Frogmore Stew

So the other day we had some over night guest, family who were on their way up north and stopped to rest and visit. Being the good southerners they are they showed up with gifts. 5 pounds of beautiful wild Alabama shrimp. We had planned on grilling burgers that night so we added a few kebabs to the grill. Shrimp, sausage, pineapple and sweet peppers, not bad.

The next night we ask the neighbors to join us for a shrimp boil, they are not stupid people and agreed to come over after their daughter was asleep. In the mean time I got to thinking about a low country boil, what was the difference between a shrimp boil and a low country boil? I googled low country and frogmore stew came up. I had heard of a frogmore stew, but that’s about it, had no idea what it really was. On one of the pages I pulled up there was a story of a cook who had to feed a ton of troops one day, so looking at what he had to work with he cooked what his family cooked at home. He put shrimp, sausage, corn and taters all in one pot, spiced it up real good, boiled it and served it all together. The cook was from the town of Frogmore, South Carolina so the troops referred to it as frogmore stew. From there it became a low country boil.

I was interested to know the difference because I had heard that sausage went onto a low country boil and I wanted to add sausage to my shrimp boil for the night. What I learned was that’s about the only difference, sausage. So that night along with the taters, the first thing I put in the water that was boiling away with 2 bags of Zatarain’s crab boil, was a bunch of sausage. I finished the boil as I always did and it turned out great, just look at this vision of beauty.