What types of cuts of meats are ideal for (beef) stew? Possible Duplicate:
  What is the best cut of beef to use for stews?  




I had a conversation with a cruise passenger on my most recent vacation and he spoke a bit about stew. It inspired me to make stew. I've never really made stew before and I didn't get a chance to ask him this question:

What types of cuts of beef are ideal for cooking stew? 

P.S. If you have suggestions besides beef cuts, i'm open to learning about them as well. But for specificity and scope of our discussion i'm primarily set on making a beef stew in the near future.
You want a cut amenable to stewing, which is a low, slow, wet cooking method--its a variant of braising.

These are generally tougher cuts with a lot of connective collagen which will convert to gelatin during the cooking, a part of the animal that works relatively hard in life.  These cuts are flavorful and usually (relatively) inexpensive.

One cut that is often used for this purpose is the chuck (for beef) or butt (for pork), which is the shoulder of the animal.