Posted on 01/03/2002 5:04:58 AM PST by aomagrat
You heard it here first: Mustard-based sauce is best for barbecue. No, ketchup-based — no, vinegar-and-pepper . . . In S.C., the debate never ends. But here are some places to eat while you argue.
If you enjoy fireworks, just say the word “barbecue” in a crowd of Southerners and sit back and enjoy the show.
Barbecue rouses unshakable convictions about what’s the best, and most folks are more than happy to voice an opinion.
Yet, despite all the passion it arouses, the debate really isn’t even about barbecue, said Chuck Kovacik, a professor in USC’s Department of Geography and author of the “Barbecue Map of South Carolina.”
“This will never be about barbecue. The passion is about place. Wherever I’m from, it’s obviously the best. ... You’re not arguing about the quality of the barbecue. You’re arguing about the quality of the place,” he said.
The owners of local barbecue restaurants agree barbecue is about much more than food.
It’s also about family ties, said Fred Mathias, co-owner of Four Oaks Farm in Lexington. “We were all kind of raised on it. When families get together, it’s just a tradition,” Mathias said.
For Carolyn Myers, co-owner of Myers Barbeque House in Blythewood, barbecue represents a way of life. “(It’s popularity) has to do with the country-time atmosphere we’re in,” she said. “Lots of South Carolinians, in particular, are country at heart.”
The styles of barbecue are numerous. What someone likes often depends on where he grew up. Here in what’s known as the Barbecue Belt — North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas — the meat of choice is pork.
But travel the Carolinas and you’ll find a range of sauces. Toward the eastern shore of North Carolina, they finish their Q with vinegar sauce, while their neighbors on the western border favor a thick, sweet-sour, ketchup-based sauce.
In South Carolina, there are at least four barbecue regions, Kovacik said.
“The (barbecue) debate is even greater here than what we’ve been led to believe by our neighbors to the north,” he said.
“You hear so much about North Carolina barbecue. æ.æ.æ. They like to say that North Carolina is a valley of humility between two mountains of conceit. When it comes to barbecue, North Carolina is an incredible mountain of conceit.”
In South Carolina, vinegar-and-pepper sauces are popular in the northeastern corner of the state. In the Upstate along the border with North Carolina, tomato-based sauce combining sweet and sour flavors is the standard, while along the western border with Georgia, ketchup-like sauces reign.
Here in the middle part of the state running to the southern coast, mustard-based sauces rule, an observation borne out by the notes and e-mails we received when we asked for readers’ favorite barbecue restaurants.
“Mustard base is the way to go. ... (It) takes my vote for the best that there is,” wrote Marti Olivarri of Columbia in a note that summed up many of the recommendations we received.
But it takes more than good sauce to make a restaurant special. Many readers mentioned a family atmosphere, friendly service and touches such as checkered tablecloths.
“The country setting and friendly atmosphere, plus the great barbecue, combine for a winning combination,” Stacey Charles of Saluda said of Wise Bar-B-Q House in Newberry.
Please note the above statements are simply examples — and are not meant to be interpreted as any type of barbecue resolution. This debate will never be settled, so perhaps it’s best to heed one reader’s philosophical approach.
“Sauce is everything ... (but) different sauces for different sections,” said James Alford of Dillon, who prefers the “red gravy” at Country Cousins in Scranton.
Besides, if you don’t like the sauce where you live, drive a few miles, and it will change.
I haven't been down there for several years. I thought I heard they built a new building. I kinda hope not, I liked the old place.
Take some friendly advice...pack your zoning boards with your own people and never, EVER let your local governments fall prey to the wanderers. If you do, your best barbecue shacks will be shut down for "health code violations" and replaced with Pizza Huts. Its the homogenization of America.
That's some good eatin' there too! I've only been to New England once, but I will remember the wonderful seafood for the rest of my life! I like crawdad, but I'll take a lobster any day given the choice.
I agree with great Texas BBQ. However, interesting to note, at Walmart, they have a good BBQ sandwich (particularly for a place like a snack bar in a discount store), and I once commented on it to a counter lady and she, obviously proud, said yes, it is good, and you know why, it's from Arkansas.
So, if Walmart has good Arkansas BBQ, then Arkansas must have some excellent BBQ places.
Actually, except for 2 Brothers I don't know many good places north of Marietta. Col. Poole's place in Ellijay is hyped as being good because a lot of GA politicians have eaten there, but IMHO it's only so-so. I think the guy in Cherry Log called it quits, but I didn't think it was all that good anyway. The other north GA places I've tried don't do much for me, but I know there are many i haven't tried. Yet.
The best BBQ place in GA IMHO is a hole in the wall place on the south side of Valdosta. I'm getting so bad remembering names I can't tell you the name of it but I'm sure someone on the street could direct you there. It's run by a black family who have been doing it since WWII. It isn't exactly located in the part of town you want to stroll around in at night, but the owners are very friendly and they are devout Christians. Super nice folks, and they DO know how to cook a pig.
My brother in law, the world's foremost connoisseur of bbq, took me there the first time late one Saturday night about 15 years ago. I was a little nervous on the way there, but it's really quite safe. I almost wouldn't have minded being carjacked on the way back if I could have saved a side of those ribs.
HOW RIGHT YOU ARE!!
I'm afraid it's too late for most parts of the south Ol'Sox, they've already taken over many places down here.
I haven't ventured into your part of the world for a long time. I hope "they" haven't destroyed all those quaint New England Yankee characteristics that were so unique to your area. I'm a southerner by birth and raising, but I lived between a retired VT doctor neighbor and a retired NH newspaperman neighbor in FL for quite a few years. Good friends, good people.
Good. i gotta stop by there one of these days. I forget which nights they're open, do you know?
I've been in the new Bargain Barn a few times. You're right, no bargains there anymore since they went big-time.
Thanks for the kind invite, but I aint talkin to you no mo since you said I don't know nuthin bout BBQ. You TX boys can jine up there with the folks from KC and cook cow meat in your sheet-metal cookers and call it BBQ all you want to.
Good luck, I hope you win the blue ribbon for best BROILED COW MEAT.
I don't think I could eat an octopus. I used to drag one up now and then in a shrimp seine, and it didn't look like anything I want to eat. OTOH, those Italians could probably make almost anything taste good.
I was born and raised in SW Florida. When I still lived down there we slow-cooked split mullet over oakwood coals in 55 gallon drums, and it was the best tasting fish I know of. Mullet is an oily fish, and that's what makes it so good cooked that way. But I don't consider it BBQ.
I know,I know, technically the term is applicable to a certain manner of cooking regardless of the item being cooked, but in southeastern US parlance it takes on a different connotation. IOW, BBQ in the south is used as a noun, not a verb. For example, a GA good ole boy might say, "I think I'll drive over to the Big Pig Pit and get me some BBQ", while you might say, "Aldo, I would like for you to BBQ an octopus for me this evening".
In TX and MO they call beef cooked over wood coals BBQ, which I admit it technically is, and that's responsible for a lot of good-natured banter between the two sections of the country as you may have noticed on this thread. At least I hope it's good natured or else VinnyTex may come lookin for me with a rope one of these days.
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