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All Music Guide:
Stew (born Mark Stewart) grew up in the Los Angeles area where he played in bands from Junior High School onwards. Despite having grown up in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, Stew was well versed in hard rock and progressive rock as well, then on to punk when that scene hit Los Angeles. After making his first recording in a band called the Animated, Stew decided to relocate to New York City, where he performed with both a "found-object all-percussion performance combo" and a more standard R&B/pop band.
After a few years in New York, it was off to Europe, where Stew and some friends eventually settled in Berlin and became a part of the avant-garde artistic squatter community, doing music and performance pieces for several more years.
Finding his way back to Los Angeles, Stew played in a series of bands (imPOPisation, Crazy Sound All Stars, Popular Front) before forming the Negro Problem in 1995. After several singles, the Negro Problem released their first full-length album, Post-Minstrel Syndrome in 1997. Joys & Concerns followed in 1999, further refining Stew's vision within their smart power pop context. In 2000, Stew released Guest Host, featuring songs that have a more sophisticated, Burt Bacharach-pop style and production, while continuing with the more rock-oriented Negro Problem.
Wikipedia:
A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables (such as carrots, potatoes, beans, peppers and tomatoes, etc.), meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef. Poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used. While water can be used as the stew-cooking liquid, wine, stock, and beer are also common. Seasoning and flavourings may also be added. Stews are typically cooked at a relatively low temperature (simmered, not boiled), allowing flavors to mingle.
Stewing is suitable for the least tender cuts of meat that become tender and juicy with the slow moist heat method. This makes it popular in low-cost cooking. Cuts having a certain amount of marbling and gelatinous connective tissue give moist, juicy stews, while lean meat may easily become dry.
Stews may be thickened by reduction or with flour, either by coating pieces of meat with flour before searing, or by using a roux or beurre manié, a dough consisting of equal parts of butter and flour. Thickeners like cornstarch or arrowroot may also be used.
Stews are similar to soups, and in some cases there may not be a clear distinction between the two. Generally, stews have less liquid than soups, are much thicker and require longer cooking over low heat. While soups are almost always served in a bowl, stews may be thick enough to be served on a plate with the gravy as a sauce over the solid ingredients.
History
Stews have been made since ancient times. Herodotus says that the Scythians (8th to 4th centuries BC) "put the flesh into an animal's paunch, mix water with it, and boil it like that over the bone fire. The bones burn very well, and the paunch easily contains all the meat once it has been stripped off. In this way an ox, or any other sacrificial beast, is ingeniously made to boil itself."
Amazonian tribes used the shells of turtles as vessels, boiling the entrails of the turtle and various other ingredients in them. Other cultures used the shells of large mollusks (clams etc.) to boil foods in. There is archaeological evidence of these practices going back 8,000 years or more.
There are recipes for lamb stews and fish stews in the Roman cookery book Apicius, believed to date from the 4th century AD. Le Viandier, one of the oldest cookbooks in French, written by the French chef known as Taillevent, has ragouts or stews of various types in it.
Hungarian Goulash dates back to the 9th century Magyar shepherds of the area, before the existence of Hungary. Paprika was added in the 18th century.
The first written reference to 'Irish stew' is in Byron's "The Devil's Drive" (1814): "The Devil ... dined on ... a rebel or so in an Irish stew."
Types of stew
In meat-based stews, white stews, also known as blanquettes or fricassées, are made with lamb or veal that is blanched, or lightly seared without browning, and cooked in stock. Brown stews are made with pieces of red meat that are first seared or browned, before a browned mirepoix, sometimes browned flour, stock and wine are added. These choices of stew are all unique to the individuals' personal stew preference.









