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.
Some of that vinegar pepper sauce is hard to beat. I make a damn good vinegar sauce and use it as a pork mop.
I've eaten there. Not bad, but I've had much better. The old run-down BBQ place by the giant pecan tree in Auburndale is one of the better ones IMHO, but I can never remember the name. It's off the main drag so it's patronized mostly by the local folks. Greasy and messy, but gooood.
I don't know why they didn't include FL in the BBQ belt, central and north FL has some very good BBQ joints. But I definately don't include the ubiquitous Sonny's chain in that group. The snowbirds seem to like it though.
The best thing they fix in Memphis is those dry-rub ribs. Remind me a lot of the ones my dad used to fix. He rubbed 'em with black pepper, salt, ground sage, and a little ground red pepper. Cooked 'em slow on chicken-wire stretched over a pit of oak coals out behind the cow barn. No sauce needed. None better in any restaurant anywhere.
Never ate bbq in Chicago, but I have eaten at several places in KC and was NOT impressed. KC Masterpiece was too dried out and they actually had liquid smoke it their sauce, yeeech. The bbq place owned by the old black guy on the south side, can't think of the name, was much better, but not what I expected. I went to the KCM in St. Louis thinking maybe it would be better than the one in KC, but it was the same story.
But now TX is another matter. Some of the best PORK bbq I ever had was in a little joint on US 290 somewhere between Houston and Brenham. No sauce, just pork shoulder done juuuust right on oak coals. I ate there about 40 years ago and have never been able to get back there since. It's probably gone by now, all I remember about it is the bbq and the jackalope heads on the wall. Brisket done TX style is mighty fine eatin, but I don't consider it bbq.
Get one of these rangetop/oven smokers:
Cameron's Range-top cooker . I got one for Christmas/
And get the book 'Taste' by David Rosengarten, then try his Memphis Dry-Rub ribs recipe, based on making Rendevous Ribs at home.
I suppose your talking about the one at Ball Ground? If so, it's one of the good ones alright. I just wish it wasn't always so crowded.
Yep, born and raised a Connecticut Yankee although my stomach and taste buds hail from the South. I lived in Georgia for a couple of years where I discovered what was missing in my life - slow-cooked pig meat. Evidently, good 'cue was programmed into my genetic code - my forebears settled in eastern Tennessee in 1780 and my GGGrandfather was in the 61st TN Infantry. While I'm certain that mine can't hold a candle to any of y'all's, I did learn to make tolerable barbecue while in the South and my friends and family up here will do tricks to get me to cook it for them. Vinegar and pepper rules!
Just sign me,
Yankee Swine
There you go, a man who knows what old-timey bbq is all about.
I tried some of that stuff at one of the places I ate in KC on the recommedation of my son who lived there. Not bad eatin, but there aint no way that's bbq.
I used to know how to add a bookmark to my profile page.
I cannot figger it out now.
How?
You Might be a Yankee if…
Exactly. Don't get me wrong, though. I've had some wonderful sauces (although none with any mustard). But they added to the overall flavor of the meat, but did not make the meat.
Real barbecue is good sans sauce. Real, if you can find find someone who can make it (wink, wink).
You don't know much about BBQ.
I agree that if the bbq is done right it's good without sauce. I don't mean to offend you, but that stuff you're talking about sure doesn't sound like what I'm talking about. Sounds like something you might see on a cooking show my wife would watch on PBS on a Saturday afternoon.
I've been eating bbq all over the southern half of the US, and a few places farther north, for the last 45+ years. If it's good meat (pork, not too lean) cooked right (slow over low heat) it's good plain, but even better with the right sauce. (slightly tart, kinda brownish, lots of black pepper). I'm not real particular about the sauce, I try a little before I pour it on. If I like it I use it sparingly, if I don't care for it I use just enough to slightly moisten the meat. If it has liquid smoke I set it aside and eat the meat whether it's good or just so-so
Good bbq is cooked on a pit over oak and/or hickory, and some of the best I've found is cooked on a pit in run-down little joints on the "wrong" (read black) side of southern towns. Lots of them aren't even restaurants, you just buy it at the counter and take it outside to eat. That's not to say there aren't big-time restaurants that do good bbq, there are, but if I'm in a town where I don't know a good bbq place I know what part of town I can usually find one that will be at least OK.
BTW, I LIKE brisket slow-cooked over live oak coals where the edges turn red and the inside is gray, mmmm good.
BUT IT STILL AINT BBQ, BBQ IS PORK.
You don't need to be sorry, if you like what you fix that's fine with me. I bet I would like it too, like I said, I like TX style brisket.
Anyway, I've been to a few "championship" bbq cook-offs in my time, and I can get bbq at any number of places I know of that puts anything fixed by those "champions" to shame. Sorry.
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