The original feature length version - BRUNSWICK STEW : A Southern Americana Folk Heritage Tradition - was produced for the people of Brunswick County, Virginia, who honor this tradition and maintain it through a system of stewmasters and stew crews who cook for their constituent community. This documentary premiered at the Virginia State Fair on "Brunswick Stew Day" in 1998. It was a day devoted to the stewmasters and stew crews from Brunswick County which lays claim to being "The Original Home of Brunswick Stew". The stewmasters and crews each cooked their unique recipes for their stew which fair attendees sampled. In the afternoon the stewmasters were paraded thriugh the fairgrounds and taken to an auditorium where friends, relatives, invitees, and folks from all over with Brunswick County roots attended the "World Premier" of this documentary. Each stewmaster received special recognition with a framed citation signed by the Governor noting these men as "Virginia Treasures". When news of this hit the papers, it once again set off a response from "the insensed citizenry in Brunswick, GA...and the Stew Wars were ignited again. The origins of this conflict is documented in both this documentary and more elaborated upon in Stan Woodward's sequel titled, BRUNSWICK STEW: Georgia Named Her; Georgia Claims Her.

The Georgia stew tradition, mainly pork-based and today wedded to about any plate of barbecue you find in the Peach State, traces it's folk heritage tradition back to agrarian roots and the hogshead stews and hunters stews made on the small farms in 19th century Georgia; while the Virginia tradition traces it's exclusively chicken-based recipes back to the original squirrel stew said to have been prepared in 1828 by Uncle Jimmy Matthews, a camp cook for the Virginia Repesentative from Brunswick County, Dr. Creed Haskins.

BRUNSWICK STEW: A Virginia Treasure is the shortened Virginia/Brunswick County documentary (56 min 40 sec) edited for PBS. It travels the viewer pot-side where we see the work of artisans of many different stewmasters and learn how these stews are sold and the money used to meet needs in the small town and farm communities.