Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue (Cornbread Nation: Best of Southern Food Writing) (14 page)

These sauces are not for the weak of stomach, for almost all the sludgebottom cooking cauldrons start the day filled with vinegar, black and red pepper, salt, lemons, onions, sugar, water, and in some versions tomato puree.
When Lipton decided to test-market Wish-Bone Western Style Barbecue
Sauce in a plastic squeeze bottle, the company chose Kansas City, Milwaukee,
and St. Louis for their trial balloons, wisely avoiding the South, where the
doctored ketchup would have failed regardless of the packaging.

Other arguments most frequently arise over whether the pork should be
sliced, chopped, or torn; whether the pit should be dug into or built above ground; whether the wood should be mesquite, oak, sassafras, or hickory;
whether the meat should be rubbed before or basted during cooking; and
whether it is a sacrilege to include tomatoes in the sauce base. The prevailing
wisdom seems to support torn, dug, hickory, rubbed, and tomatoes.

As with all things religious, there are those who seek financial gain from
mass audiences, and barbecue is no exception. Luther's Bar-B-Q, Inc., is the
Southern culinary equivalent of the Southern televangelists. Founded in
Houston nine years ago, Luther's is now a regional "cafeteria-style" barbecue
chain with approximately fifty stores in fourteen states. Acquired by Diversi-
foods, formerly Chart House, of Itasca, Illinois, in 1981, Luther's corporate
headquarters has been moved to Atlanta, but that does not disguise the carpetbag philosophy behind the chain's marketing strategy to expand to 700 stores
during the next four years. Ron Crews, marketing vice president, projected a
$1o million annual advertising budget and said, "It's a total research and a
total positioning job ... the barbecue segment is not very developed. We feel
we're creating a new segment." No real barbecue proprietor would talk like
that nor suggest spending that kind of money to paint smiling pigs on their
signs when RC will provide them for free.

Generally, even successful barbecue joints have difficulty expanding to a
second location without losing something in the process. In a review of one
establishment's efforts at expansion to an "underserved" area, Brantley gave
the fare a favorable rating, then added, "But, there is a but and this is it:
Stubby's is a West End barbecue stand. That is, it sells middle-of-the-road barbecue aimed at a large audience. There's none of the one-of-a-kind, take-itor-leave-it funkiness in either the sauce or the surroundings that you find on
the other side of town at such legendary places as Sims' or Ballard's."

Taking note of the ritualistic nature of barbecue, an article in Southern Living suggested that Southerners "revere legendary haunts as if they were
shrines," and most seem to prefer the rectitude found in "barbecue eateries
identified by torn screen doors, scratched and dented furniture, cough syrup
calendars, potato chip racks, sometimes a jukebox, and always a counter, producing an ambiance similar to a county-line beer joint" When a longtime
barbecue landmark was threatened with closing by the state health department, one zealot protested the action and complained that "anyone with a lick
of sense knows that you can't make good barbecue and comply with a health
code."

As advice to the novice, one old hand recommended a parking lot survey to
the neophyte seeking the Holy Grail of pork ambrosia. "If you can spot an
equal number of Mercedes sedans and Ford pickups, you've found a good place. Too many expensive new cars and the joint is likely to be fake; too many
pickups and it's liable to be a dive. Balance is the key word. Beware of new
buildings. Everything in a barbeque joint, including the help, should be old. It
takes a certain amount of seasoning to get good barbeque, and that goes for
the building as well as the food."

The high priests of barbecue, both the self-anointed and the popularly acclaimed, labor vigorously to maintain their reputations. One restaurant in
Dallas houses a "Barbecue Hall of Fame" to honor famous white Texans who
hosted gargantuan feeds for multitudes of followers, but it seems to have selection criteria based upon the quantity served rather than the quality of the
product. John R. Wills Jr. of Memphis, two-time winner of the Memphis in
May Barbecue Contest and recipient of Memphis magazine's "best sandwich"
award, decorated his restaurant with pig portraits (not intended to resemble
the Stations of the Cross) and barbecue trophies (not intended to resemble religious icons). No Southern barbecue professional would make application
for the Hall of Fame, for as Brantley observed, "The barbecue man doesn't
have the time for conventions. He's up early to tend his fires and on his feet up
to sixteen hours a day, smoking his meat, brewing his sauce and serving his
creation. He is surrounded by family members and precious few others. The
barbecue man, even the mediocre one, is serious about the secrets of this
trade, and a grunt is the standard reply to questions on a potion's ingredients.
The majority of barbecue men, if not barbecue stand owners, are black."

The status of mythic hero, or superhuman, conferred on black barbecue
artists contributes, at least subconsciously, to the erosion of past patterns of
racial discrimination and leads to genuine interracial communication and
understanding in a context unrivaled by the prevailing practices in most
Southern churches. That is not, however, to suggest that the religious analogy
fails here. One of the shrines of barbecue in Arkansas, Lindsey's, in North
Little Rock, was founded in 1955 by AME bishop D. L. Lindsey, and in the tradition of hereditary succession, it is still operated by his descendants. The
Arkansas Times award for best barbecue in the state was recently given to Sim's
Barbecue, and establishment started by Allen Sims, high priest of barbecue
and "purveyor of pork nonpareil," and presently managed by his nephews,
Ronald and Russell Settlers. Sims's dedication and devotion to preparing his
fare is legendary; he "is the man who once told a reporter after a man and
woman shot each other in his dining room, `I didn't see nothing. I was just
basting my ribs."'

One of the most obvious religious parallels is between the old-time camp
meeting and the contemporary barbecue cook-off contests, exemplified by the Memphis in May festival in Memphis, Tennessee, "Pork Barbecue Capital
of the World," where 295,000 people from fifteen states came to watch 200
teams compete for the 1983 title. At this famed event, the 1984 contestants included such teams as Trichinosis Terry and His Borderline Swine, Sooie and
the Piglets, and the River City Rooters. The Hog Doctors wore scrub suits, dispensed their sauce from an intravenous bottle, and donned surgical gloves to
cut their ribs entry on an operating table for the official judging.

Such antics were not unheard of at the frontier camp meetings of old. As
one historian of the South, Dickson Bruce, noted,

So much has been made of the camp-meeting's frontier origins as well as its
more sensational qualities that one often loses sight of its religious character and the content of its religious appeal. For many observers, then and
now, the secular role of the camp-meeting has far overshadowed whatever
religious significance the practice might have had. Recognizing the hard
character of frontier life, these writers have shown that the plain-folk
greatly needed the kind of social occasion afforded by camp-meetings.
Gatherings provided an opportunity, usually right after harvest time, for
people to get together for several days of unencumbered social activity, and
in a region where population was sparse and work was hard, such an opportunity must have been greatly appreciated.

Despite the perceived misplaced emphasis, he suggested that the camp meetings provided a ritual which nurtured close personal relationships, cooperation, reflection, and Southern hospitality. Dickson acknowledged, however,
that "the gathering took on the form of a `holy fair' or `religious holiday' because the whole community turned out, religious and irreligious. But as with
any fair, holy or otherwise, all of the activities of the campground were not of
the variety desired by church leaders."

It is not coincidental that most contemporary barbecue contests are held
either at a spring "hoedown" celebration or at harvest time. Corresponding
festivals are also prominent in major religions. Malinowski contended that the
"festive and public character of the ceremonies of cult is a conspicuous feature
of religion in general. Most sacred acts happen in a congregation.... This
public character, the gathering together of big numbers is especially pronounced in the annual or periodic feasts held at time of plenty.... Such feasts
allow the people to indulge in their gay mood, to enjoy the abundance of
crops or quarry, to meet their friends and relatives, to muster the whole community in full force, and to do all of this in a mood of happiness and harmony." Specifically supporting the thesis of this essay, he concluded, "there can be no doubt that religion demands the existence of seasonal, periodic
feasts with a big concourse of people, with rejoicing and festive apparel, with
an abundance of food, and with relaxation of rules and taboos."

In many ways, the Barbecue Eucharist serves as the perfect metaphor for
understanding contemporary Southern society. The catechism contains a reverence for tradition and the heritage of the past, the vestiges of rural camp
meetings, a chorus of regional chauvinism, a pulpit for oratory, and opportunity for community participation, appreciation for the vernacular, equality of
opportunity, and subtle interracial respect.

Charles Brightbill suggests that recreational activities have historically been
related to religion, and the barbecue ritual is an excellent example of this relationship. Both, he said, "are engaged in voluntarily, occur during leisure, provide a chance for gain, balance, and perspective, provide the opportunity to
express and satisfy our inner desires, place us at the center of our own destiny,
recognize the supreme worth of the individual, [and] provide for us the exercise of free will." Developing that analogy, he held that "with some people,
under certain circumstances, recreation can become a substitute for religion-just as religion sometimes becomes a form of recreation."

The community values represented by the high-priest cooks and the dedication of their congregations suggest that the rhetorical ritual of barbecue,
characterized by hyperbole and boastful humor among friends, may also
serve to further human understanding and humanitarian values among the
faithful. As such, it is a regional community ritual worthy of our academic
analysis as well as our voracious appetites. Brightbill's conclusions about
recreation in general are applicable to the rites of Southern barbecue as well,
especially his observation that in "this kind of recreation, we can find those
things which aid our self-respect, self-confidence, and individual dignity. As
we follow these pursuits, we can also learn something about how to live well
and get along with others. We can learn to shape material with our hands,
compound ideas with our minds, and establish good neighborly relations
with our hearts. Consideration of the rights of others and a fuller realization
of our own obligations and responsibilities are reasonable outcomes to expect."

Amen.

Anyone who has spent much time in the South knows that barbecue and politics go together like fat and flavor. But that kinship isn't always obvious to
newcomers. I realized this a few years ago when the dining critic at my newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, asked me to go along with him to
check out a popular pit, Williamson Brothers.

John is from the Northeast, and while he truly loves barbecue, he doesn't
fully appreciate the culture of it the way most of us who grew up flicking gnats
away from sauce-smeared paper plates do. John liked the ribs and the
chopped pork. He was feeling pretty good about the food, then he excused
himself to visit the men's room. He came back with a sick expression on his
face.