Dang I wish I had a pic of the butter beans with fresh tomatoes. We add non cooked cut up tomatoes to butter beans and corn or when just eating one vegetable. Most people don’t want the juice for the veggies but we do. I’ve never seen anyone but my mom’s family do this.

I know all about Brunswick stew. I grew up on it and still eat it sometimes. I’ve never seen anything comparable in the soup or chili category. The local volunteer fire departments have at least one cook a year. It’s cooked outside in big metal pots. My school also cooked it for fund raising and we had it for lunch occasionally. I refused to eat my grandparents Brunswick stew. They cooked it in what we call a wash pot, big old cast iron pot outside over a fire. They put chopped cabbage in it. Didn’t taste or look right to me.

Our stew looks like the picture in the link. It has three recipes. Our stew has whole chicken, diced tomatoes, butter (Lima) beans, potatoes, corn and spices (probably canine pepper, S&P (some batches are hotter). That comes from who is doing spices. If hands are bigger it’s hotter. When cooking huge pots they add handfuls of spices instead of using measuring cups. You can cook it with any meat you desire. Deer meat is a popular option. I don’t remember anyone using a ham hock or butter.

If I had a place to buy non gmo tomato plants I would. I don’t trust the farmers here. It’s very few farms switching to organic and non GMO. Love tomato sandwiches. My husband just started eating raw tomatoes about a decade ago. He will eat tomato sandwich with bacon. Recently I told him we need to find a local farmer selling pork if he wanted those sandwiches. Bacon prices are outrageous (like everything).