BBQ on TV?

Posted on September 24, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

Dear Loyal Readers,

You recently enlightened me on the topic of BBQ in mall food courts and I once again need to drink from your well of wisdom.  When traveling in the Greenville area not too long ago I noticed a Skylight Inn ad on television.  As you’d expect, it was a pretty low budget ad, which featured the tagline: “It’s a barbecue fact, not fiction, wood cooked barbecue smokes the competition.”  Needless to say, there was nothing particularly exciting about the ad… except that I’d never seen a TV ad for a NC barbecue place before. 

I asked Samuel Jones of the Skylight Inn about the ad and he said they’d started running it relatively recently and that it was paying big dividends in drawing in more customers (I guess that is the point of ads, so I am not sure why this fact surprised me but it did).  Anyway, I’m curious whether other North Carolina BBQ joints have run TV spots. An exhaustive/exhausting three minute search of You Tube proved fruitless (porkless?), but I imagine some of the bigger joints must advertise on local stations.  Please englighten me.

Your’s in our shared quest to educate the world about every obscure detail of North Carolina barbecue culture,

Porky

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There is Hope in Barbecue

Posted on September 17, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

It’s no surprise that when barbecue makes it onto Nightline, the subject matter turns a bit more serious than usual.  John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, is featured in a recent segment on the show discussing how barbecue culture may present an opportunity to address racism in America.  He makes a pretty good argument for barbecue restaurants serving as a venue in which to address entrenched issues like racism.  In one of his more memorable quotes, in response to the skeptical reporter who asks him whether a place like church might be more appropriate for delving into subjects like racism, Edge says, “Church is so segregated, barbecue restaurants aren’t segregated… I think there is hope in barbecue.”

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Labor Day Pitmaster Tribute

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

Pitmasters–the guys who actually do the smoky, sweaty work of tending the coals and cooking the pigs–are vastly underappreciated.  There’s no better time than Labor Day to celebrate the pitmaster for what he is: one of the most important parts of any real barbecue restaurant (i.e., anywhere that still cooks over wood coals).

Chop, chop, chop at the Skylight Inn. Photo by Conor "Swine Factor" Keeney.

Interestingly, the owners of many barbecue joints start out as their own pitmasters, but upon achieving success most focus on the business side of the restaurant and delegate the hard work of cooking the pig to a full-time pitmaster.  The Skylight Inn, one of the state’s finest swine establishements, is no exception.  Though the Jones family comes from a long line of pitmasters and continues to play a major hands-on role in running the restaurant, the guy who shovels the coals and cooks the pigs has no relation to the Jones’.  James Henry Howell, pictured here and featured–especially between the 8:00 and 12:00 minute marks–in the documentary Capitol Q, runs the pits at The Skylight Inn.  As you can see, Howell also chops and seasons the ‘cue. 

Next time you are at The Skylight Inn or your favorite local joint, take a minute to say thanks to the pitmaster for enduring the long hours, the hot and smoky workplace, the modest pay, and the obscurity.  He deserves some credit.  Of course, barbecue joints aren’t the only places where the hardest work gets done by people who get little credit.  In honor of Labor Day, take a moment to think about all the underappreciated, hard working folks who make your life a little better each day.

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By Golly, Barbecue and Hot Tamales

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

As the summer winds down, it’s high time for a road trip.  After all, even Porky LeSwine can’t eat North Carolina barbecue at every meal.  Sometimes he needs to eat barbecue from other states (and refer to himself in the third person).  So strap on your computer’s seat belt and come along for a ride to the Mississippi Delta, where tamales are king.

That's Willie in front, chomping on a big cigar.

I recently visited family in Illinois, and while there my father-in-law took me on a short trip to Mississippi (thanks Bill!).  How long did it take us to travel from Illinois to Mississippi?  Just a few minutes, since we took  a shortcut by stopping at Willie’s Homemade Tamales and Smokehouse in Sparland, Illinois. 

Willie, who told me he moved to Illinois from Greenville, Mississippi 33 years ago, has been making his own tamales for years.  He started out selling them from a pushcart near the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Illinois.  About five years ago he took a leap of faith and converted an old gas station into a restaurant in nearby Sparland.  He now sells various kinds of barbecue (ribs, sausage, pulled pork, pork chops and more) alongside his trademark tamales.

But what do tamales have to do with Mississippi? Continue reading →

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Hip Hop You Don’t Stop The BBQ Mop

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

When most people think of the music that best goes with barbecue, they undoubtedly name blues or bluegrass.  But rap music may be a contender on the barbecue scene.  Witness hip hop icon Snoop Dogg, who according to an incredibly uninformative article in the UK’s Mirror, is reported to  be “sniffing out a recipe to make his own barbecue sauce after finding the quality in Europe was dogg rough.”  It is unclear what this sentence means or why anyone in his right mind would use the phrase “dogg rough,” but it’s an intriguing tidbit nonetheless.  Last I heard of Snoop Dogg’s culinary adventures (okay, I watched “Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood” on TV once or twice, I admit it) he was scarfing down chicken and waffles from the legendary Roscoe’s.  It’s good to hear that the rap legend has a taste for ‘cue too.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that a Kansas City rapper would dedicate some rhymes to his city’s favorite food.  (Rapping about barbecue puts a whole new spin on the phrase “biting rhymes.”)  According to The Pitch music blog, hometown rapper Tech N9ne’s latest album is called “The Gates Mixed Plate,” a reference to legendary Gates Bar-B-Q.  Here’s to hoping Tech N9ne’s album is fresh like Ollie Gates’ ‘cue and not stale like his hip hop moniker. 

Like any good hip hop or barbecue story, there is a feud in the Kansas City BBQ rap world.  Fellow KC MC Mac Lethal, who put out an album called “Crown Prime Rib Mixtape,” says Gates’ place doesn’t hold up to Fiorella’s Jack Stack Barbecue.  As Lethal delicately puts it, “I know it’s like calling Jesus Christ a fa&%ot, but I’m just telling you, out-of-towners without an emotional attachment to Gates invariably say that either Jack Stack or Oklahoma Joe’s is their favorite.” 

I don’t know if any North Carolina hip hop stars like barbecue, but given that 9th Wonder, arguably North Carolina’s most famous rapper, hails from Winston-Salem it seems likely.

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Ash(hole) Wednesday

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

Raleigh-based sculptor Joel Haas sent me a note describing one of his recent projects.  Here’s what he had to say about his folk art pig cooker:

The pig cooker naked

Porky,

Attached are several photos of a new, larger pig shaped pig cooker I recently made and shipped to a BBQ fanatic in Alabama.  The tail opens to make a smokestack; there is a steel “thought balloon” painted in chalkboard paint on which a cook can write messages or “pig thoughts”; used charcoal and wood is cleaned out of the “ashhole.”   The inside grill racks can be set at a steep angle over the coals allowing one to place slower cooking meat high up on the rack and faster cooking items lower of the racks where they are just over the coals. There are a number of hooks for hanging implements on the push handle; the grill opens using a handle made of forks and spoons.  One of the photos shows the grill at the powder coat painter’s with the side open and tail open (see inset); the black heat resistant paint is good to 1200 degrees F; there is a small hole to set a thermometer in near the tail.    

Note that the pig has my trademark lavender eyelashes and toenails in its final painted form (see photo below). Yes, the outer paint will scorch some around the grill door and along the bottom and maybe even along the top, though I doubt that area will scorch much; the head is merely decorative.  There is a black steel loop above the ashhole to put a chain through so the pig won’t “wander off.”  

As usual, there are NO provisions for the unrighteous and heretical practice of gas grilling.

The pig cooker with its paints on

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Yankee Doodle ‘Cue

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

It’s amusing to learn about the deviant behavior in the north that passes for cooking barbecue.  Recently the New York Times ran a piece on some friends putting on a “pig roast” in New York state.  This was no ordinary barbecue, at least by our humble southern standards: the pig was stuffed with “quartered and peeled pineapples and butternut squash, halved red onions and a dozen sprigs of rosemary” and then wrapped in banana leaves.  Instead of hush puppies and slaw, sides included kimchi,  as well as “a vegetable piccalilli with ample peppers” and “a concoction of coconut milk, pineapple juice and crushed banana mixed with a pesto of basil and cilantro.”  Yep, we ain’t in Mayberry anymore, Toto.

It’s easy to poke fun at New Yorkers cooking a hog, but all kidding aside it looks like the pig roast participants had a good time and a good meal, which are two defining features of good barbecue.  Plus, the slide show of pig roast pictures is nice.  Still, it’s hard not to smirk when the guys wrap the pig in banana leaves followed by burlap followed by chicken wire.  As if that’s not enough overkill, they then lower the strait-jacketed pig into a stone-lined pit in the ground and cover it with coals and dirt.  Sheesh,  I guess it’s hard to rent a pig cooker up north?

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Parties at the Pits

Posted on July 23, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

An easy to read post for Friday morning: four belated pictures from Spring barbecue celebrations, the first two from the Cuegrass event at The Pit in Raleigh and the second set at customer appreciation day at the Backyard BBQ Pit #1 in Durham.

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Backstage at Hog Day

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Porky LeSwine

The four-person judging team from Hillsborough Hog Day 2010, below from left: Dale Volberg Reed, John Shelton Reed, Joel Grodensky, and Ed Mitchell (not pictured, Chief Judge David Hunt).

They look pretty good considering they just tasted barbecue from 35 cooking teams!

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Cut/Chop/Cook(/Devour)

Posted on June 30, 2010 by The Rib Rabbi

We previously linked to a piece about Scott’s Bar-B-Q in South Carolina. But anytime Joe York, the Leni Riefenstahl of the Southern Foodways Alliance, makes a short film, we try to find an excuse to link to it.

Despite it being on the wrong side of the border, any barbecue lover can appreciate the craftsmanship and artistry of both Rodney Scott’s cue. Same goes for the film CUT/CHOP/COOK. As if cooking over wood coals isn’t visually rich enough, Scott cuts his own trees to provide fodder for the pit and this documentary. Which leads to this great line:

Kinda like a chef pickin out his tomatoes in a garden, I pick my own trees fresh out of the woods. Yup. There ain’t no other way.

I hate to quibble, but there sure is. It’s just amazing that in a world where cooking with wood is considered by many to be too onerous, Scott regards securing that wood himself as essential. Awesome.

Any ‘cue hound has to love this film and the visuals of the coals, the sauce mopping and especially the slow-mo shot of putting the hog on the pit (at the 4:55 mark).

It’s hard to watch this documentary and not want to start up the car for the drive to Hemingway to get a few pounds. If I do, I’ll be sure to ask for a piece of skin and to respect the 9:30 a.m. opening time.

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