With Labor Day just around the corner, it seems like a good time for a public service announcement: Don’t fall asleep while breaking into your favorite BBQ joint. Last year, a gentleman in Gates County made that mistake and I’m sure his life is full of regrets. All my best wishes for a safe, crime-free and restful (but not sleepy) holiday,
Porky
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The Kosher barbecue scene is heating up faster than a gefilte fish swimming upstream.
At least that’s my conclusion based on the pictures in the Kansas City Star of yesterday’s 2nd annual Kansas City Kosher BBQ Festival, which was organized by Rabbi Mendel Segal (soon to be known as Rabbi Handi Wipe?). Click on this link to see a photo gallery of the event, including a picture of the Rabbi’s father as he “tested some BBQ ribs,” according the the Star. It sure does look like a pork rib that he is eating but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is actually a piece of burnt end. Anyway, good to see the KC Kosher community embracing barbecue. That said, I’m still waiting for the Judea (Really) Reform Whole Hog Barbecue Contest…
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You knew it would come to this. It was only a matter of time.
Pit-cooked barbecue, including “Carolina pulled pork”, has established itself in Japan, according to this article in The Japan Times. If anyone would like to fly Porky LeSwine to Tokyo (a coach seat is fine, as he is a humble man despite referring to himself in the third person), he will be happy to review these barbecue joints. (So far nobody in Japan has opened a restaurant callled Lexington Ichiban, by the way.)
We sure do live in a global society. I wonder what they’ll think of next–sushi restaurants in North Carolina?! Oh, who am I kidding, that will never happen. However, a “Carolina BBQ Roll” would be pretty tasty: slaw and pork wrapped in cornmeal-dusted nori… mmm mmm, maybe I can skip that flight to Tokyo after all.
By jon at http://www.flickr.com/photos/southtopia/ (Creative Commons license)
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It’s good to set down your New York Times bestseller once in awhile and read once again from the gospels. To that end, I suggest you, gentle reader, take the time to read this July 2011 article from the News & Observer/Charlotte Observer. Food writer Kathleen Purvis does a tremendous job of describing what makes real barbecue–a sublime mix of wood, smoke, sweat, and stubbornness–while profiling the Skylight Inn and other purveyors of the true ‘cue. Enjoy!
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At long last, I’m taking the time to better organize my reviews of North Carolina barbecue restaurants. Step one was updating the list of Joints to include all the places I’ve visited to date. As of moments ago, that task is (mostly) complete. Next up is a Google Map listing all the places I’ve visited, which will make finding joints near you/your travels much easier. I’m about five years behind the times–too cheap and lazy to build the Swine Finder BBQ App I really want to produce–but it’s a start. I should have the map up and running, with a link from the Joints page, any day/week/month now. Stay tuned, fellow barbecue hogs.
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Over the years I’ve seen some highly bastardized recipes for NC-style barbecue, so it was with relief that I read this recent AP article that appeared in the Fayetteville Observer. No crockpot, no oven, no thick ketchupy sauce, no strange cuts of pork, just a basic recipe (and good instructions) for making barbecue. Kudos to Elizabeth Karmel for preaching the right gospel (well, mostly, as her use of olive oil might fly in the Old Testament but is odd).
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It is with considerable sadness that I report the recent closing of the venerable Blue Mist Bar-B-Q, which I would hazard a guess was one of North Carolina’s most visited and loved barbecue joints over the years. Blue Mist was established in 1948 and for as long as I can remember occupied a modest piece of real estate on the eastern edge of Asheboro, just off of Highway 64, which for many years was (along with Hwy 70) one of two key east-west highways in the state. Highway 64 stretches from the far western corner of the state to the Outer Banks, following a meandering path through much of the state’s tobacco, textile, furniture and BBQ belts. Blue Mist was my family’s go to spot on trips to the North Carolina Zoo, and it was on a trip to the zoo this past weekend that I discovered it had closed. At least for now, the small white pig statue still stands sentinel the front door, but he is looking a little more nervous than usual, perhaps wondering if he will soon join his Zoo-dwelling friends in a cage.
According to Asheboro’s Courier-Tribune, Blue Mist closed its doors for the last time on July 7th due to no more exotic reason than a decline in customers. (Read the article here.) Blue Mist was not among the best BBQ joints in the state but it was plenty good and had maintained its traditional wood-fired cooking methods, which put it in increasingly elite company over the years. If we are to believe that all good things must come to an end, then we can be happy that Blue Mist was good for as long as it was. Still, it will be missed.
My last plate at Blue Mist, as it turned out.
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A tip of the snout to my barbecue buddies John Shelton Reed (Holy Smoke!) and Daniel Vaughn (The Prophets of Smoked Meat) for engaging in an amusing debate about the relative merits of NC and TX barbecue on the pages of Texas Monthly magazine. See their jabs and counters at http://www.tmbbq.com/the-barbecue-editor-disputes-a-tar-heal/
My favorite passage–a TKO, in my opinion–goes to John with his brilliant dissection of Vaughn’s inability to describe what exactly is Texas barbecue:
“There are more hogs than people in North Carolina, but if we are ‘porcivorous’ (in 1728 William Byrd II said we were) it’s not just for convenience. Our barbeculture is something like the dogma of the Orthodox Church—settled, unchanging, secure in the truth, threatened only by modernity, not by rival faiths. Meanwhile, y’all west of the Mississippi seem to have erred and strayed into the barbecue equivalent of speaking in tongues and taking up serpents. In fact, for all I know, you may take up serpents and barbecue them. Wouldn’t surprise me. Look, surely it’s not my responsibility to defend what has been an understanding universal in Christendom. It’s for Texans and Kansas Citians and Owensboroites to justify their departure from it. Martin Luther nailed some theses to the Wittenberg church door: he didn’t just go do his own damn thing.”
As a related aside, I should point out that the very first trip Daniel Vaughn took after being named Barbecue Editor of Texas Monthly was to none other than… not Lockhart, not Luling, but North Carolina. To eat barbecue. Yep. I assume Mr. Vaughn came to North Carolina as many pilgrims do, to draw strength for what he realizes will be many years of wandering the Texas barbecue desert.
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The Huffington Post has a laughably weak top 10 list of barbecue joints. Read it and weep: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gayot/best-barbecue-restaurants_b_3589080.html
I half expected to see Dickey’s Barbecue Pit rounding out the rankings. Sheesh.
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In order to ensure that this blog continues to stay at the cutting edge of current events, I offer the following list of potential royal baby names (in an alternate universe where Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge are barbecue enthusiasts):
Or maybe Bald Willie and his lady friend Kate will just give the baby a normal name… like Blue Ivy or Moon Unit. Stay tuned world…
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BBQ Jew 