Ham has secured its place as the go-to Easter dinner main course for many Christians, but Jews have been slow to adopt the pork shoulder as the Seder yin to ham’s Easter yang.  I would apologize for my people’s stubbornness, but we have a long tradition (as Jesus would attest) and our culinary preferences are antiquated.  Plus, when your holiday commemorates your first born being spared due to lamb blood being smeared on the door post, it’s hard not so celebrate that animal.

Because of the role of the lamb in the Passover story, Passover Seder is the one meal of the year where I can understand why someone might want to eat the barbecue mutton they are fond of in western Kentucky.  As for me, I’m sticking to the traditional chopped pork on matzoh.

In all seriousness, please accept my best wishes for the holiday weekend whatever your faith (or lack thereof).

“5 Reasons Why Pulled Pork Is The Perfect March Madness Food

Thanksgiving has turkey, the Super Bowl has wings, and the all-you-can-eat buffet of basketball that is the NCAA tournament should have its own signature food. ManTestedRecipes.com proposes that pulled pork should be the unofficial food of March Madness.

Here’s why: 1) Pulled pork can stay warm while you watch 12 hours of hoops. Delivery pizza gets cold, sub sandwiches get soggy, but pulled pork can stay warm in your slow cooker or oven all day.

2) College hoops and pulled pork share a home. Eat pulled pork during March Madness as an homage to North Carolina, that hotbed of great BBQ and great college basketball. [BBQJew.com editor's note: Amen!]

3) Pulled pork is ridiculously easy to make. Can you pour a bottle of sauce over a hunk of meat, then turn a dial? Then you can make pulled pork. [BBQJew.com editor's note: well, so long as you don't claim its barbecue.]

4) Pulled pork can feed a crowd for cheap. Throwing a March Madness party? Pulled pork is your pal. Pork shoulder, the preferred cut for homemade pulled pork, is one of the best meat bargains around.

5) Pulled pork is friggin’ delicious. Tender, juicy meat, delicious BBQ flavors, slapped on a sandwich bun if you choose. What’s not to like? The pickiest eaters can agree on pulled pork.”

Hard to argue with any of these reasons, and I’d added that there is no better time to check on a smoker for 12 hours than while your around the house watching hoops for 12 hours a day.

Article provided by: ManTestedRecipes.com http://mantestedrecipes.com/tips/85/5-reasons-why-pulled-pork-is-the-perfect-march-madness-food.aspx

If you thought that President George W. Bush was the most barbecue-friendly George ever to hold the highest office in the land–what with his Texas ranch and all–you’d be wrong.  Of course, that George W. was a member of the northeastern elite and came to embrace his down home Texas side fairly late in life.  The original George W., on the other hand, was a serious ‘cue hound.  That’s right, there are various accounts of barbecues hosted and attended by our first president, George Washington.  In fact, with all the pork Washington ate it’s a miracle his canoe didn’t sink while crossing the Potomac.

When Washington was a mere lad–before he turned 16 and at least a few months before he bought his first set of wooden teeth–he transcribed a short document called “Rules of Civility &  Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation.”  These rules contain many timeless bits of wisdom, such as:

• “When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body, not usualy  Discovered.” [Modern translation: don't scratch your nuts in public.]
• “Shift not yourself in the Sight of others nor Gnaw your nails.” [Modern translation: Uh, don't shift your weight around or chew your nails?]
• “Kill no Vermin as Fleas, lice ticks &c in the Sight of Others, if you  See any filth or thick Spittle put your foot Dexteriously upon it if it be upon  the Cloths of your Companions, Put it off privately, and if it be upon your own  Cloths return Thanks to him who puts it off.” [Modern translation: If you still have this problem in the 21st century, good luck getting a date.]
• “In visiting the Sick, do not Presently play the Physicion if you be not  Knowing therein.” [Modern translation: Keep your prescription meds to yourself.]
• And, notably for us at BBQJew.com, “Put not another bit into your Mouth til the former be Swallowed let not your Morsels be too big for the Gowls.”  [Modern translation: Don't choke to death while stuffing your face like a pig.]

There are many more words of wisdom from GW available in this document, so check it out by following this link.  Thanks to my colleague, Mr. “Outside” Brown, for making me aware of this terrific booklet.

According to an article in the Fayetteville Observer, 3,000 to 4,000 people were expected to attend a “traditional and free Southern New Year’s Day meal of black-eyed peas, collard greens, barbecue and local politics at the Crown Expo Center on East Mountain Drive on Sunday.”  The local tradition dates to the early 1970s and is still going strong four decades later.  Sounds to me like a tradition other cities in NC need to copy…

Special thanks to Dale Volberg Reed, co-author of Holy Smoke, for her clever “hog sameach” turn of phrase, which inspired this card.  Dale, I officially proclaim you an honorary BBQ Jew for life.  (And, yes, membership has its privileges as you’ll get 10% of my sure-to-be-huge net sale proceeds for this card.)

Out of respect for the Pilgrims, the Indians and all you hard working turkeys out there, I’ll save the Bill Ellis Barbecue post for next week.  Until then, have a wonderful holiday and thanks for reading.

Oh, and keep in mind that North Carolina barbecue sauce can help rescue your from leftover turkey land.  Chop up some turkey, douse it in sauce and serve on a bun with some slaw and you’ve got a passable pork BBQ substitute in case your favorite ‘cue joint is closed all weekend.

As described on JewFAQ.com: “Yom Kippur is a complete Sabbath; no work can be performed on that day. It is  well-known that you are supposed to refrain from eating and drinking (even  water) on Yom Kippur. It is a complete, 25-hour fast beginning before sunset on the evening before Yom Kippur and ending after nightfall on the day of Yom  Kippur.”

Luckily, there are some loopholes.  Back to JewFAQ.com: “As always, any of these restrictions can be lifted where a threat to life or health is involved. In fact, children under the age of nine and women in childbirth (from the time labor begins until three days after birth) are not permitted to fast, even if they want to… People with other illnesses should consult a physician and a rabbi  for advice.”  Okay, so that covers women who just had a baby and young kids.  But what about other women, men, and kids at heart?  Can one argue that a day of fasting is a threat to life or health?  To answer these questions one need only consult Talmudic barbecue scholars.

Indeed, there may be a case to be made that abstaining from barbecue is, indeed, a threat to one’s life and health. In his collection of essays, Feeding a Yen, Calvin Trillin makes a rabbinical case for barbecue.  In an essay entitled “Barbecue and Home,” Trillin describes a talk he gave at the 2002 Southern Foodways Symposium.  One of the speakers Trillin followed was Marcie Cohen Ferris, a Jew who grew up in the south and lived a pork-free existence noted in her terrific book, Matzoh Ball Gumbo.  (Ferris now lives in North Carolina and is a Professor at UNC at Chapel Hill.)

Trillin writes of his remarks to Symposium attendees,  ”[T]he barbecue from [Ed Mitchell's old place in] Wilson, North Carolina, had put me in an expansive and ecumenical frame of mind. I said I deeply regretted that Marcie Ferris and the people she grew up with in Arkansas hadn’t known about the Barbecue Easement granted by the Joplin Rebbe, a distinguished Talmudist and pit master. According to that wise teacher’s ruling, observant Jews who are bona fide residents of the South and Lower Midwest are permitted to eat meat that has been subjected to slow direct heat for more than six hours and comes from any farm animal that does not have scales.”

If Trillin says it, it must be true.  Carrying Trillin’s argument one step further, it seems reasonable to conclude that observant southern Jews should spend their Day of Atonement atoning for the sin of avoiding pork the rest of the year.  Failing to atone for this sin could threaten ones life and health, surely.  And what better way to atone than a plate of barbecue the evening of Yom Kippur?

[Thanks to reader Steve "Ham"mond for alerting me to Trillin's book.  And thanks to everyone else for understanding that this post is just a joke and is no more serious than Trillin's description of Talmudic teachings.]

In honor of Labor Day, that holiday where we browse mattress sale flyers and mourn the end of the summer (while simultaneously celebrating the fact that our kids are going back to school), it’s worth taking a minute to reflect on the holiday’s serious origin. Especially in today’s political climate, where the idea of celebrating organized labor seems downright unpatriotic, please remember that America’s robber barons didn’t always have our nation’s best interests at heart; since many corporations are publicly held, nowadays we can trust their leaders fully.  Likewise, politicians weren’t always staunch advocates for the middle class and working poor like they are today.  In fact, in 1894 President Grover Cleveland dispatched thousands of troops to suppress a strike that started at the Pullman railcar company, an act that resulted in significant political fallout and lead in short order to a national Labor Day holiday.

So, when you are signing the receipt for your new mattress (made overseas at a union-free factory, presumably), pause for a moment and remember that we did not always have minimum wage standards, child labor laws, a forty hour work week and the like.  But don’t let your rememberance get in the way of a good Labor Day cookout.  I think folks of all political stripes, and captains of industry and laborers alike, can agree that firing up a grill is a worthy way to celebrate the holiday.  And I am sure the ghost of Louis Brandeis will forgive you for indulging in some pork… in solidarity with the working man, of course.

*Technically speaking, this post-Oxford comma statement is unconfirmed.  However, Brandeis grew up in Kentucky so it is at least possible that he enjoyed ‘cue.