The World's Best Brunswick Stew

When I was a kid the senior class at our high school would always have a barbeque fundraiser to help pay for the annual senior trip to Washington, D. C. The menu was always the same year after year for as far back as I can remember--barbeque pork and Brunswick stew with a side of chips and sweet pickles, and of course, white loaf bread. It stayed that way until I was a senior when a fancy pants new teacher came along from some Alabama school like Troy State where she thought she was hot stuff and she knew better than we simpletons from a mill town. She decided a spaghetti dinner would be a better than "a silly ole bbq, who eats that trash anyway", but all she did was ruin a tradition, and cost each senior an extra hundred dollars for the trip to make up for the fiasco of a flop she served up as a senior dinner. We won't get into how she also ruined our yearbook, too. She was the first woman I ever knew who richly deserved to be called a bitch.

But I digress. The overnight ritual of cooking barbeque involved tending to huge wash pots full of a mysterious concoction that as the sun rose in the eastern sky over the Sportman's Club would somehow evolve into Brunswick stew. It was the job of the boys in the senior class, and anybody else they could recruit, to serve as laborers whose primary job it was to stir those pots containing the stew. Being young and stupid, (a dangerous combination, but not uncommon as adolescent boys go) we were thrilled at the chance to participate in the action. I must say, the first ten minutes or so of standing over a pot with a boat paddle to stir the mixture was shear delight. One would be so filled with such excitement and genuine pride at the idea of being part of the team, it sometimes took twelve or fifteen minutes for reality to set in and to realize how long a night could be and a whole lot of stirring was going to be required. Thank goodness there was always enough boys on hand to pass the paddle off. Still, this was an all-nighter that seemed to last a week.

The guru of stew was Mr. Jackson. Ed was his first name, I believe, but don't hold me to it. His recipe for Brunswick stew, as far as I am concerned, set the gold standard for what stew is supposed to taste like. Decades of experience has taught me that what makes a certain food taste good is what you were raised on. Barbeque and Brunswick stew are two of those foods.

Every summer, Southern Living magazine publishes its annual barbeque edition which is a compilation from around the south on what each region considers their best fare. From the Carolinas to Texas, from Kentucky to Florida and all points in between there are articles on different meats, cooking techniques, sauces and side dishes. To be sure, each is convinced his is the best what ever was. If you don't believe them, why hell, they have a trailer full of trophies to prove it! When you see what these folks try to pass off as legitimate southern cuisine, sometimes it's almost laughable. For the record, let's be perfectly clear: brisket (or anything else from a cow), lamb, goat, sheep, deer, 'possum, squirrel, shunk, armadillo, etc. is NOT barbeque. Barbeque is pork. Period. And Brunswick stew does not have potatoes, orka, beans or beef in it. To be legitimate, honest to God, Brunswick stew, it will be ground in a meat grinder and will contain corn, chicken, pork, tomatoes, and onions (with a few secret ingredients).

Enough said. Let me get to the point of this post: A couple of years ago my brother, Tim, gave me his recipe for stew. He told me it was the same one that Mr. Jackson used. I don't actually know if it is or not, but it sure does taste like real stew, the way God intended for it to taste. As a disclaimer, be forewarned; you can't make a little bit of Brunswick stew. If you do this recipe as it is written, you will have close to four gallons--enough to give all your relatives and neighbors and still have some left over for your own. Hope you enjoy it.

Uncle Tim’s Old Family Secret Recipe Brunswick Stew
(The way God meant for it to be)
Ingredients:

1 pork shoulder (8-10 lbs)

2 chicken broilers (4-5 lbs ea)
8 (15 oz) cans of whole kernel corn

4 (15 oz) cans of creamed corn
12 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes

3 (64 oz) bottles ketchup
3 medium sweet onions

2 sticks butter
2 ± cups chicken broth

Black pepper—to taste
Cayenne pepper—go ahead, fire it up

Salt to taste
Tabasco sauce—see above

Secret herbs and spices

Cooking directions:
In separate pots, boil the pork shoulder and chickens until done. Reserve the chicken broth. Meanwhile, to occupy your time, run the corn, onions, and tomatoes through the grinder attachment to the Kitchenaide mixer (Don’t have a mixer with grinder attachment? Go get one--can’t do this without one if you want to learn to make good stew!). As you pass the veggies through the grinder, be careful not to push too hard or too fast. Don’t believe me? Go ahead, smart-ass, give that first can of tomatoes a good shove down the grinder mouth and redecorate the kitchen walls. My brother, Tim, whose basic recipe this is, taught me to run all the ingredients through the grinder twice, but it is a matter of personal preference. After squishing in the grinder, put into a large, and I do mean large, pot—a cast-iron wash pot works best (clothes removed from pot, of course). After the meats have fully cooked, remove from the bone, cool, and cut into cubes before passing through the grinder. After grinding, place meat into the pot and add ketchup and first dose of black and red peppers. Go light on the ketchup at first; you can always add more later on as the stew brews, but you can’t take it away if you put too much in.
At this point you can turn on the heat, somewhere between simmer and low, and start stirring. I suppose it is time to tell you the real secret to good stew—elbow grease. That’s right, work. From the time you put the heat on, until it is finished and ready to eat, you will not leave the sight of this concoction. The last thing you want to have happen is for the stew to stick to the bottom of the pot, and believe me it will, unless you stir. Nothing ruins good stew faster than black wads of scorched stew that tells the whole damn world you were too lazy to stir a pot for a little while. So don’t be a slacker.
As the stew warms up, add one stick of softened butter and a cup of chicken broth. Now, here is your opportunity to be a little original—add Tabasco sauce, another stick of softened butter, a little more broth, black pepper and red cayenne pepper, and salt to suit your taste. The stew will cook slowly. The key is the flavor of the onions which will evolve from a predominate taste, and then it will melt into the stew and become almost imperceptible as it blends in with all the other ingredients. If you want to make good stew, be patient and take lots of time, cook low and slow, and stir often. You won’t be disappointed.

Footnote: Because it takes so long to cook this recipe, over time I have learned the best technique is to cook the meat, and grind the veggies and meat and put it in the icebox overnight and then cook the stew the next day.

As a rule, I half this recipe and it makes enough stew for an after-church Sunday dinner gathering and still send the preacher home with a covered dish for later.