Events

The traditions of cooking communal stews in huge black iron pots stirred with wooden paddles has long been a way of Southern gatherings-whether at hunt clubs, church or family reunions, during holidays, or special events such as commemorating the end of harvests or to feed workers helping out at hog killing time. Requiring a number of workers, with a division of labor usually split between women who would prepare vegetables for the stews and men working in shifts under a stew-master to constantly stir the stew for up to 18 hours before serving, this documentary, introduced and narrated by Southern food writer, John Egerton, takes the viewer across the South. A fabulous opportunity to connect the dots between such Southern stews as Burgoo, Brunswick stew, Carolina Hash, Frogmore stew, chicken bog and sheep stew, these stews are becoming fragile traditions as the agrarian South gets replaced by modernity.