BRUNSWICK STEW

I can't think of anyone who loves Brunswick stew better than I do. I grew up with it for just about every holiday and especially Memorial day. My granddad had his own recipe which was handed down from his dad. I try to carry on the tradition. This is a shorter version of my granddad's simce his fed about 200 people. After his stew started cooking, he would be bar-b-queing a half side of beef. If this is to much for your family, then freeze some of it. It freezes very well or as Hannah says in "Steel Magnolias" it freezes beautifully.

1 6 to 7 lb. (hen I leave off the giblets)
1 6 lb. beef chuck or rump roast
1 6 lb ham butt or shoulder
12 cups water
6 to 8 onions chopped
about 18 potatoes peeled and cubes (optional)
6 cups fresh or frozen Lima beans
6 to 8 cups of canned tomatoes (I like home canned)
6 to 8 cups of whole kernel corn (you can use frozen corn)
1 stick butter
juice of 3 lemons
2 bottles of catsup (medium)
1 tbsp. Tabasco sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Bring meats to a boil and lower heat so it will simmer until tender and meat falls off the bones. After the meat had cooled, chop in small chunks and set aside. Skim the fat from the broth and discard. Add all the vegetables to the pot, cover and simmer until not quite tender. Return all meat to the pot and add the seasonings and lemon juice. Add the catsup last and stir slowly. Let the stew cook slowly on low for about 20 more minutes, uncovered. Serve with biscuits, corn bread or crackers and sit back and listen to all the compliments.

Added a post to this story. Brunswick,GA has a twenty-gallon iron pot just outside their town of Brunswick; and the plaque declares that America's first Brunswick stew was cooked in that pot in 1898. However, there are other dissenters as well-mainly food anthropologists who believe that southern Indian tribes were stewing squirrels, corn, and beans long before the white man stepped ashore. Today, many a Southern cook has a cherished recipe for this stew. To counter act this theory, Brunswick County, Virginia declare that their concockation originated in 1828, was made with squirrels, onions and stale bread mixed by "uncle" Jimmy Matthew, a camp cook in service to Dr. Creed Haskins of the Virginia Legislature. Who knows where it came from, Indians, Virginians, or Georgians, I still love the taste and the memories from my childhood of shucking corn for my granddad to add to the stew.