Friday, March 16, 2007
Carolina Barbecue and Pig Pickin's
Hickory Chips SoakingGather 'round close now, chirrun's, cause I'm 'bout to lay some serious BBQ wisdom down upon you'uns heads.
This will be primarily of the eastern Carolinas tradition...having nothing to do with the barbecue of Tennessee which is entirely different. Barbecue philosophy is a subject of heated debate, so these are merely my opinions here. There are also those out there way more bubbalicious than moi who have made it their life's work to perfect these arts.
I'm from the lowcountry of South Carolina. This means a few things in terms of barbecue. First, it means primarily talking about pig. When I lived in Dallas, I was quite flummoxed by the concept of barbecued beef. This just seemed wrong in so many ways. I've since had and learned to make and appreciate beef done this way, but it still doesn't seem like "real" barbecue to me.
The second thing is cooking. We are talking smoking pork over a pit or some sort of grilling device that allows for a long smoking period. Purists snort at gas or propane grills. I have a strong preference for well-fired oak coals that are then fed wet hickory chips. The tell-tale "pink line" is how you tell if the barbecue is authentic. That is the smoke ring. It will also have a bit of char on the outside of the meat. Authentic barbecue is always served separate from the sauce.
The third thing is sauce. Carolina style sauces all have mustard of some variety in them. The oldest of them have no tomato products. I've read that since our barbecue tradition is perhaps the oldest and dates back to colonial times when tomatoes were largely believed to be poisonous, that this is why we favor the vinegary, mustard based sauces. Don't know if that is true, but it sounds about right.
This is my uncle, Dr. Roy Gleaton's, Barbecue Sauce Recipe. I'm sworn to secrecy as to where he actually got it from, but the recipe dates back to the 1940's. I could give you my own personal secret sauce...but then I'd have to kill you.
Savannah Secret Sauce
2 bottles Catsup
1 cup vinegar
Juice of one lemon
1/4 cup regular vinegar
1/2 bottle Worcestershire Sauce
6 teaspoons prepared mustard
6 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic
1/2 stick oleo
Mix mustard and sugar well before adding other ingredients. Simmer about 30 minutes and decant into hot jars.
Damn, I love a good pig pickin'.
I'm sort of sad that it has been so many years since I attended a pig pickin'. It used to be a fairly common event, particularly with political rallies. This is the best place to experience the type of barbecue that I've just described. I've often thought my farm would be an ideal location to have one.
A Pig Pickin' (not to be confused with a Hawg Killin' though a Pig Pickin' was often the celebration following a successful Hawg Killin') involves cooking an entire hog in a hand dug pit over a period of about 8 to 12 hours for a large group of people. A variety of sides are prepared to go with the pig. Hash and Brunswick Stew are the most common ones, though there should be lots of loaves of white bread, corn bread, hushpuppies, red rice and other things of the Southern covered dish variety. If you have room left, coconut "wet" cake is a nice finish.
Adult beverages, most often beer, are frequently involved since the menfolk are the ones presiding over the cooking of the pig. This is an almost ceremonial task. No. Not almost. It's thinly veiled pagan ceremony. Shirtlessness and fire are involved.
It's called a "pickin" since the pig emerges from the pit in its entirety and the meat is shredded off the bone then served with the sauce.
Most pig pickin's are fun family affairs celebrating the food and offering a draw for a church or a politician. Somehow though, it's the pig pickin's that got out of hand that I most remember.
I remember one pig pickin' I attended back in college. It was to celebrate the eviction of the student tenants at this particular house on Blossom Street. There were many kegs. Much drunkenness and crazy dancing. Barefoot Harry was there. The cops were called. We gave them some pork and turned the music down.
My brother once attended a political pig pickin' near Charleston for Brantley Harvey that featured whole venisons sewn up in entire hog's skins then roasted in the pit.
Deerpiggins.
The entire idea is just Julio-Claudian in its excess. They were supposedly delicious. This truly is a food pornilicious concept.
I've been dying to try it ever since I heard of it.
Damn. I love a pig pickin'.
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and, yes, the sauce HAS to be separate. otherwise it's what we call sloppy-joe bbq.
i've gotta stop reading these food-porn friday posts....i'm gaining weight just reading them! :)
(saw your comment at landgirls - are you familiar with Highland Cows? They're big, but they have long long red hair and hail from Scotland. Different mountains, but it's a thought. Gorgeous creatures - and yummy. There is a herd raised along the northern Ca coast, in 'foothills' too difficult for any 'normal' critters; I get meat from this ranch. I have no idea if they'd be happy in your mountains, but its a thought. They're believed to be a cross with the aboriginal ox, and many many many centuries old. I first saw them a few years back when I was being a tourist in Scotland, and fell in love with their calm beauty.)
I never told you about the goat roast that I attended many years ago when at MTSU- they took a couple of goats and placed the sides between two old bed springs so they cold turn them at one go and basted with beer. An of course the pbligatory keg to go along woth all this- it was a hippy fest indeed. Even had T-shirts to go along with it.
Been meaning to do something like that myself- a good leg of goat, roasted as you would venison is 'oh my gosh' good.
goat yoda.
yum yum yum YUM.
OK, maybe today's the day I need to go check out El Fabuloso, the new mom & pop food place in my neighborhood, & see how their pernil stacks up against the pernil at Los Brisas del Caribe, which was this little Cuban food place that was a holdover from the days when a Soho loft was a place where sweaty people made things with large noisy machinery. Four blocks down from my Soho office, gone now, sniff sniff. I'm sure their landlord is looking forward to renting to somebody who's selling trendy fashions instead of pernil, arroz con pollo and rice and beans. Me, I'd rather have the pork...
Nice daffodils the other day, too. We just had what I really HOPE is the last snowstorm of the year. Ready for some daffodils. If NC's got 'em, though, they'll be working their way north eventually. picturing an army of daffodils marching their way up the coast on their way here...that's an invasion I can appreciate.
some of the good Island folk round these parts do some fine work with goat, which it has been my pleasure to partake for some time, which leads me to figure BBQ goat would be too.
I feel for ya, BMM; "Yankee BBQ" is at least as good an example as "military intelligence". Full disclosure requires me to fess that was my branch, FWIW, but also to commiserate with ya. I bring some back with me, or pretty much do without other than my own, which is nothin to discuss.
Gracious, bonnie; you're making me hungry, too, but I admit ya threw me off a minute when ya mentioned Daffydillies. I thought ya meant yer own down to the city, and we got 5-6" being plowed this fine St Paddy's day. Seems we got all our snow in March this year, eh?
I didn't mention our Dean's Cuban pig pickin last Summer; Ms. Dean is a food writer & editor, so it's a fine 'un. Being the grandson of an exiled Indiana hog farmer, I appreciate pig and all the lore: just not raisin them.
Food Porn Friday! mmmm, mmmm, good!
THAT IS SOME KINDA FINE EATIN'.
Our family always had a Game Dinner in late March when we cleared out the freezer of the season's finest kills.And I believe I had a DEERPIG there, too. That was 1986 or so..so I can't get details now--
But you are SERIOUSLY going to have to curb this explicit show, or my web filter is going to block this site!
EVERY TIME I COME, you take me back to Charleston and my years in the sun...THANK YOU ROSIE.