Where Charm And History Meet

the name Brunswick Stew started to appear in historical accounts.

“People observe a tradition, reenact it, and in so doing, bring it to a new location [and] alter it a bit to meet their particular needs,” she wrote in an email. “Children do this a lot before they learn to read and write — school yard games such as tag and hide and seek get repeated and altered as they are shared from one person to another.” introduced numerous pottage recipes to colonial America, the most common being made with peas cooked to a pulp. Various meats and fish were often included in those as well.

She said the best historical evidence for the origin of the stew’s name points to a story from Brunswick County, Virginia. In that telling, an enslaved African-American camp cook by the name of Jimmy Matthews made a squirrel-based stew during a hunting trip with Dr. Creed Haskins in 1828. An 1849 article in the Richmond Enquirer uses the words “Brunswick Stew” to name one of the dishes at a barbecue held at a town near Richmond, Virginia.

Unfortunately for Hilton’s grandmother, that places the origin of the stew’s name many decades before both the Civil War and the re-naming of Berlin, Maryland, to Brunswick, Maryland. But just because the town didn’t play a role in the naming of the stew doesn’t mean that the stew’s name didn’t have an impact on the town.

Yes, the connection between Brunswick Stew and Brunswick, Maryland, is “just a coincidence” of their sharing a name, but the fact of that coincidence has turned into a real bit of history affecting the lives of people who live there.

White said these types of stews continued to evolve as folk traditions over many centuries before and after

Julie Maynard, editor and publisher of the former Brunswick Citizen newspaper, said in an email to 72 Hours that it’s “hard to resist a good dish that shares your town’s name.”

She recalls Brunswick Stew playing a part in many town functions over the years, albeit

Julie Maynard

A poem recipe for Brunswick Stew. with chicken instead of game serving as the main protein. A poetic version of a Brunswick Stew recipe dated to 1930 was circulated during the town’s Railroad Days festival a few years ago. There was at least one occasion when the Brunswick Heritage Museum (then the Brunswick Railroad Museum) served a version of the stew during Railroad Days. And she said various community volunteer organizations, such as the ambulance company, will serve it periodically at festivals.

Perhaps the most interesting co-opting of the famous stew by the town came not in the form of actual food but in food for thought.

Jim Bryan, the erstwhile editor of the long-running Brunswick BladeTimes, wrote a popular column called Brunswick Stew. Much like its namesake, the column always seemed to consist of whatever ingredients were on hand.

Maynard said Bryan “mixed bits of fun gossip with his opinions about local and county politics. People still spoke fondly of this, years later.”

Erik Anderson is a freelance writer in Frederick who cares about few things more than the history of his community. Email him at erikanderson07@gmail.com.