There's controversy over Brunswick Stew. Seems that a county in Virginia named Brunswick claims to be the invention site, while many of us here on Saint Simons Island know that the stew is of Georgia ancestry, it's namesake being just across the causeway in the mainland town of Brunswick, Georgia.
I don't know the particulars of the Virginia claim, but, as a Brunswick Stew type of guy, I'll side with the Georgia version of reality.
Now I know Virginia is southern. Robert E. Lee was from there. The racing Burton brothers, too. And I know that the Virginia Legislature passed a resolution here awhile back "officially" declaring Brunswick Stew a Virginia original.
They can do as they wish, but hot, snappy, saucy, sassy Brunswick Stew tastes further south than Virginia. Much further south. Things in that other part of the south just don't taste like this.
For the record, here's my easy Brunswick Stew recipe. I have found stew making to be quite free form, so add or subtract anything to taste.
Cut and cook up some cubes of your choice of chicken, beef, pork, ham, squirrel and/or rabbit.
Boil up some water.
Add some Carolina style mustardy BarBQue sauce and some regular BarBQue sauce until it tastes right.
Put the meat in the pot.
Add diced onions and cubed tomatoes, potatoes, lima beans and Shoepeg Corn. Okra is good, too. Put in a little salt, a little Wooster Sauce or vinegar, maybe a tad of sugar.
Cook it until it is done, an hour or two.
Bake up some cornbread in a hot cast iron skillet, and make a gallon of sweet tea.
That is Brunswick Stew, and sides.
For those like me whose eyes are playing out, the monument inscription says:
In this pot the first Brunswick Stew was made on St. Simon Isle, July 2, 1898.
The picture commemorates the original Brunswick Stew pot. As you can see, it is in Georgia, not Virginia. The display is at the Welcome Center on the west end of the Torras Causeway in Brunswick, just across the Marsh from Saint Simons Island.
