Some chefs prefer their stews to look more like soup, with the vegetables cooked but whole and the broth relatively thin. Which brings us to another big debate in the chicken-eat-chicken world of Brunswick stew. There were strings of chicken here, small potato lumps there, perhaps the skins of lima beans. Stew master Harold Gauldin of Brodnax, Va., said he got the title "I guess because I've been cookin' it the longest."Īt this point, very little of what the stew pots contain could be identified. "I'm a classic stew gofer."Īsked what goes into becoming a stew master, Clary responded, "Making lots of stew for lots of years." "There are stew masters, and there are stew gofers," Donny Clary of Lawrenceville said as he stirred his team's pot. Stew masters tried samples and directed the addition of ingredients, and the stirring resumed. By the time spectators began arriving at 10 a.m., the teams had been at it for five hours, and the stews were being stirred constantly with long wooden paddles.Ībout once a minute, the stirrers brought up the paddles, flat side up, so errant bones and skin could be picked off and discarded. The competition began well before dawn, when the teams assembled under awnings and fired up their 75-gallon pots, their secret ingredients preassembled elsewhere. Another used a special blend of red and white pepper. Sources within the competition, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, disclosed that one team used only boneless chicken, another used cut-up chicken parts, and a third used cleaned whole hens. Petersburg Times has a policy against quoting anonymous sources, the policy can be overridden by the importance of the public's need to know. You won't find a pod of okra anywhere within sight of the steaming cook pots in this part of the country, although in other regions, a Brunswick stew without okra is heresy. The basic ingredients are out in the open for all to see: chicken (used today in place of squirrel or rabbit), tomatoes, onions, lima beans, corn, potatoes and spices. It's the small things that make the difference, and we don't talk about the small things." "I'll tell you what's in it," he said, "but I won't tell you how to put it together. When asked about the competition and his recipe, Daniel lowered his voice conspiratorially. A few said they hoped he would, just to build steam for a rematch next year. More than one Lawrenceville resident confided hopes that Daniel wouldn't win. The two towns compete over just about everything, and not always on the friendliest of terms. One of the competitors this year was a team led by Jeff Daniel of Alberta, Va., a small community a few miles north of Lawrenceville. The competition is fierce, egos are huge, and hard feelings are not unknown. All stew masters shroud their recipes in secrecy. Nobody would be able to reproduce the winning entry at home. 10, when three anonymous judges made their choice. The answer would be known shortly after noon Oct. This year, the crowd more than doubled.Įverywhere _ at pottery displays, Civil War re-enactments, antique auctions, even at the pig races _ the debate raged over who makes the best Brunswick stew. Last year, the festival's first, drew 3,000 people. The centerpiece of the arts and music festival is a Brunswick stew cookoff on the vast grounds of an estate built in 1785, now renovated and doing business as Brunswick Mineral Springs Bed & Breakfast. and certainly, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia Brunswick County, Va., sets aside the second Saturday of each October for a festival celebrating its history and its mark on the pages of culinary history. Brunswick stew was born.ĭismissing the claims of Brunswick, Ga. Members of the party were reluctant to try the mixture, but when they tasted it, they loved it. The camp cook thought the evening meal needed something more, but a squirrel was all he could find, so he shot it, skinned it (we think) and dumped it in the cook pot. As the story goes, a hunting party led by a Virginia legislator set out in 1828, provisioned only with tomatoes, onions, cabbage, butter beans, red pepper, bacon, salt and corn.
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