Posted on September 21, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
Recently a coupon caught my attention. It offered $2 off a 30 ounce package of Hormel’s Austin Blues Pulled Pork. According to the description on the Hormel website, “This succulent pork shoulder meat is naturally hardwood smoked for six hours. After smoking, it’s finished off with a clear Carolina-style sauce and lightly pulled.” Sounds pretty good actually, although it’s hard to believe that this industrial strength swine is truly hardwood smoked for 6 hours. (But since that’s what Hormel claims and they have a large legal team, I’ll take their word for it.)
More good news about the product: the Hormel website warns that their pulled pork is, brace yourself, NOT Kosher. This suggests that Hormel’s pulled pork is made from real pork and not some sort of pork-tasting mystery product (I have always been amused that bacon bits are often Kosher, which means, of course, that they contain exactly zero percent bacon). Hmm, so the Hormel Pulled Pork sounds kinda sorta okay at first, but rest assured there are some bright red warning flags. Continue reading →
Filed under: Porky's Pulpit | Tagged: Faux 'Cue, Outside NC | 4 Comments »
Posted on September 16, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
A few days ago my daughter uttered the words every Yankee-fearing father fears. No, not “Alex Rodriguez is my prom date,” as that’s not the kind of Yankee I mean. Plus, the littlest LeSwine is only two years old. But it was just as bad. My daughter said, quite clearly by toddler standards, “I don’t like eating barbecue.” What prompted this outburst? All I did was ask her if she was excited about stopping for a barbecue lunch the next day. Between this horrible comment and a couple of past occasions where she has spit out barbecue I’ve offered her, it’s off to the doctor today to get a paternity test.
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Posted on August 26, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
With apologies to the people of Japan, and people anywhere who practice the art of haiku or any other form of poetry, I present to you my first attempts at creating a new art form called hogku. In case you don’t know, haikus (at least the Americanized version) stick to a basic 5-7-5 syllable structure. Below are my first hogkus. Readers, any hogkus or other barbecue-inspired poems to share?
__________________
Hickory smoked smell
Taste of vinegar on tongue
God must be watching
__________________
Eastern or Western
Differences disappear
Over a chopped plate
__________________
Hush puppies, slaw, bun
Everything looks good, except…
Where is the pig meat?
__________________
Pig, your sacrifice
Will be memorialized
By sacred pit smoke
__________________
Golden fried cornmeal
Your secret is safe with me
In my stomach now
Filed under: Porky's Pulpit | Tagged: Art, Outside NC | 2 Comments »
Posted on August 7, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
Breaking news from Fayetteville, where an 80-pound potbellied pig named Loopey has hogged grabbed the attention of the community for the past week. On August 1st, the Fayetteville Observer published one of those hard hitting, take no prisoners pieces of journalism for which the mainstream media is rightfully known.
The story reported the heart wrenching (truly) tale of an 8 year old boy with autism whose pet potbellied pig was taken away due to a local ordinance prohibiting swine within Fayetteville’s city limits. The boy’s family did what you might expect of any family faced with their situation. No, no, they didn’t cook Loopey. They immediately started pressuring City Council to overturn the ordinance, with the help of an online petition that had drawn nearly three thousand signatures as of press time. The family quickly earned the support of Councilman Keith Bates, who suggested that potbellied pigs up to 125 pounds be allowed within city limits. (Is it just coincidence that 125 pounds is a nice pre-cooked weight for a dressed whole hog, or does Councilman Bates have a catering business on the side?)
One of Loopey's not-too-distant relatives smiling for the camera.
An August 4th follow-up story in the Fayetteville Observer (motto: “We milk pigs for all they’re worth”) reported that, by a 6-2 vote, City Council had directed staff to research what it would take to revise their ordinance to allow domesticated pigs like Loopey. The same day the paper ran a sympathetic companion story profiling Loopey (An excerpt: “Her wrinkled brow makes her look perpetually angry, but she is anything but.”)
Just yesterday, the Fayetteville Observer published yet another article on Loopey, this time an editorial, which Continue reading →
Filed under: Porky's Pulpit | Tagged: Cumberland County, Fayetteville | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 10, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
I recently visited Blue Mist Bar-B-Q and, though I enjoyed my meal, I can’t help but point out the absolutely abysmal logo featured on their menu. I have seen a lot of barbecue joint logos over the years, and this is hooves-down the worst. The tuxedoed pig looks like it was drawn by someone without an opposable thumb (maybe it was drawn by a pig?). Really the only indication that the logo is a picture of a pig is the curly tail poking out from the tuxedo.
- Um, is that a pig?
Luckily, the Blue Mist sign outside the restaurant features a much improved version of the pig in a tux logo. Oddly, the curly tail is not a part of the new and improved logo.
Now that's an improvement
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Posted on July 6, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
Glacier National Park in Montana
The Wild West
I recently vacationed in Montana, which you may know (if you are a geography buff or completed 3rd grade) is a long way from North Carolina. Montana is a beautiful state, but it lacks in interesting culinary traditions. Beef is the name of the game in Big Sky Country, and there is plenty of steak to be had. No complaints from me on that. However, my palate was tested mightily when spending an afternoon in Butte, Montana, a tough as cow leather town notorious for having one of the nation’s largest Superfund sites. Butte is also known for a rich history as a mining town, and the miners who flocked to Butte in the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought their own culinary traditions to town.
Pasty Patrol
English, Irish and other European immigrants–and their American descendants–brought the pasty (pas-tee) to Butte, and it continues to enjoy a special place in the lower intestines heart of modern day Butte residents. Pasties are sort of a chicken pot pie but the chicken is beef and the crust of the pot pie is much thicker and totally encases the beef and vegetable filling. I wouldn’t recommend you travel to Butte or other pasty-friendly locales just to eat one. Still, pasties are something I can see people being proud of–they taste okay and they have a lengthy culinary pedigree.
Marginally better than it looks.
Now pork nuggets are another matter…
Continue reading →
Filed under: Porky's Pulpit | Tagged: Outside NC | Leave a comment »
Posted on June 29, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
Happier Than a Pig in Sh… Argentina?
We’d be remiss if we didn’t seize this increasingly-not-so-rare opportunity at pig-related humor about a politician from a pig-friendly state. With Former North Carolina Senator/Failed Presidential Candidate John Edwards’ piggish behavior fading from the limelight, fresh revelations from the Land of Mustard Other Carolina have filled the void. As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, Soon-to-be-Former (?) Governor and Suddenly-Less-Likely-to-be Future Presidential Candidate Mark Sanford of South Carolina (where the mustard-tinged barbecue sauce must have impaired his thinking) was caught in a web of lies last week. Sanford disappeared for several days before it was revealed that he was visiting Argentina, the country with the highest per capita beef consumption. As if visiting the beef capital of the world was not pig-headed enough, Sanford did so to visit his mistress. This presumably steak-fueled affair represents a double-affront: to Sanford’s wife and to the hog-loving populace of South Carolina.
Before Charlotte’s Web of Deception
Amazingly, Sanford’s piggish behavior in Argentina was not his first pig-related scandal. Several years earlier, Sanford raised quite a stink when he brought a pair of piglets to the South Carolina State Capitol. The piglets, predictably named “Pork” and “Barrel,” Continue reading →
Filed under: Porky's Pulpit | Tagged: Outside NC, Pork barrel politics, Sex | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 29, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
Barbecue reviewers–myself included–almost always feel the need to assign some sort of rating to each joint they review. Alas, ten or so hours of slow-cooking pig gets boiled down to one simple letter, word or symbol. Today’s post takes a look at the different barbecue rating systems we’ve come across. Here’s the universe of NC ‘cue rating systems we’ve unearthed (let us know if we missed any):
- H. Kent Craig’s website uses a simple yet elegant scale of assigning from one to four pigs to each joint. This classic system is easily understood, matches well with people’s concept of four start restaurants, and features a nice little pig image to boot. What are the drawbacks of Craig’s system? Having only four different ratings for the wide range of quality he has encountered seems inadequate. Admittedly, a half-pig might look ugly (especially if it were the back half), but surely Craig could have thrown in some half-pigs (hams? shoulders?) to further distinguish among our state’s many joints.
- Dave Filpus’ NC Barbecue Musings site uses a graphically lacking but Continue reading →
Filed under: Porky's Pulpit | Tagged: Odds & ends | 1 Comment »
Posted on April 29, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
No smoking, unless you're smoking a pig! (Photo by Dale Volberg Reed, used with permission)
First the swine flu and now an even more certain sign of the apocalypse: a smoke free dining billboard in Davidson County, NC. Why is this billboard a sign of the apocalypse? Well, in case you don’t know/ain’t from ’round here, the main town in Davidson County is Lexington. Lexington is, of course, perhaps the most important barbecue town in North Carolina and even dubs itself the “barbecue capital of the world.” This title is one Lexington can make a legitimate claim to given its rich history and its present day status: roughly 20 barbecue joints, most still cooking over wood in the traditional manner, serve the town of just 20,000 people.
Apparently Davidson County’s Health Department is working with area restaurants to help them go smoke-free. Luckily, this initiative targets cigarettes, cigars and the like, and not the wood pits out back. As a matter of fact, quite a few barbecue joints in Lexington have signed on to the County’s list of smoke-free restaurants. Even The Barbecue Center and Lexington #1 are among the joints that have gone smoke-free, but rest assured they still burn plenty of hickory wood when they cook their pork.
In all seriousness, the fact that so many barbecue joints are going smoke-free is interesting, given how closely tobacco and barbecue have been linked throughout NC’s history. See this interesting article in the Raleigh News & Observer on the subject.
Filed under: Porky's Pulpit | Tagged: Davidson County, Lexington, Logos and signs, Wood-cooked | Leave a comment »
Posted on March 30, 2009 by Porky LeSwine
We have addressed the topic of yuppicue on this site before, and today’s post draws attention to a related and equally dangerous form of swine crime. I call this particular bastardization of barbecue “faux ‘cue.” Faux ‘cue includes just about any carelessly loose interpretation of NC style barbecue, but of particular concern are menu items offered at non-BBQ chain restaurants. Imagine the damage done to NC’s culinary reputation when an out of state visitor thinks he is sampling some of our prized local cuisine when he orders this abomination: the Pulled Pork Panini.
“
![Imagine a world where this becomes our local 'cue. [photo from Panini Happy website]](https://bbqjew.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/paninihappy.jpg?w=300&h=200 "Panini Happy")
Imagine a world where this is our "local" delicacy. Note: this is not the Cafe Carolina panini, just a similarly scary sandwich at paninihappy.com.
I first came across Cafe Carolina’s Pulled Pork Panini–at a safe distance, rest assured–when going to one of the chain’s locations near my house for buy one get one free sandwiches. (Cafe Carolina is only worth a visit with such a coupon in hand.) I reviewed the menu board and, as would be the case for any attentive BBQ Jew, the word “pork” grabbed my attention. I read further and saw the full name of the sandwich, priced at nearly $8, which was described as “carolina style pulled pork with bbq sauce and coleslaw.” Now it’s bad enough for a place like Cafe Carolina to offer a barbecue sandwich, but its adding insult to injury to serve it as a panini. Barbecue has no more business as an ingredient for a panini than a hush puppy has being drizzled with a red wine reduction sauce.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Porky's Pulpit | Tagged: Faux 'Cue, Grade F, Yuppiecue | 5 Comments »
![Imagine a world where this becomes our local 'cue. [photo from Panini Happy website]](http://paninihappy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/bbqporkfinal2.jpg "Panini Happy")
BBQ Jew 
