Pig, Smoke, Pit: This Food Is Seriously Slow

bruno

15-Year Member
Retired Moderator
Joined
Feb 2, 2008
Messages
3,059
I'm not a Southerner and I don't miss a lot from all of my years living in the south (ok i was sick of shovelling in January this year but other than that not much!!) But I surely do miss Carolina Barbecue. Why can't you get this stuff in Massachusetts??!! JAMZMOM- bring some of this north with you when you come for the Graduation!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/dining/10United.html?em

"AT 3:45 on a recent Saturday morning — as frogs croaked into the void and a mufflerless pickup downshifted onto Cow Head Road — Rodney Scott, 37, pitmaster here at Scott’s Variety Store and Bar-B-Q, gave the order.

“Flip the pigs,” he said, his voice calm and measured. “Let’s go. Some char is good — too much and we lose him.”

A. J. Shaw, a college student home for the summer, and Thomas Lewis, a onetime farmer, left their seats and joined Mr. Scott in the pit room, a rectangular shed dominated by two waist-high concrete banks, burnished ebony by wood smoke, ash and grease.

Ten butterflied pig carcasses — taut bellies gone slack, pink flesh gone cordovan — were in the pits when Mr. Lewis reached for the sheet of wire fencing on which one of the pigs had been roasting since 4 the previous afternoon. In lockstep, Mr. Shaw topped that same pig with a second sheet of fencing, reached his gloved fingers into the netting, and grabbed hold.

As the men struggled, the 150 pounds of dead weight torqued the makeshift wire cage. When the carcass landed, skin-side down, on the metal grid of a recently fired pit, skeins of grease trailed down the pig’s flanks, and the smoldering oak and hickory coals beneath hissed and flared.

“I cooked my first one when I was 11,” Mr. Scott said, as he seasoned the pig with lashings of salt, red pepper, black pepper and Accent, a flavor enhancer made with MSG.

Working a long-handled mop, he drenched the pig in a vinegar sauce of a similar peppery composition. “You’ve got to always be on point, when you’re cooking this way,” he said.

Cooking this way isn’t done much any more. This place, a couple of hours northwest of Charleston, as well as the Scott family approach to slow-smoking whole hogs over hardwood coals, appears to be vestigial.

For aficionados in search of ever-elusive authenticity, Scott’s offers all the rural tropes of a signal American barbecue joint. The main building is tin-roofed and time-worn. Dogs loll in the parking lot, where old shopping carts are stacked with watermelons in the summer, sweet potatoes in the fall. On church pews under the eave, locals visit with neighbors and barbecue pilgrims commune with foam clamshells stuffed with pulled pork, $8 a pound
- rest of the article at link
 
Yep, I kin 'preciate Carolina Q myself, hailing from further south and having attended college in NC piedmont area. We did a 60 lb suckling in the front yard this year for our annual USNA Commissioning Week Blue Angels party for our sponsor families. We found a caterer who had the rig and the pig, plus all the right stuff for the authentic Carolina style vinegar base. He started the pig the night before and hauled her on over for the finish in the front yard. Had all the appropriate fixins too. mmm... mmm ... mmmm....
 
Working a long-handled mop, he drenched the pig in a vinegar sauce of a similar peppery composition.

Love the meat, but those in Eastern Carolina need to learn how to make sauce. :wink:

Not that vinegar & pepper water they call sauce. It's nothing but pickle juice. :zip:

I mean Real BBQ sauce. :thumb:

Here's a sauce recipe that has won every (4) contest it's ever been entered in. Best on pulled pork shoulder (Boston butt) after a long day on the smoker (hickory wood preferred).

Sauce #7 Rev 2.2

1/2 C. white vinegar
1/2 C. malt vinegar
1 C. dark brown sugar
2 tsp. black pepper
6 squirts Tabasco sauce
2 onions, sliced
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. paprika
2 C. water
2 tblsp. prepared mustard
6 tsp. salt
1 lemon, sliced
1 C. butter
3 15 oz. cans tomato sauce
6 tblsp. Worcestershire sauce
6 tblsp. Wright's liquid smoke

1. Mix all ingredients except the tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce and liquid smoke. Simmer in a pot for 20 minutes.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients and apply higher heat until the mixture just begins to boil.

3. Strain.

This recipe makes about 2½ quarts of barbecue sauce.

:worship: :cool:
 
Ya'll realize that wars have started over this stuff. My problem is that I LOVE BBQ of all kinds. I'll eat both the pickle juice & the Yankee versions. Here's the true problem I have.... Yankees say, "We're gonna have a BBQ! Come on over!" I find this "BBQ" usually constitutes a few hot dogs thrown on some gas grill. SACRILIDGE! No way! Thats called "grilling out". PERIOD! True BBQ involves a 24 hour process & a pig in a pit with hickory. I always find myself questioning if anyone ever watches food network. Educate yourself people! :biggrin:

Thanks Luigi! Gonna print it out & give it a try for kicks!
 
Ya'll realize that wars have started over this stuff. My problem is that I LOVE BBQ of all kinds. I'll eat both the pickle juice & the Yankee versions.

Yankee version? Never heard of that, what is it? Tell me it doesn't include marshmallows like a few I've had from California! :screwy:

My sauce is a Kansas City-type sauce, maybe a little closer to Piedmont sauce than that pickle water they use on the NC coast.

Now, that yellow stuff y'all use in South Carolina should be outlawed! Better suited to a hot dog or a bratwurst then pulled pork!! :biggrin:

And that stuff that comes from Texas? Nothing but chili-flavored tomato soup. :thumbdown::thumbdown::thumbdown:

Thanks Luigi! Gonna print it out & give it a try for kicks!

It scales down easily, you may want to make a 1/2 batch to try it the first time.

:cool:
 
I am from the deep south (Alabama) and when we have BBQ it comes from a restaurant, served on a plate. My husband and I moved to NC for 5 years and when we first moved there, we were invited to a BBQ, a pig pickin'. Sure, sounds like fun! We arrived and to our horror, there was the carcass of a pig on a table with an apple in its mouth and people were standing around it with fork in hand, "picking" the meat off the pig. Thought we were going to hurl :eek: Could have cared less about the BBQ sauce as we left right away and ate our dinner at a steak restaurant.
 
I am from the deep south (Alabama) and when we have BBQ it comes from a restaurant, served on a plate. My husband and I moved to NC for 5 years and when we first moved there, we were invited to a BBQ, a pig pickin'. Sure, sounds like fun! We arrived and to our horror, there was the carcass of a pig on a table with an apple in its mouth and people were standing around it with fork in hand, "picking" the meat off the pig. Thought we were going to hurl :eek: Could have cared less about the BBQ sauce as we left right away and ate our dinner at a steak restaurant.

Geez they were using a fork- what more do you want?
Go to Hawaii and the Hawaiian version is Kailua Pig- wrapped in Ti leaves and cooked underground in an Emu for 12 hours or so then you throw it over Rice. It's gloriously fat, salty as sea water and delicious and eaten with a side of Poi and Poki but it sends you into virtual cardiac arrest from all of the salt and fat. You use your hands or maybe chop sticks to eat it.
 
Luigi. C'mon. You actually ate the California version with marshmellows? You need some serious help my man. And just an FYI, I was born a Midwesterner so the Kansas city style appeals to me. BUT I live the life of an adventurer. Must eat BBQ in every state travelled. So far, I really gotta say, I kinda love the Memphis BBQ best. Anyone ever gone to the Rendevous? Wowz. Talk about some serious NomNomNomNom. Anyhow, as for the pig pickin'.... depends on how much beer one drinks me thinks. I saw folks eating feet & snouts. Not so Nom.

I'm trying to aquire a taste for the yellow sauce still after 20 years. Some edible, some not. Down here I think its more smoked meat instead of BBQ which always causes fights in the house.
 
No beer. This was a church gathering. Those people were actually sober. :eek:
 
I confess to loving Q of all kinds, always williing to try new styles and sauces, dry rubs, etc. Just got back from a biz trip to Texas, enjoyed brisket and beef ribs there. We have some Korean-style kalbi short ribs marinating for tonight.

Had 2 tours in Pearl, sure do miss kalua pig Thursdays at the Naval Shipyard cafeteria. And Mongolian BBQ at the Hickam AFB Club...

Ain't America great, we get to have major discussions on the comparative merits of Q, what constitutes authentic Q, sauce vs. rubs, sauce vs. sauce, and so on.
 
I have to say Capt MJ, you're right- this discussion is pretty hilarious :)... I love the part about CA :)... but we aren't that bad :).... lol
 
on a tangent here, how is the food at the academies? I don't figure our plebe will starve, but just curious...

Oh, and for the record, being from KC - mmmmMMMMmmmmm BBQ Kansas City style tops the list! Not to biased an answer, huh? :yllol:
 
on a tangent here, how is the food at the academies? I don't figure our plebe will starve, but just curious...

Oh, and for the record, being from KC - mmmmMMMMmmmmm BBQ Kansas City style tops the list! Not to biased an answer, huh? :yllol:

It's delicious in BCT! :) Food is all good then.

The food is good, its not home cooking, but its not bad. Usually, like me, people just start getting tired of the same stuff over 4 years.
 
Back
Top