Southern
Stews: A Folklife Research and Video Documentation Project
Stan Woodward 
Stewmaster Jeff Daniels and his crew in Alberta, Virginia.
Stan Woodward,
folklife researcher and producer-director of documentaries on Southern
culture, worked with
McKissick Museum curators Saddler Taylor and Jay Williams on a video
documentation
project , supported by the Southern Humanities Media Fund, called Southern Stews. This folklife
video
project was completed in May, 2002, and will be offered to educational
television
outlets in the southeastern states during the coming programming
season.
Southern Stews examines several of the South's major foodways
traditions.
Stew making becomes a ritual at family reunions, church homecomings and
community events, retaining many of of these connections when done in
many
of the region's many small family-run barbecue restaurants. Among
the stews addressed by the film are the Georgia and Virginia varieties
of Brunswick Stew, Kentucky Burgoo, Carolina Hash and Virginia Sheep
Stew.
Stan Woodward with researcher Vennie Deas-Moore.
Stan Woodward is the producer-director of documentaries such as
Olgers Store (2000) and Sheep Stew (2001), recently shown
on
several Virginia Public Television stations; as well as Carolina
Hash (2001), winner of a Cine Golden Eagle Award. The latter two
productions were separately-funded spin-offs from the larger Southern
Stews project. Woodward was the first Director of Technology and
Distance Learning for the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts
(1998-99). While
working with the South Carolina Arts Commission in the 1970s, he
established
the Regional Media Center and Southern Film Circuit. Woodward is
best known for his Southern cult classic, It's Grits, Blue
Ribbon
award winner at the American Film Festival in New York.
Several nationally-recognized scholars have been working as advisors to
the Southern Stews video
production, both on- and off-camera:
Lee Dew, Professor of History (Emeritus) at Kentucky Wesleyan College;
John Burrison, Professor of English and Director of the Folklore
Curriculum at Georgia State University; Katherine (Kasey) Grier,
Assistant Professor of History and specialist in material culture
studies at the University of South Carolina; Charles F. Kovacik,
Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina; Richard
Pillsbury, Professor of Cultural Geography
(Emeritus), Georgia State University; John Egerton, foodways researcher
and author from Nashville, Tennesee; and Timothy Patridge, foodways
researcher
and Director of the Food and Beverage Program at Morris Brown College
in
Atlanta.
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