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.”

The Truest Cue of Them All

My wife, our daughter Alice, and I left the Lowcountry around noon with a bag of ham biscuits, some fruit and a box of the to-die-for homemade Heath bars that my sister-in-law Ginger makes for us every Christmas. The bag was empty before we got to Orangeburg and by the time we crossed the North Carolina line, we were all mighty hungry — but not for the same thing. Of course we got lost trying to get to Honey Monk’s by the back roads in the fog, and my daughter kept pointing out that she really doesn’t care for barbecue. And, no, she’d didn’t remember trying the cue at Lexington No. 1 as a wee child, or any of the times I’d brought it home on business trips to Charlotte. Yes, she allowed she would eat with us, but she was making no further promises; in fact, she’d probably get a hamburger.
Friends, perhaps you may have children who don’t share your passion for certain foods. Mind you, I’m not complaining. A couple of summers ago Alice went to Berkeley and became a full-fleged foodie. We flew out to visit, and in three days of eating nonstop, we were hardly able to begin to try all the incredible eats she’d scouted out. We even got a last minute seating at Chez Panisse — unheard of good fortune– where they didn’t have barbecue on the menu, but they did have sand dabs and quail, which certainly worked just fine. In addition to her lukewarm feeling for barbecue, Alice inexplicably, given her parentage, doesn’t like anchovies or crabs or shrimp or eggplant, though she loves calimari and grilled meats. No family is perfect, after all. I’m slowly gaining acceptance for these things that I can’t change in life, and I was resigned to my daughter eating a hamburger in what I consider the restaurant with North Carolina’s finest barbecue. But I did consider wearing a disguise.
When we pulled into the parking lot at 6:30 on a Saturday, there was a line out the door, and I thought about just getting take out. But I heard Alice tell her mother, “That does smell incredibly good.” I pointed out the smokestacks and the plate glass window through which you can watch the behind-the-scenes chopping of succulent browned pork shoulders. We decided to eat at the counter and I was amazed after I’d ordered a sandwich of outside meat to hear Alice say, “Bring me the same.” Minutes later, the toasted bun came to the counter, spilling its chopped contents onto the plate and filling the air with the fragrant mix of seared pork, piquant pepper and pungent smoke. As I tucked into my sandwich ravenously, I noted that when you get barbecue this good, it’s flavor maxes out your taste buds and permeates your nostrils with smoky overtones. After the first few bites, some barbecue loses its definition and character and you might as well be eating roast pork. The smidgens of barbecue at Lexington No. 1 that I picked up off of my plate after I’d inhaled my sandwich were just as flavorful as the first bites. “Order another one and let’s split it,” Alice said. “I thought you didn’t really like barbecue,” I said offhandedly. And then, giving her dad one of the best Christmas presents he’s been given in years, she said, “This is not just barbecue; this is what barbecue ought to be.” That’s my daughter.

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.

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.”

Father Knows Best

You have to want to go to Springfield, South Carolina, west of Orangeburg in a town that time has seemingly forgot, except for the Governor’s Frog Jump and International Egg Strike and, oh yes, Goodland Barbecue restaurant. Look for the jumble of pickup trucks outside, cueing up to the restaurant like hogs at a trough.

They’re all there to get a week’s worth of food — for $8 on weekdays, a little more on weekends (but a dollar off if you bring your church bulletin). Once you get inside, do like my daddy would have done, look over the buffet before even think about getting in line.

It’s not by accident that the potatoes and rice and hush puppies and other starchy foods are usually first on a buffet. Often the best is last, which is where the barbecue was, along with the pork skins — and what was easily the best thing I ate at Goodland, the ribs.

Next, make sure you’re standing in the line behind everyone else in your party, even if there are only two of you. That way you can issue advisories to those in front of you such as, “Look at that fried okra.” Or “MMM, m, Mmmm: Potato salad made with boiled eggs.” While I usually find fried okra and potato salad disappointing on buffets, that doesn’t mean they always are. So I prey upon the preternatural weakness on the part of my wife for fried okra or my sister’s irrational love of potato salad, even if it’s mediocre, so they’ll pile up their plates and then I have advantage of their opinion without taking up room on my plate or in my stomach. (By the way, Goodland has a sign at the front of the line that asks patrons to wait until they get to their tables to begin eating. That may seem obvious from a sanitary perspective but by the time I got to the end of the line, I needed the reminder to keep me from pinching at the pulled pork.)

Rule two: Be sure to look at what others are doing. As I was checking out the multiple rice choices, I noticed that the woman behind me was using the sweet-potato ladle to dip out the pan juices that had mixed with the barbecue sauce to form a thick gel. They’d sort of caramelized with the sweet sauce in the bottom of the pan. “Is that good chicken,” I asked her, not even noticing it was chicken when I went by. “Gravy’s as good as the chicken,” she said. “Here, let me borrow that ladle while you have it out,” I said.

Rule three — and I don’t need to tell you this, but it’s so easy to say and so hard to do. Take small portions, no matter how good it looks and how much you like it. Unlike church picnic, they’re not likely to run out of something.

Consider doing what I did: As you can see, I got just a little of the gooey chicken, one pork rind to see whether it was potato-chip crunchy, a good portion of the barbecue (It’s very lean and perfectly moist), a big enough rib so I could judge both its taste and texture (I resisting getting two to check for consistency), some rice and, OK, a whole bunch of collards (I could see they were almost chunky with black pepper and shiny with seasoning, i.e., fat back.

By the way, the ribs were cooked to perfection, slightly chewy, so that you had to pull a little to get them off the bone and not in the least soggy. In short, first-rate).

Now look at my wife’s plate.

She loaded up on the first thing she saw, sweet potatoes, which turned out to be too sweet and cinnamony for my taste, but which suited my wife’s sweet tooth; two kinds of rice and lots of it (she IS from South Carolina) a whole bunch of butterbeans and green beans; a hush puppy I induced her to get; a little barbecue, a tiny pork skin and a little bit of barbecue hash, all because she ran out of room — DUH! That’s why she had to get a separate plate for slaw and potato salad.

Which is not a bad strategy. Nothing other than the stares of other people (and perhaps the hostess) should keep you from utilizing multiple plates. However, if you’re an innately shy person like myself, you can, without attracting undue attention, assemble a collection of small bowls to assemble your own mini-buffet. You’ll that notice that, at my suggestion, my wife used a separate bowl for her slaw and potato salad. I’m so glad because the potato salad was a good as I’ve ever had, worth a trip in itself. The decor, in fact, is worth a visit. Instead of farm implements and 19- and early 20-century “junque” collected by some interior decorator, the photographs and memorabilia commemorate the hunter-gatherer culture of this area of South Carolina, with an incredible selection of largemouth bass, photos of catfish weighing more than my first- and second-born children combined, and a marvelous collection of hunting dogs, some nearly as fine as my springer spaniel.

Finally, a word about etiquette. Buffets like this where you can eat fried fish and chicken, three kinds of barbecue, homemade vegetables and side dishes and other delights until you feel as if you’re going to pop will be a thing of the past if we aren’t careful not to waste food. My Pennsylvannia mother had an old saying about this: “Better bad belly burst than good food waste.” The good at Goodland is, in fact, way too good to waste. Y’all behave and be nice.

The Truest of Cue in Orangeburg and Holly Hill, South Carolina

This post from guest lecturer and barbecue obsessive, Wilton Stribling:

Earl Dukes’ BBQ in Orangeburg, SC is a specific style of Q, which has evolved right in the Orangeburg County area. I went to church with Mr Earl and his family in the 60s, and grew up on this Q.

I saw mention of Antley’s BBQ in your blog, so I thought I should throw in my opinion. I went to school at Edisto with the Antley boys, and they’re good guys and their Q is also very good.

I have to say, though, that my favorite BBQ in Orangeburg (and, of course, the world) is at Earl Dukes BBQ on Whitman St (across from the Pepsi plant, a block off 301N). It is the original location where Mr Earl made his Q famous. there have been a number of “Earl Dukes” establishments over the years, since Earl sold it out, including Earl Jr’s. Most of them, unfortunately, did not do the style justice, and actually hurt the genre.

A close second best for me is Sweatman’s BBQ (started by Miss Margie Sweatman)at Crane Pond between Holly Hill and Eutawville in Orangeburg County. Sweatman’s has much better atmosphere, set in an old farmhouse in large oak trees, in the country. Very nice atmosphere, and great food as well.

All of these Qs are the lowcountry-style pulled pork with mustard based sauce, cole slaw, “hash and rice”(more of a sauce and rice), fresh pork skins as long as they last, and best eaten with light bread and sweet tea. In the past 20 years or so, other foods have shown up on the bar, such as fried chicken, etc.

As far as I know, all these places are “take what you want, eat what you take”, and still priced well under $10/person.

With the cultural erosion of the past 20 years or so (downright lack of manners), the format of returning for seconds has been strained by people loading up purses, etc, and taking food with them. They’re still sticking with it, though, and it’s all you can eat, but no taking leftovers.

So, there’s a brief intro of Orangeburg BBQ. As has been alluded to, the best is according to where you are and what you like. I’ve found that the best pork is Orangeburg, the best ribs Memphis area, and the best beef brisket around Center, TX. There’s my two cents’ worth!

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.