A gallimaufry of shrimp, sausage, new potatoes, onions, and chunks of corn on the cob that all get boiled in the same pot with a hail of crab-boil seasonings, Frogmore stew was named for the coastal community of Frogmore, South Carolina, on the island of St. Helena near the Georgia line. In the early 1960s, Richard Gay of the island’s Gay Seafood Company created it to feed mass quantities of fellow National Guardsmen, and it remains a favorite dish for big picnics, festivals, and political rallies. Although the U.S. Post Office abolished Frogmore in the 1980s, locals still like to call the dish by the obsolete town name in honor of its history. It also is known as Beaufort stew and the more descriptive Lowcountry boil.
Frogmore stew, aka Lowcountry boil, at Bowen’s Island outside Charleston.