the delicious squirrel stew they enjoyed while visiting Brunswick County. Consequently, they were the first to give the stew the name “Brunswick stew.”112
BRUNSWICK STEW MASTERS
The appetizing aroma of a huge kettle of Virginia-style Brunswick stew simmering outside over an open fire is irresistible. On Brunswick Stew Day in 2017 at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, a young woman hurriedly approached the cook site where ninety gallons of old-fashioned Virginia-style Brunswick stew was slowly simmering. Out of breath, she explained, “I was four blocks away headed in the other direction when I was stopped in my tracks by the most wonderfully appetizing aroma. I had to follow my nose to find out what it was.” She was from Minnesota, and this was her first encounter with what’s been called Virginia’s “sacred delicacy.”113 After one taste, she was thankful that she made the four-block walk to find the source of the enticing aroma.
Bill Steed and his son, Chad, of the Farm Life Stew Crew were the stew masters that day. Those two have Brunswick stew in their blood. Bill’s family tree goes all the way back to Dr. Creed Haskins himself. Clearly, Bill loves what he is doing. He enthusiastically described to me the great effort required to cook a ninety-gallon pot of Brunswick stew. However, he does take advantage of at least one labor-saving tool. “I use a French fry cutter to chop the potatoes and onions. It saves me a lot of work,” he explained with a friendly grin. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and he and his stew crew had been cooking since way before the sun came up. They work together like a finely tuned machine. One stirs with a long-handled paddle. Another cook searches for imperfections and points them out to a third cook, who reaches in with a small spatula to remove the offender, such as the lone kidney bean that somehow always makes its way into a package of butterbeans.
Bill and his stew crew earned the honor of cooking Brunswick stew in Richmond on Brunswick Stew Day by winning the prestigious annual “stew off” held in October 2016 at the Taste of Brunswick Festival. There is fierce competition every year, and only the very best stew comes out as the winner. Bill’s stew is no exception. It is thick and rich with flavor imparted by the meats and the vegetables. There is no visible sign of onions or potatoes; they melt into his stew during the long cook. Bill doesn’t share many of his stew secrets. When I started fishing for them, he reluctantly admitted, “I use a little beef with the chicken in my stew, but I can’t tell you much more than that.”
Stew master Bill Steed and his Farm Life Stew Crew cooked ninety gallons of award-winning Virginia-style Brunswick stew in Richmond, Virginia, on Brunswick Stew Day in 2017. Delegate Tommy Wright takes a turn at stirring the pot. Left to right: William Steed, Chad Steed, Zach Maitlad, Tommy Wright, Brenda Ruddick, Chuck Maitlad, Beverly Steed, Bill Steed and Deborah Steed. Author’s collection.
At about eleven o’clock in the morning, the grand kettle of toothsome Virginia-style Brunswick stew was ready to serve. Anyone who wanted his or her share of it had to get there early. Hungry Richmonders had emptied the ninety-gallon kettle of stew by two o’clock that afternoon.
Today, stew masters like Bill and Chad are preserving an old and cherished Virginia tradition. Most modern Virginian stew masters donate their time, energy and talent to cook gallons and gallons of stew every year for charities and other worthy causes. Their efforts pay tribute to the multitudes of pioneering Virginian stew masters who made Virginia’s Brunswick stew legendary. Although history has forgotten the names of most of them, it couldn’t erase the memory of them all or their legendary versions of delicious, old-fashioned, Virginia-style Brunswick stew. The following sections expound on that fact.
James Matthews
James Matthews, also known as Uncle Jimmy Matthews, was the first Brunswick stew master in history. He is famous for transforming Virginia’s thin squirrel soup into rich, thick squirrel stew. Very little is known about him beyond scant mentions of him in official records and the limited information contained in the 1886 Tar Heel letter, which notes that he lived in the Red Oak district of Brunswick County, Virginia, and the 1907 Brunswick stew letters, which refer to him as “a retainer of Dr. Creed Haskins” and “an old man.” In early nineteenth-century Virginia, the word retainer could refer to an employee or an enslaved African American body servant.114
A census taker recorded the name “James Matthews” in the federal census conducted in St. Andrews Parish in Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1820.115 According to the census, James Matthews was a Caucasian who lived alone and was between twenty-six and forty-four years old. If the census taker accurately recorded his age, it seems to contradict the Brunswick stew letters, which describe him as an “old man” by 1828. At any rate, it appears that by 1840, James Matthews had either died or moved away from Brunswick County. The census taken twenty years later in 1840 doesn’t list James Matthews’s name, but it does list Samuel Matthews and Aaron B. Haskins. Virginia military records also list a James Matthews as having served in the War of 1812, which adds credibility to the 1886 Tar Heel letter that describes Matthews as a veteran of that war.116 Matthews was a bachelor and “a man of refinement” with a “roving disposition.” Those qualities, combined with his way of preparing squirrels in a stew, made him quite the ladies’ man. The Tar Heel letter states that he enjoyed “popularity and éclat among the ladies.”
Regardless of how famous James Matthews is for his legendary improvements to Virginia’s squirrel soup, it is doubtful that he was the cook who chopped the onions and stirred the pots. In antebellum Virginia, most cooks were African Americans—some of them free, most of them enslaved. In all likelihood, Matthews provided the recipe and supervised enslaved people who did the hard work of preparing the ingredients and cooking his squirrel stew.
DR. T. JAMES TAYLOR, COCHRAN, VIRGINIA, TO HON. I.E. SPATIG, LAWRENCEVILLE, VIRGINIA, JUNE 3, 1907
Dear Sir,—The “Brunswick stew,” which is now made of all sorts of meat and all kinds of vegetables, was originally no such olla podrida. It was made of squirrels and onions principally, with plenty of butter, good Virginia middling and condiments. It was called simply “squirrel stew,” but should have been called Haskin’s stew or Matthews’ stew, as it originated and was preserved by the former family, and its inventor James Matthews—glory to his memory. Like all good things its [Brunswick stew’s] reputation extended to the neighboring counties and to the city of Petersburg, where it was known as “Brunswick stew” and so called. I have a personal knowledge of these facts, as I boarded when a school-boy in a family directly in the locality where this stew originated.
I.E. Spatig, Brunswick County, Virginia: Information for the Homeseeker and Investor, 1907
Colonel Richard Thomas Walker Duke Sr.
Richard Thomas Walker Duke Sr. (1822–1898), also known as Walker Duke, was a nineteenth-century Congressional representative, Confederate veteran and lawyer who lived in Albemarle, Virginia. His son was Richard Thomas Walker Duke Jr., also known as Tom Duke. Walker Duke served his delicious Virginia-style Brunswick stew at barbecues hosted at his estate, named Sunnyside.117 Duke’s Brunswick stew was so delicious that one fellow offered $1,000 to anyone who could teach him to make “dat divine soup,” which in today’s dollars is well over the whopping sum of $15,000.118 Tom Duke recorded many details of his father’s old Virginia barbecues and Brunswick stew, complete with recipes. He wrote this account of his father’s fish frys and stews in his Recollections:
An image from an older version of the label on James River Brand Smithfield Chicken Brunswick Stew depicting African American Brunswick stew cooks in Virginia. Courtesy Isle of Wight County Museum. Used by permission.
Father always wound up his excursion with a big fish fry & Brunswick Stew, to which he invited “the Hollow.” He generally took along about five gallons of Monticello Claret, & brewed in a wash tub a claret punch which the Mountaineers called “Dog’s blood.” This was the only “spirituos [sic] refreshment” allowed & so these parties never became hilarious. Each Mountaineer brought a squirrel or so & failing a squirrel—a chicken & father prepared a big iron pot of his celebrated stew. Lest it be lost to a posterity hardly worthy of it, I give the receipt. In a large iron pot in which water was simmering over the fire were placed, corn & ochra [sic] & butter beans & tomatoes and a few potatoes—a generous piece of bacon—and the squirrels & chickens cut in small pieces, and a big lump of butter. To that was added a bottle of Worchester Sauce—large or small according to the size of the stew & the pot was allowed to boil slowly until the squirrels & chicken were “all to pieces.” Just before the stew was ready to serve the trout were put in the frying pan & by the time the stew was eaten the fish was ready. Generally the Mountaineers brought chubs—which they had caught & there was an abundance to eat & drink, “topped off” with cups of black coffee.
Caesar Young and John Gilmore cooked barbecue and Brunswick stew at Tom Duke’s events. Although Duke may have had a say in the famous Brunswick stew served at his barbecues, African American barbecue cooks supplied the true genius behind it. Until at least the early twentieth century, African Americans in Virginia were the most numerous and finest stew masters in the country. Regaling “their brother Knights with Old Dominion’s famous Brunswick Stew” in Chicago in 1910, Freemasons there made sure to hire African American Brunswick stew cooks from Virginia to cook the stew.119 Caesar Young and John Gilmore are two notable Virginian stew masters of that era.
Enslaved until the end of the Civil War, Caesar Young (1854–1935) and John Gilmore (1857–1937) often cooked Brunswick stew at public gatherings and Duke family barbecues.120 Although Duke often got the credit, there is no doubt that Gilmore and Young’s masterful stew skills made a delicious contribution to Duke’s “barbecue stew.” One author wrote of Gilmore and Young’s Brunswick stew cooking skills: “John and Caesar hand the palm to ‘Oscar’ of the Waldorf on Hollandaise sauce but they will spot him cards and spades when it comes to Brunswick stew.”121
Left to right: Caesar Young, Judge R.T.W. Duke Jr., W.R. Duke and John Gilmore, circa 1900. Courtesy Lucy D. Tonacci.
Augustine Royall
At around the turn of the twentieth century, Augustine Royall (1849–1935), “Gus” to his friends, was called “the best authority in Virginia on Brunswick stew.” Royall was born on his father’s farm known as South Hill located on the James River in Powhatan County, Virginia. By 1933, Royall had been cooking Brunswick stew for seventy years.122
An unnamed woman who was enslaved by his family taught him how to cook Brunswick stew sometime before the start of the Civil War. Royall gave his recipe as follows:
Take two nice fat chickens or six squirrels and prepare them nicely and put them in a pot that will hold two and a half to three gallons of water; boil them until they are done enough for the bones to be easily gotten out; place the flesh on a dish or clean board and, with a sharp knife, chop it up fine and put it back in the water in which it has been boiled; to this add one-quarter of a pound of old bacon, chopped fine, two quarts of Irish potatoes, peeled and sliced thin, one quart of lima or butterbeans, split each bean and let them stand in a bucket of water for one-half hour; then rub them gently in your hands. This will cause the outer hull to leave the kernel and swim on top of the water and the kernel to sink. In this way you get rid of the tough indigestible skin; add two quarts of well-ripened, sound tomatoes; scald them and remove the skin; slice thin; add two large onions, sliced thin; add salt, red and black pepper to suite taste; one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. When all the ingredients are prepared and in, boil gently for five hours, and, as the water boils down, renew with hot water; stir constantly to keep from burning. When the stew is nearly done—or, say, been cooking four hours—put no more hot water in and have one dozen ears of green corn, shucked and all the silk removed, with a sharp knife split each row of grains on the cob; then shave off the tops of the grain with the knife; then, with the back of the knife-blade, press the corn so treated. The kernels will slip out of the husk, leaving that on the cob, and in this way you avoid the indigestible part of the corn. Put the corn in the pot or vessel one-half hour before taking the stew off the fire; add one-half pound nice fresh butter, and stir well, until thoroughly incorporated. The above will make enough to serve eight or ten persons. Serve hot (is very nice cold).123
As a teenager, Royall served in the Civil War. The Virginia Military Institute lists him as a member of the class of 1868. In 1864, he enlisted in Company C of the Virginia Military Cadets, eventually becoming a member of Company E, Fourth Virginia Cavalry. In 1896, he chaired the committee that helped erect a monument to his old company.
After the end of the Civil War, Augustine Royall became a successful businessperson in the Chesterfield, Virginia area. In 1872, he entered the real estate and insurance businesses. In 1879, he became a member of the town council. He was also an influential member of several clubs and associations, including the Powhatan Troop Association, the Free and Accepted Masons and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.124
Royall’s great fondness for Virginia’s Brunswick stew shines in his description of it. Describing himself as “an admirer of the Brunswick stew,” he went on to extoll the stew’s virtues:
Brunswick stew, when properly made, is a royal dish, and has not only served to support “the inner man,” but has made Presidents, Governors, Senators, legislators and all minor officers down to Justice of the Peace. Its influence in politics has been great indeed. It has also held a hand in card-playing and other kindred sports.
I am just here reminded of An Ode to Brunswick Stew written by the late lamented Dr. Leigh Burton, editor of the Baton. I can only recall a few lines, but sufficient to let you see he had not only true poetic fancy, but he had practical ideas about the dish and the surroundings to make it most enjoyable. Here is what he [wrote]: “Some shady nook, some sylvan spot; Some place to cook and hang the pot; Some place to drive our care away, Some place a little “draw to play.”125
Royall admitted that his recipe for Brunswick stew was not the same as the one taught to him by his family’s cook when he was a boy. He claimed, “I have greatly improved on the old methods of making it.” His “improvements” included the addition of Worcestershire sauce and the unique practice of removing the outer husks from the beans and corn. It’s hard to argue with success. According to those who enjoyed Royall’s Brunswick stew, he knew a great deal about what he called the “subtle art” of making it.
John Goodrich Saunders (1868–1950), nicknamed “Dick” by his friends, was the city sergeant of Richmond, Virginia, in the 1920s.126 By 1924, Saunders was recognized as “one of the best outdoor cooks in Virginia.”127 His delicious Brunswick stew sold for fifty cents a quart, and all proceeds always went to worthy causes.
Over the years, Sergeant Saunders raised thousands of dollars for charities, churches, the American Legion and other causes. He held one of his most famous stews in 1930 in order to raise funds for the widow of a police officer killed in the line of duty. He cooked six hundred gallons of stew that day. For six hours, Sergeant Saunders constantly stirred the simmering stew made with a recipe that he tailored to his own taste. He filled huge iron kettles with meats that included 780 pounds of chicken, 240 veal shins, 12 beef shins and 48 pounds of bacon. The vegetables included 800 pounds of potatoes, 360 pounds of cabbage, eighteen bushels of celery, seventy-two gallons of corn and 150 gallons of canned tomatoes, topped off with 48 pounds of butter. He perfectly seasoned the stew with salt, pepper and thyme. He auctioned off the last quart of stew from that day’s cook for a whopping $10, which is the equivalent of $140 today.128
City Sergeant Saunders of Richmond, Virginia, and his simmering Brunswick stew pot. Courtesy Norman Rainock.
Although some declared that Saunders’s stew was heretical because of the cabbage and celery, which are not traditional in Virginia-style stew, others raved that it was delicious.129 In 1925, stew master Augustine Royall dined on Saunders’s Brunswick stew and agreed with others that it was among the best they had ever eaten.130
Mary S. Sturdivant
Mary S. Sturdivant (1832–1908) was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, to George White and his wife, Ann Elizabeth Mason. Her uncle on her mother’s side was none other than William Thomas Mason (Colonel Tom), who appears in the Brunswick stew letters as a caretaker of the original Brunswick stew recipe. Mary married Edward Claiborne Sturdivant (1823–1919) in 1853. Eventually, she and her husband moved to the area around Brownsville, Tennessee, and she became famous there for her Virginia-style Brunswick stew, cooked using the recipe she brought with her from Brunswick, Virginia. Her son, Franklin Sturdivant (1860–1932), started a canning and packaging company in 1918. One of the products the company offered was Sturdivant’s Old Virginia–Style Brunswick Stew. Around 1940, the family sold the packing company. In our times, her descendants are famous Brunswick stew cooks in Tennessee.131
Although Mary Sturdivant was the keeper of the recipe, she wasn’t the person who did all of the work cooking Brunswick stew. A pamphlet titled 12 Pearls, published by her son in 1924 to promote his mother’s delicious Virginia-style Brunswick stew, depicts the way in which enslaved cooks toiled for hours, under the supervision of “Miss May,” as they called Mrs. Sturdivant, doing the hard work required to cook large kettles of Brunswick stew. The Sturdivants weren’t the first to offer canned Brunswick stew. Advertisements for Stockdell’s “Genuine Georgia” Brunswick stew showed up in newspapers by 1899.132
Mary Sturdivant. From 12 Pearls, 1924. Author’s collection.
Mrs. Sturdivant (Miss May) supervising the making of Brunswick stew. Author’s collection.
Mrs. Fearnow’s famous Brunswick stew is still available in stores today. Courtesy Boone Brands.
Lillie P. Fearnow
In the early 1920s, Lillie Pearl Fearnow (1881–1970) of Hanover County, Virginia, sold her first jar of homemade Brunswick stew. She took six pints of the stew to the Woman’s Exchange in Richmond, Virginia, and quickly sold out. Soon, the mother of five was enlisting the help of two other women and their kitchens in order to cook enough of her delectably concocted Virginia-style Brunswick stew to meet the demands of customers. In 1946, she built a cannery, and by the time she first learned to drive a car after her sixty-seventh birthday in 1949, her Brunswick stew was a staple in pantries all over Virginia, North Carolina and beyond. According to Mrs. Fearnow, the secret to a good Brunswick stew is in the seasonings. That’s why she personally seasoned all the Brunswick stew that came out of her factory until she died in 1970.133 Mrs. Fearnow’s delicious Brunswick stew is still available in stores today.
Anne Stone Davis
I met stew master Anne Stone Davis, “Stoney,” also known as Anne Davis Kellum (1964–2016), at a stew I attended in Mechanicsville, Virginia, in 2014. She was overseeing the preparation of a sixty-five-gallon kettle of Virginia-style Brunswick stew. Anne learned to cook Brunswick stew from her father, Andrew Jack Davis (aka Daddy Jack). He was a famous stew master who cooked Brunswick stew for friends, churches and other community groups. He learned to cook the stew from his father, who learned it from his father. Daddy Jack passed the family’s generations-old art of expertly cooking large kettles of old-fashioned Brunswick stew on to Anne. When he passed away, Anne inherited one of his old stew kettles and his cherished homemade stew paddles.
Anne was very particular about the quality of her stew. She had no tolerance for anything but perfection. She meticulously monitored the simmering stew, ensuring that everything about it was just right. On one rare occasion, when the stew didn’t meet her high standards, she refused to serve it and tossed every ounce of it away.
Anne took the time to instruct me on the finer points of properly stirring a large kettle of Brunswick stew, which is a lot of hard work. Constant stirring is vital to prevent scorching, and stirring ninety gallons of stew with a wooden paddle can be as strenuous as shoveling snow. Therefore, proper technique is important, and Anne never hesitated to take the paddle away from anyone who wasn’t stirring the stew properly.
Stew master Anne Stone Davis (aka Anne Davis Kellum) with Virginia congressman Dave Brat at a political stew at Mechanicsville, Virginia, in 2014. Author’s collection.
The secret of a good Brunswick stew is long, slow boiling. It should be started early in the morning and allowed to boil for several hours. Take 2 good-size squirrels, 3 quarts of cold water, 1 onion, and a strip of bacon—not pork [meaning don’t use fatback]—and put them on to boil. It should boil 4 hours, unless the squirrel is very old and tough, in which case boil longer. When the meat has left the bones, remove the pot and pick out every piece of bone and skin, leaving the meat in shreds. Add to this stock 6 ears of corn cut from the cob, 1 quart of ripe tomatoes, 1-quart butter beans, 4 large Irish potatoes, and the juice of 1 lemon. Let this cook for another hour, stirring well to keep from burning. It should now be thick enough to eat with a fork, and is ready to serve. Add 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce before serving.
Carrie Picket Moore, The Way to the Heart, 1905
According to Anne’s expert advice, first you need the right kind of paddle. It should be five feet long and homemade from ash or hickory wood. After the paddle, the proper stirring motion is paramount. Stand next to the kettle, facing the stew. Place the paddle blade flat against the top inside lip of the kettle closest to you and push down. Make sure the paddle blade remains in contact with the inside wall. It’s as if you are scrapping the stew off the inside surface of the pot. Continue in a single motion all the way down to the bottom of the kettle and up the other side. Take a step to your left and repeat until you have circled the pot. Repeat continuously until the stew has finished cooking.
In 2016, Anne passed away far too soon at the age of fifty-two. In her lifetime, she celebrated her family’s Brunswick stew tradition by cooking thousands of gallons of Virginia’s “sacred delicacy” to support charities and other good causes. People who had the pleasure of enjoying a bowl of Anne’s old-fashioned Brunswick stew with friends and family fondly remember the occasions with happy smiles and warm hearts. If that’s a measure of a stew master’s skill, and it is, Anne was one of the greatest.
