If Your Parents Fed You This Soup, You Probably Grew Up In The South

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If Your Parents Fed You This Soup, You Probably Grew Up In The South By Alexa Valme Oct. 18, 2025 4:39 pm EST

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Brunswick stew is the kind of dish that fogs up kitchen windows on cold days — thick, tomato-based, and loaded with vegetables, smoke, and memory. It's commonly mistaken for beef stew , but the difference is simple: Beef stew sticks to one meat, while Brunswick welcomes whatever's on hand. Chicken, pork, even rabbit or squirrel all find their way into the pot, slow-simmered until everything breaks down into a rich, smoky tangle of flavor.

Ask where it came from, and you'll start a fight that's lasted more than a century. In Brunswick County, Virginia, the story begins in 1828, when state legislator Dr. Creed Haskins su