This spontaneously-shot surprising documentary looks across the South to see the connections between the folk heritage traditions of communal cooking in gigantic black iron pots stirred with wooden paddles maintained into the 21st century by culinary folk artisans called “stewmasters” with their stew crews. With wit and humor, Southern Stews carries us from Kentucky and Virginia into Georgia and South Carolina to discover ancestral stews that honor an agrarian past and contain the blended history of our European, African, Native American, and frontier settler roots in one-pot meals.