Taking Your Cue from Football and the Gamecocks

Born in 1928 in Irwin, Pennsylvania, Jim Streeter, a.k.a. Coupe, moved to the South in 1939, lived in Raleigh during World War II, where he tried some classic Eastern North Carolina barbecue with vinegar sauce (just like one of the styles of barbecue in South Carolina around Kingstree), and the rest is history.

Question: How did the list get started?
Answer: As the different Members of Gamecock Central would travel to games, when they came back they would make a post saying about the good barbecue place they had found. Then before they traveled to a game, they would ask where was some place that had good barbecue. Before we knew it we had a good BBQ list. Then Brian Shoemaker, GamecocksCentral’s Owner, set up a BBQ Page, and I have been looking after it for some time.

Q: Tell me about becoming a Gamecock and what that means to you.
My bussiness partner in South Carolina was a Star Gamecock in the 1930s. 4 Letterman, Bru Boineau.
Q: I’m guessing you’re retired?
A: I tried to retire in 1989 and have retired several times since then. I was a sideline Photographer for awhile, but I realized that I was getting too old and couldn’t move fast enough.
It’s not the Running Back that gets you its the Linebacker that is going after him.
Q: As a longtime pilot, you used to fly first a 1941 J3 Cub, then later a 1946 Champ, and finally a 1946 classic Ercoupe. Is that where Coupe came from?
A: My handle on Fighting Gamecocks Forum ( I started this Message Board in 1997 and later merged with Brian Shoemaker’s Gamecock Central) was Ercoupe, but later shortened to Coupe.
Q: You used to race stock cars?
A: I drove Modified/Sportsman Stock Cars in the early 50s back when Big Bill (Bill France Sr.) France was getting started.
Q: What’s your earliest memory of barbecue?
A: 1939 at the age of 11. Frankly the Vineger & Pepper turned me off at first.
Q: When did you become acquainted with South Carolina barbecue?
A: I owned and operated Streeter’s Moving and Storage in several locations in North and South Carolina, from 1958 to 1989.I first discovered Mustard Base BBQ when I opened a couple of Branch Offices in South Carolina. So, Mustard Base in 1959, vinegar and pepper base in 1962, and in 1966 Ketchup Base and Tomato Base. We have a unique situation in SC with four different kinds af sauce.
Q: Were your parents or any relatives involved in backyard (or other) barbecue preparation?
A: No, but my Dad was a butcher and he knew good Pork.
Q: What do you think happens to people to transform them into what I call a “barbecue obsessive” like myself?
A: Its sorta like Opium.
Q: Having eaten South Carolina barbecue for years, I’ve always thought that it doesn’t get the respect nationally that it deserves, unlike, for instance, Texas or North Carolina Cue. Why do you think that is?
A: We just got a late start publisizing it.
Q: Why do you think people get so very passionate about what is, after all, is just food?
A: “Its a way of Life.”

Who Sugared the Ribs and Sweetened up the Barbecue Sauce

I don’t understand why barbecue got married to sugar.
Say “barbecue sauce” to anyone, and most likely they will imagine a red tomato liquid with spices and sweeteners. Why did barbecue sauce change so much from the original early American mix of vinegar and pepper to a more complex mix of tomatoes sauce, spices, sugar and other seasonings? Nowadays you’ll even find a lot of sugared sauce in the South where peppered vinegar ruled long before tomatoes were considered safe to eat.
More than 50 sweeteners are on the market today. The name makes little difference, except for the high fructose corn syrup we’ve all heard about. Flavors vary, but sweet is sweet, be it from cane, beet, corn, honey, fruit or maple sap.
Everybody knows that barbecue cooked to perfection needs no sugar or other seasonings. Wherever you look in the competition barbecue network today, however, as well as in barbecue restaurants, you see cooks on a sugar kick. they rub their meat with sugar, they inject their meat with sugar, they mop or spray their meat with sweetness as they cook it, and they put sugared sauce on their meat when they serve it. Sometimes they glaze it with sugar. How and why, I wonder, did this candy-splashed approach to cooking and serving barbecue get started.
My first taste of barbecue sauce was in Oklahoma City when I was a child. The sauce was on a barbecue beef sandwich. It was sugared and spiced and red. Red tomato catsup laced with spices, herbs, sugar and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. Back then that was pretty much the usual sauce, and today even more so. Although I still like the sweet stuff of my childhood–in moderation–my taste for sauces has become broader over the years. Now I also like sauces that are light on sugar or sans sugar and heavy on the vinegar or mustard or both, especially when barbecue pork is on the plate. As for barbecue beef, it’s OK served with optional sweet sauce on the side, but I agree with Kreuz and Smitty’s in Lockhart, Texas: perfect barbecue meat needs no sauce, sweet or otherwise. Admittedly, they are no strangers to salt and pepper.
When we cook slow and low, rendering most of the fat out of meat, why do we undo the health benefits of the barbecue method of cooking by adding high-carb, empty calorie sweetness? It’s not the meat that makes us fat. It’s the sugar.

Ardie Davis is a barbecue legend, the founder of Greasehouse University where you can get your Ph. B., or doctorate in barbecue. He is the author of two books and has two more coming out in April, 25 Essentials: Techniques for Smoking and 25 Essentials: Techniques for Grilling, both to be published by The Harvard Common Press. He lives outside of Kansas City when he’s not on the road, tasting or cooking barbecue.

Oh Bury Me, in Barbecue

Tell me about this Ultimate Road Trip thing you’re doing.
This summer, we’ve been on a road trip across the U.S., visiting famous restaurants and food festivals. It’s sponsored by Alka Seltzer.
Rhett and I shoot the videos ourselves, passing the camera back and forth, and then we edit each stop into something memorable. We’re making 21 videos total. You can watch em all here
Where’s it taken you?
San Diego, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Branson, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Boston, Ogunquit, N.Y.C., D.C
How many restaurants would you estimate you’ve eaten in?
40 . . . though less than half actually made it into a video
How many of them were good?
We found that most every spot is famous for good reason. My personal favorite is Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles in L.A. We wrote a song about it and shot a music video on location
How about barbecue joints?
Rhett and I are big BBQ fans. Being from the South, it’s almost a weekly thing. So, as we traveled outside of the South, eating signature foods from each region, we really didn’t eat any barbecue until we got to Branson, Missouri. They were having a BBQ and Bluegrass Festival at a local amusement park–Silver Dollar City. So we took that as the perfect opportunity to write a song that would expand Missourians’ definition of barbecue. And it was cool, because,
with literally a few minutes notice, the performing bluegrass band–The Homestead Pickers–agreed to back us up.

Do you have a favorite barbecue restaurant?

My wife is from “down East”…Kinston, N.C. So vinegar-based barbecue is king. (There’s actually a restaurant called King’s that serves it.)

I know all about King’s. I have a “BBQ” sticker on my Jeep from King’s. So that’s your favorite?
My in-laws may deep fry me for this one…but…mustard-based Columbia, S.C.-style BBQ is my favorite. And the interesting thing is that I don’t even like mustard! It’s just a perfect mixture of tangy,spicy sweetness. Very interesting. Very memorable.
And you were born in North Carolina!?!? Did you like the liver hash too?
Columbia’s hash wasn’t really for me (no offense, Maurice). I’ll take barbecue as a side next time.

There’s a recipe for barbecue hash on my Blog, if you’re interested here but you better steel yourself before you look at it. Tell me about barbecue in Lillington.
Howard’s Barbeque is within walking distance of our basement studio. We take visiting fans there when they come in to town. It’s all vinegar-based. And very good. Killer hushpuppies too. You’re invited!
You don’t mention Lexington Style bbq and the ketchup-based thing. Is that because it doesn’t retard decay?
Yeah, we felt bad about that. We definitely admit that our song is not completely exhaustive. I really like that tomato based sauce. Driving to the N.C. mountains, you don’t have to go far off I-40 to get some good stuff for lunch . . . or breakfast even.
Is there a common thread in the good barbecue that you’ve eaten?
the service, the people. the style of sauce many vary greatly, but
the style in delivery is always consistent–with pride. gotta love
that.
Thanks for the interview and for making my day with your song. From looking at the 374 comments it’s generated, I’m a little surprised that you didn’t get more infuriated comments from people defending their regional cue. It’s a tribute to your “getting it,” I think, understanding that barbecue can be many different things as long as it’s good, and that there’s no best barbecue — Also sprach Professor B.B. Cue.

Sapp’s Map of Georgia and BBQ Obsessives

“Call it what you want—Barbecue, BBQ, Bar-B-Cue, Bobbycue, or Barbeque,” says Barbecue Obsessive Scott Sapp, creator of the Sapp Map, which he calls The Last Whole Hog Catalogue, updated last on no less than Ground Hog Day 2008.

“In my mind’s eye, barbecue has got to be pork,” he says. Scott is perfectly aware that there’s good barbecue in states other than Georgia, and that people in Texas eat beef that’s been cooked low and slow over coals and call it barbecue, “There is nothing wrong if you eat beef BBQ, only as Lewis Grizzard used to say, “Delta is ready when you are.”

Here’s Scott’s latest edition, posted with his blessings, with earlier editions below and how I got to know Scott.

Click here to download PDF of complete Sapp Map

The nice thing about email correspondence is you gradually get to know a person. In October of 2007, Scott Sapp sent me a very short email, recommending that I try the jerky at Hickory Pig in Gainesville, Georgia. I wrote back to him, saying that jerky’s not something I associate with great barbecue.
He sent back what I regarded as a great email. Here it is in its entirety:
“Indeed I have enjoyed the beef jerky at the hickory pig in Gainesville, Ga., when you mention beef jerky to me all I can think of is the Robert Redford movie, Jeremiah Johnson, where he is off high up in the mountains in some snow bank jerking his eye teeth out trying to rip off a piece of jerky. The version at the hickory pig is not like that at all!!! It’s tender, subtly seasoned and gently smoked over a hard wood fire until the flavor of smoke and seasoning come together. One slice is never enough for me. It’ll tickle your tonsils it’s so good an only primes the pump for the pulled pork and ribs there. It’s a suitable taster while the meal is prepared.”
And so began a conversation that went back and forth between us, each of us learning a little more about the other each time we wrote.
Then came the first Sap Map without any explanation.
I wrote back to him:
“too cool! Who made it and who has the rights to it?”
He wrote back:
“i made it, and have been making it annually for the past 30 years, so i guess i own the rights, why?”
I wrote back:
“for starters, I’d like to visit every place on the map. However, my day job keeps getting in the way of higher pursuits.”

I asked Scott for a little history about how the map came to be:
“i’ve visted every one of these and another 2000 that didn’t quite cut the mustard so did not get listed. i can vouch for every one of these joints being good though. over the years it’s been written up in brown’s guide and atlanta magazine. this week the atlanta journal is coming up to interview and do a piece for the paper. it was intended to be distributed among friends. something to keep in the glove box of the car to reference while traveling so they wouldn’t get any bad bbq.
cordially
scott

I asked him where the map lived when it wasn’t in his glove compartment. He said:
“this thing doesn’t live anywhere but my house. i freely share it, and am proud to do so, but it doesn’t have much of a web presence. i have a friend who has it on his blog.”

I followed the link and turned up an old friend, another BBQ obsessive:
bbqgeek.com, one of my all-time favorite barbecue blogs, which has one of my all-time favorite barbecue-obsessed posts, Frou Frou Q. “Obsession is a term with which I’ve grown comfortable. Most think of the word in the prejorative sense. Me? I see it as a compliment — as asset of character.”

At any rate, the version BBQGeek posted is not the latest, Scott told me and asked me to post the latest version, which I obviously did.

I also posted some of his antique maps, which I like better than the computer-crafted models. Enjoy!

Click here to download “Ye Olde Sap Map”

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Click here to download Sapp’s 2000 Map