Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue (Cornbread Nation: Best of Southern Food Writing) (27 page)

And return I did after a few days in Martin sampling Damron's Barbeque
and finding it very good, for still I hankered for that deep-down, soul-satisfying,
ultimate barbecue, the wellsprings where I would bring my son for communion. I was beginning to understand the hunger of those Indians from the days
of Hernando de Soto and his exploits into this territory, bringing to the new
country the first hogs, introducing the natives along the way to hog meat
slow-cooked over a pit of smoking embers. Now I had some notion of why
those natives, once having had a taste of such meat, would risk having a hand
chopped off for stealing de Soto's pigs, sneaking into the dark forests to fulfill
the hunger that led them to such risks on their quests.

I entered what I came to know as Wood's Barbeque, a pine-slab, unpainted
structure with a rough, slanting concrete floor, a single smoke-filled room
with slab benches beside homemade tables, a potato chip rack with bags in
disarray, a thin patina of ashes coating them all, a counter up front with a variety of items, including a small tin that read "Road-Kill Possum," a calendar
on the back wall with the month's centerfold prominently displayed, a scantily clad shoat in a provocative pose. Soon a black face emerged from the even
smokier pit room in back of the counter and said, "What for you?

"How's your barbecue?" I replied.

"It's pulled, man."

No "chopped," "chipped," "shredded," or "sliced," no: for years I've considered this answer to my question and now know what mysteries and truths are
embedded within it. He did not say "Great," "Good," or "the Best." He said
simply the last step of a long journey. For here the journey is the destination, heat culminating in mouth-watering succulence, a transformation by fire little short of miraculous, flesh to flesh and finally flesh to spirit. So this is the
ritual: slow cooked over a pit, the hickory coals kept from reaching a flame,
the meat pulled by hand.

He passed the jumbo sandwich across the counter to my waiting hands. On
first bite I knew in a delicious shiver-this is the mark against which all others will be judged, great chunks of pork, tender, with no hint of greasiness,
succulent, with both the flavor and aroma of hickory, some bits of brown,
crusty outer skin meat mixed in with the white. And the sauce was vinegary,
just enough tomato to flavor, enough pepper to give it real zest.

Here in a room that would defy any carpenter's level, cause the floating
bubble to go astray and even disappear, here I had found the shrine to the pig.
When Stephen visited with me a couple of weeks later, my deep pleasure was
doubled in watching him experience what I had earlier known. From that day
forward we knew the best-not that we would cease our search, but that we
had "home base" from which to measure, a kingdom from which to judge.
Now the test was to find an equal and, who knows, just maybe one that would
surprise us and actually surpass Wood's.

And a time or two over the summers we came close. Traveling to Shiloh
from Martin one year, we came upon a newly opened small barbecue stand in
the middle of farm country. The owner invited us back to the pit, showed us
the shoulders slowly soaking up that hickory flavor, let us linger and ask questions and savor the sandwiches. We never knew his name, only remember his
kindness, his delight in explaining the art and process of real barbecue. And
our trips to Memphis from Martin became standard parts of the visit: we
sampled Topps and found it good; relished the visits to Rendezvous, but knew
the pursuit of barbecue ribs was another quest altogether, found their complimentary red beans and rice a favorite; were disappointed by Gridley's. So far
nothing surpassed Wood's, and it was here that we brought friends and colleagues, made barbecue dinner runs between classes and plenary sessions at
Governor's School, hauled carloads of Yankees in the hope of converting
them, trying to show them at least one solid reason for not crossing the
Mason-Dixon Line in a northerly direction. At one point, Danny, the pit man
at Wood's, after seeing how many folks we had brought to sample their wares,
exclaimed, "You boys sho do like barbecue." Many, many others shared our
taste in Wood's, for it grew from the primitive shack to a huge barn-like structure complete with banquet room. And, to our amazement and delight, the
quality of the barbecue remained the same.

Year after year, from 1986 to 1994, we made our trek to Wood's, a month in summer and two days in February. Mid-February was time to read applications for Governor's School, and I was a lucky one, chosen as a reader. One
February, Stephen, Ernest Lee, and I made our way to Martin following an ice
storm, dodging trees fallen across Interstate 40, arriving at Wood's to find the
lights out, the pig weather vane on the roof frozen in a sheet of ice. But
Colonel Wood himself was there, served us the last barbecue sandwiches before closing due to weather. We have photographs of us sitting in the car
chowing down on those last barbecue sandwiches. Arriving home from that
trip I decided to write my friend and Governor's School colleague Keith
Daniel in Yankee Massachusetts about those last sandwiches. I had saved one
of the wrappers, even smeared a bit of sauce on it, and thought I would tease
his taste buds. I began the letter, but what evolved was the following poem:

Song for Wood's Barbeque Shack in McKenzie, Tennessee

Those mid-winter sandwiches proved apocryphal, for a year later in the
summer when we arrived at Wood's parking lot we noticed with a sinking
feeling that the place looked abandoned, weeds growing wildly everywhere.
Only later were we to learn of the colonel's death, the closing of his business,
no one in the family to continue the tradition. We were forced then, to try a
spot just down the road from Wood's, a little nondescript block building that
announced simply Mayo's. We sat inside and talked to Mr. Mayo, then an elderly man who told us of Wood's death. Mayo's barbecue was nearly as good as
Wood's, but within a year, Mayo too was gone, his business dying with him.

So on we traveled, following tips of special places in Memphis, discovering
Interstate Barbeque and finding it mighty fine, but Memory is an unforgiving
mistress, and will allow few if any contenders. In a moment of great sadness at
the loss of Wood's and simultaneously a moment of sheer delight in remembering the place and its food, I asked our friend John Egerton, food writer and
critic, if he had ever eaten at Wood's. When he said, "no," I went on to describe
the barbecue to him.

"You need to go to Bozo's," he said. "And here's how you get there. . ." So it
was on another trip to Memphis that we found Mason, Tennessee, a wide
space in the road that boats both Bozo's Barbeque and Gus's World Famous
Fried Chicken. Yes, Bozos is as good as Wood's, but the sauce at Wood's still
seems better, just the right edge of pepper and vinegar (begrudging Memory
again!). On our annual southern pilgrimage this May, Stephen and I stopped
again at Bozo's, declared the barbecue sandwiches as good as ever. As we were
about to leave, I asked the waitress about a particularly delicious-looking
chocolate pie behind her. "Oh, that's German chocolate pie," she said. "It's so
good it'll make you want to slap somebody." Whereupon another customer
standing in line said, "I always heard it's so good that it make you want to slap
your mama." We laughed and agreed that wouldn't be advisable, but we both
knew the joy of finding something so good it's almost inexpressible, so powerfully fine you are set into motion, so moved to speak in the most elemental
gestures. And so with quests: something stirs deeply within, occasioned by
season or weather, and we're off; as Geoffrey Chaucer long ago noted, "folks
long to go on pilgrimages." Whatever. Come spring, expect to see Stephen and
me on the road southward, still searching, loving every step of the journey.