New Beginnings

The Coolest of ‘Cue Schools

Trying to take notes while talking to four young men who all want to tell you how good the barbecue was at Lexington No. 1, a.k.a. Honey Monk’s, is a little like trying to shake hands with an octopus. “It was sort of tough and crunchy on the outside, but sweet and juicy on the inside,” said Art Richey, a poli-science major from Russellville, Alabama. Or was that Will Foster, a business administration major from Alpharetta, Georgia? No, Will’s the one who had his first taste of pork rinds in the Tar Heel state: “My heart said ‘NOOOOOOO,’ but my gut said, ‘yes.’

“I am here to study barbecue,” said Jeff Vaughan, also a business major from West Palm Beach, Florida. Or was that Matt Lee, a pre-engineering student from Cullman, Alabama. These are smart lads, I thought as I got to know them. Not an English major among ’em. Four fraternity brothers who had talked their English teacher into letting them take January off to cross five states to get a clue about cue. Why didn’t I think of that when I was in school?
“We’ve gotta do a 10 page paper when we get back,” one of them said. Writing’s hard, they observe. “Duh!” thinks Professor BBQ. “It’s really hard for me,” one of them starts the sentence, “Sitting down for 30 minutes before I get anything on paper,” another one says finishing it. But as you can see on their Web site http://www.southernbbqboys.com, multiple portals provide multiple points of view.
By the time they got to Stamey’s they were still stuffed with Lexington outside meat and pork skins, but they liked Stamey’s barbecue and its clean, uncomplicated taste and sauce. Art liked their brunswick stew, which is a personal favorite. The talk turned to sauce and the octopus of voices began, with people from other tables joining in the discussion and giving suggestions about where they HAD to eat.
From Greensboro, they’re headed east to Greenville, North Carolina, where they hope to hook up with my friend, Carl Rothrock and eat at the legendary B’s. Next is The Pit and then Wilber’s in Goldsboro. In South Carolina, they’re going to try Sweatman’s, of course, and I tried to talk them into stopping in at Brown’s in Kingstree. Country Cousins in Lake City is on their list. And then they’re headed to Georgia and back to Alabama.

While they were converting our supper into streaming video and digital images and sound and impressing the heck out of Professor BBQ with their facile handle on technology, the subject of the downside of being forever connected came up. Their teacher, they said, can follow almost every move that they make. “She contacts us through every portal,” one of them said. “There’s no escape.”

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.”

Fine Swine Barbecue Wine

“I might have been joking last year,” said Richard Childress, owner of Childress Vineyards and head of the legendary Childress NASCAR team, “when I said I hoped our town might be known as the capital of swine and fine wine.”
Who knows whether his winemaker, Mark Friszolowski, thought his boss’ wisecrack was funny. No matter because Friszolowski and Childress laughed all the way to the bank last year–and then vinted 500 cases for this year’s festival. Made from predominantly merlot grapes, Friszolowski says Fine Swine Wine has a hint of sugar and a whiff of oak: “The semi-sweet, fruity flavor is a perfect match for hickory-smoked barbecue.”
Professor B.B. Cue’s panel of barbecue lovers agreed: “Definitely fruity but dry,” one of them said. “Fruity without being treacly. The spice in it keeps it going,” another opined.
And, surprisingly, the panel thought that it went fine with all three styles of barbecue, two of them North Carolina-based. The majority of tasters thought it went best with the spicy Scott’s sauce, which is a personal favorite of mine. We thought that the ‘cue we’d least like to eat with it was the Memphis-sauced, sweet cue.
The larger question, our veteran cue eaters (and enthusiastic wine drinkers) agreed, is whether any wine really complements classic cue, especially barbecue with a tangy or spicy sauce. “Give me a beer–and a lager at that” one barbecue addict said. “I like the picture of the spotted pig on the label more than the wine,” said another, “and that the proceeds go the Mental Health Association.”

“Nothing brings out the taste of barbecue like sweet tea or good old Coca-Cola, vinted in Atlanta,” said one taste tester with a drawl.

This Barbecue Joint Is Anything But A Joint

I didn’t mince my words when I called the co-owner, Jonathan Childres, as I recovered from a lunch of lustrous pork ribs, painted in red sauce and cooked to tender perfection: “What’s with a barbecue restaurant smack dab in the middle of the barbecue belt that may very well be better known for its brussells sprouts than for its barbecue?” And what I didn’t say is that from the outside, it looks more like a day spa than a barbecue restaurant.

“I think our sides have a lot of notoriety because that’s what Rachel Ray had when she came,” Childres said without being the least bit defensive. “We only use fresh vegetables and we get them when we can from local farmers. I spend most Saturday mornings at the farmer’s market.” He gives his co-owner Damon Latas credit for the sides and for most of the cooking: “Damon’s a real chef. I’m a cook.”

Take the brussels sprouts, which they were regrettably out of when I took my wife there specifically so she could try them. They slice them about 3/8-inch thick and blanch them before putting them on ice. Then just after someone orders sprouts, Damon gets a pan going with some of their house-smoked, molasses-cured bacon and sizzles them up with a little garlic. “Put bacon on cardboard and soften it up and it’s good,” says Childres.The result, trust me, would make anyone eat their vegetables without encouragement from their momma.
The sensational tamales come from a Guatemalan cook, who used to cook some of her native treats for the staff before being asked to cook them for patrons. She also makes empanadas. This willingness to stray from traditional barbecue sides came from Childres’ experience running Backstreet Cafe and Latas’ years at Henry’s Bistro, both well-known Chapel Hill eateries.

Then I dropped the big question, even though I already knew the answer to it and my friends from Greenville have already guessed: the method of cooking. “I have all the admiration in the world for anyone who does pit cooking, but I don’t want to do it.” And Childres says that with a little expertise, good barbecue can be made with a gas-fired cooker with a fire box to give the cue a smoky taste. “We’re trying to let the sweetness of the pork come through and we want you also to taste and smell the wood.” Which is where oak and hickory chips come in. Then there’s the mild and subtle vinegar sauce: “We want the sauce to be a counterpoint to that and not cover up the sweetnesss of the meat and the taste.”

I told him that I thought that the pulled pork was excellent for not being pit-fired, but that the ribs were where the Joint really shined, especially the sauce. “Let me tell you about that sauce,” he said. When he was working at Backstreet cooking Cajun and Creole, people kept telling him they wanted some barbecue. He had a sauce recipe of his own, he said, that was so-so and he asked the chef, Bob Bridges, whether he had a sauce recipe.”Chef said he had a pretty good sauce recipe, and then he said, “You know my family are the Bridges that do barbecue down in Shelby, don’t you?” And so was born the red sauce, which goes on the chicken, ribs and brisket — tangy, a little bit spicy and not too sweet.

To me, barbecue is more than meat and if I had to lodge a single complaint against the traditional barbecues in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, it’s that their sides, for the most part are entirely predictable — frozen french fries and hush puppies, same-old slaw, beans right out of the can — and in Western North Carolina, few bother to offer collards or greens. But maybe that’s the definition of traditional.

I should add one thing, though. The Barbecue Joint is not cheap. It’s easy for two people to run up a $30 check. I totally understand that using fresh ingredients, many of them local grown, is the cause and I’m all for it, but don’t go expecting fast-food prices because it’s not fast food. Also you should know The Barbecue Joint is planning to move around the end of this year, at which time they’ll be expanding the menu and their space. But the old favorites will all be there, Childres assured me. And, yes, they’ll have brussells sprouts.

Who Knew? N.C. Western Cue Was Inspired in Deutschland

From Holy Smoke, The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, The Definitive Guide to the People, Recipes, and Lore:

“The humble creators of the Eastern tradition are known to God alone, but the pioneers of Piedmont-style have names: John Blackwelder of Salisbury; George Ridenhour, Jess Swicegood, and Sid Weaver of Lexington; and, a little later, Warner Stamey of Lexington, Shelby, and finally Greensboro. It’s said that you are what you eat, but it’s equally true that you eat what you are – and in one respect these men were all the same thing:

John Blackwelder’s family had been in Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, and Rowan counties since soon after Gottlieb Schwartzwalder came from Germany to British North America before the Revolution.

George Ridenhour’s people came to Salisbury in 1779 from Pennsylvania, where the Reitnaurs first settled after coming from German-speaking Alsace in 1719.

Jess Swicegood’s family came to America from Germany in 1724 and also passed through Pennsylvania before settling in Davidson County in 1775 and Americanizing their name from Schweissgouth.

Sid Weaver’s antecedents are a little more elusive, although many North Carolina Weavers started as Webers, and his ancestor Andrew was listed as “Andras” in the 1860 census.

The North Carolina Stameys, Warner included, are all descended from a Peter Stemme who came from Germany in 1734 and made his way down the valley of Virginia to what is now Lincoln County in 1767.

Can you spot the common element? Of course you can. When you add maternal lines, these family trees are as full of Germans as a Munich beer hall at Oktoberfest. Compare those family names to the big names in Eastern barbecue, good British ones like King, Parker, Jones, Ellis, Shirley, and Melton, no matter whether they’re affixed to white families or black ones. (Did we point out that Pi0edmont barbecue is a business conducted mostly by white folks?)”

From HOLY SMOKE: THE BIG BOOK OF NORTH CAROLINA BARBECUE by John Shelton Reed, Dale Volberg, Reed, and William McKinney. Copyright (c) 2008 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. http://www.uncpress.unc.edu

Beer, Barbecue and Beach

In 2002, Roger Hardman got tired of working for the man: “I wanted to start making some money for myself,” he says. And he sure does earn it. Arriving at Beachcomber Bar & Grill (319 Arnold Rd., St. Simons Island, Georgia; 912-634-5699) at 7 in the morning, Hardman gets the oak and pecan (“It’s sweeter than hickory”) going in his firebox — and so begins another long day that ends for his customers with fiery, hand-crafted barbecue and ice cold beer.

He tried skipping wood cooking way back when: “I got one of those high-dollar gas cookers and I used it one summmer. I haven’t touched it since. It’s for sale. Take a picture of it for me.”
But the barbecue didn’t taste as good to him, and from the number of customers wolfing down his chicken, ribs, pulled pork and beef brisket, he made the right decisions. “It’s a little more labor intensive” he says, the sweat rolling down his forehead and darkening his t-shirt. But the tradition in nearby Brunswick, where he grew up and learned the restaurant businesss running a Pizza Inn, is to cook with wood, using a firebox to produce indirect heat and carefully controlled temperatures. The meat sits on a mesh under a drip pan, with the smoky swirl of super-heated air caresssing it for 10-12 hours. Call it a pecan-powered convection oven, if you want.

The ribs are nothing short of text-book. Lightly coated with a tangy rub, they don’t melt in your mouth (as anyone who knows a thing about barbecue realizes they shouldn’t). Beachcomber ribs are moist and meaty and require an ever-so-slight tug with the teeth to separate the meat from the bones, which are well worth gnawing on. (my plate is below and, yes, it’s a bit crowded, but those were also my ribs, most of which she ate)

Hardman’s father-in-law is from Texas and helped him get started and it shows with the beef brisket, which has a beautiful smoke right and is fork tender. The pulled pork is similarly tender and smoky.

(Yes, that’s “her plate” below and, yes, it doesn’t have as much food on it as my plate. And, no, she didn’t eat any brisket or brunswick stew, but I saved some of the brisket and had it for breakfast this morning, which sure did beat the fancy-dancy croissant they had in the restaraunt)

Me, I like pulled pork that’s been cooked over coals and has a barbecued taste from the fat hitting the fire, not to mention bark or crust. I’m also not partial to the Georgia sweet sauce, but there’s hot sauce on the table.
Homemade potato salad with boiled eggs in it is a nice touch, aloong with brunswick stew that had lots of vegetables in it, just the way I like it — peas, limas, potatoes, corn and lots of chicken and beef.
Hardman says he got the restaurant for a bargain, almost at a, whoops, fire-sale price. The beer he sells (He’s got imported, domestic and microbrews) sure helps with the overhead, he says, especially on football weekends (Go Ga.!)
Maybe some N.C. cue joints ought to consider adding beer to the menu rather than going over to gas or electric cookers to save money. Yes, they’ve have to get up at 7 in the morning like Hardman, but “It’s fun runnihng your own place,” he says, wiping his brow, “and a lot better than working for the other fellow.”

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.

The Thrill of the Grill in the Morning

Aldo drives his neighbors crazy. One neighbor three houses away can tell from her back porch what Aldo is cooking for dinner, lunch or breakfast. Yes, breakfast, which he kept urging me to come over and try and I kept saying, “Uh huh,” until he got tired of hearing me say “Uh huh,” and invited me to eat breakfast one morning before we snuck out to the city reservoir and went fishing illegally in the watershed — something I think Aldo relishes for the added danger of the whopping big fine added after 9/11. I expected a small fire and a modest meal. I was wrong.

When I got there, Aldo had enough coals to cook a suckling pig. I could feel the heat being radiated from the grill several feet away and worried about the hair on my legs below my bathing trunks being singed. “What are we having?” I asked, thinking maybe stuffed goat. “Bacon and eggs, with some sides,” Aldo said as he flopped some thick, smoked bacon onto a griddle that he’d bought at Lowe’s for five bucks. The griddle had holes in it and when the fat hit the fire, a blanket of smoke engulfed us. Of course, the trick is not to burn the bacon or the tomato slices that he added and not to let the whole grill burst into flames. The whole operation goes down in something like six or seven minutes and requires perfect coordination and controls. As the bacon is cooking and sizzling and smoking like crazy, Aldo flips his lid and moves a piece or two of bacon on top of the tomatoes, which are on another grill that doesn’t have holes it it. This flavors the tomatoes and provides great for the toast and eggs. At the last moment, Aldo adds a dozen or so egges a loaf of sourdough bread, a half a stick of butter and then works like a madman to get it all off at just the right moment.

Let me say that bacon and eggs under almost any condition are a treat for me as I usually try to get some grain and yogurt into my body in the morning, but as I tucked into the sizzling feast on my preheated platter, I realized that what made it so good is that everything was saturated with the sweet, smoky smell of bacon fat. The toast with fresh strawberry jam on it tasted just a tad like bacon, as did the eggs, whose broken yolks served as gravy for the tomatoes. And if you’ve never tried grilled, barbecued bacon, I’d advise not waiting until the weekend to do so. You might be in an auto accident or have a heart attack and die in a state of extreme deprivation.

What’s your Best Breakfast ever?

Where there’s fire, there’s not always smoking

I come from Reidsville, formerly the home of the plant where American Tobacco Co. made Lucky Strikes, Pall Malls and the cigarette worth fighting for, Tareyton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArDFVEikL8k). When I went to high school, smoking was practically encouraged on campus and a pack of cigarettes in my father’s shirt pocket was an indication that he supported the local economy. But I’ve had many a meal ruined by the acrid smell of someone else’s pleasure, in barbecue restaurants and elsewhere. And although barbecue restaurants seem to be a last hold-out for smokers — and I wonder why, more blue-collar clients, more hedonists, or what? — I frankly wish smoking were banned in all restaurants. And why shouldn’t it be. Barbecue is slow food and sacred. Food that I’ve often driven miles out of my way to eat. And then to sit down and have it ruined seems indefensible.

What’s happening in Georgia and South Carolina and Virginia, I wonder. And do the new urban barbecue joints in big cities allow smoking?