The original feature length version - Brunswick Stew: Origins of a Southern Stew 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. The original festure length documentary premiered at the Virginia State Fair on "Brunswick Stew Day" in 1998. This was a day in which the governor gave special commemoration to the stewmasters from Brunswick County and had the proclamation from the General Assembly read declaring Brunswick County "The Original Home of Brunswick Stew". The stewmasters and crews each cooked their stew and fair attendees were able to sample and see how the secret ingredients in each pot made distinctive each stew, and the newpapers reiterated the claim that Brunswick County, VA was the "Original Home of Brunswick Stew". This once again set off a response from the people in Brunswick County, GA...and the Stew Wars (initially reported on the front cover of a 1980's Southern Living magazine) were re-ignited. This conflict in the claims of the two states is documented and played out in the Virginia and Georgia Brunswick stew documentaries by Stan Woodward. This upset the people in Brunswick, Georgia, of course, and the "Stew Wars" began, as noted on the front page of Southern Living magazine followed by an article on the subject.

The Georgia stew tradition, mainly pork-based, traces it's folk heritage tradition back to agrarian roots and the hogshead stews and hunters stews of old, while the Virginia tradition traces it's exclusively chicken-based recipes back to the original squirrel stew said to have been prepared by Uncle Jimmy Matthews.

The difference between the feature length and the shorter PBS length versions is that the shorter version does not contain the authenticating "Origins" story.