Barbecue

There are a lot of reasons for this. As we industrialized our food systems and meats began being raised and processed by giant corporations, its quality, especially the quality of pork, declined dramatically. Pork was hit especially hard in the 1980s when these large companies tried to rebrand pork as “the other white meat.” They started raising pigs that were lean and lacked marbling in order to appeal to a consumer who was looking for “healthier”, lower fat, options. Unfortunately, these lean, bland breeds still dominate pork production in the United States. It’s likely what you’ll find at your local supermarkets. 

This decline in the quality of the pork we raise led to dryer, less flavorful barbecue, which probably drove the craze for sticky sweet, tangy sauces, which bbq purists see as a sure sign you’re not a good pit master. If you have to hide behind a big flavored sauce after all, what are we even doing here?

Luckily, small farmers came to the rescue for some of us. There was a resurgence of heritage breeds being raised by a lot of small farms, whose bloodlines and breed characteristics predate the abominations of the 1980s big brands. Breeds like Red Wattle, Berkshire, Tawworth, and Duroc started to become available if you knew a guy, though its price and spotty availability, and access to processing facilities for the farmer continue to make it a difficult choice for barbecue.

The other big challenge barbecue faces is what’s required of pit masters. Modern smokers often make it possible to be fairly hands off during a long smoke. Traditionally, a pit master had to tend a fire for hours, often overnight, and had to be very hands on during the entire process. More often than not these days, meats are smoked, chilled, and heated for service by most barbecue restaurants, instead of being served right off the rig as nature intends. 

Not a lot of people are interested in the lifestyle required to be a great pitmaster these days. 

Barbecues started off as events, not restaurants. One-offs or occasional celebrations that only required a night or two of fire tending instead of a lifetime dedicated to overnight work in the midst of ash and smoke. And maybe that’s the habit we should get back to in lieu of restaurants that rely on equipment, shortcuts, and sauces to make bbq manageable. 

That’s kind of what barbecue at The Southerner morphed into as the years went on. Now we do it when we want to instead of every day, which grew to be too much for our crew. Bubba, our smoker, doesn’t get the workout she used to, but she still looks out over our parking lot, and every now and again she gets to be the celebratory center of attention.

East Tennessee, where my ancestors are from, does not have a terribly strong barbecue tradition driving it, at least not as out and proud as other well known regions. In Central Texas, often thought to be the heart of U.S. barbecue, the main meat is beef, cooked by a live, smoky fire. Sauces are not typically the star of the show. 

As you move east, from Kansas City and Memphis, pork becomes more common, still cooked over a smoky fire, and often by the cut: ribs, pulled pork from the shoulder. Beef and chicken make appearances, but pork is king, especially ribs. Hop over the Smoky mountains and into the Piedmont region of North Carolina and barbecue is primarily pulled pork shoulder and smoke becomes less prevalent. While pork there is still often cooked using a live fire, the wood is often burned down to coals away from the meat, so the flavor of smoke is less prevalent. As you move further east into the low country, whole hog barbecue becomes the thing. The sauces in the “west” part of the region, the Piedmont, are often tomato and vinegar based. The further east you go, the more mustard comes into play. These are often called mops and are meant to be used during the cooking process, though they do often end up at the table as well. 

Pork barbecue in the Tennessee foothills is rooted in whole hog. The European farmsteaders who settled the region inherited their barbecue skills,  like so many of the South’s culinary traditions, from enslaved African Americans, who learned from the now displaced Native Americans, how to build a fire and cook an animal for a big group of hungry people. Of course, the Native Americans were cooking hunted game, like deer. Pigs are not native to North America. They were brought here by Spanish colonizers in the 15th and 16th centuries and grew to be a crucial part of homesteading in the Smoky Mountains.

Barbecue in the Smokies happened in the fall, when pigs were harvested. A family (or perhaps a few families working together), would raise piglets until they were old enough to forage on their own on the mountain side. These pigs would grow to adulthood eating forest mast, mushrooms, acorns, and roots while wandering wild. This practice had unexpected consequences, as not every pig would be reclaimed. And now, the wild boar descendants of the hogs that roam in the mountains have become a dangerous and environmentally destructive nuisance. Most of the ones that got reclaimed were bound for the winter larder in the form of salted, smoked and aged cuts of preserved meat like bacon and country ham. 

But some were the honored guests at a big party, where neighbors gathered and ate from the fresh fall garden’s bounty. Tomatoes and cucumbers, cabbages, collard greens, broad beans and sweet corn might all surround a slowly cooked hog to celebrate the transition from a season of growing, to a season of preserving and putting up, readying that bounty for the long winter months ahead. 

This party was the inspiration for barbecue at The Southerner. We borrowed the offset smoker from Texas traditions, since we really love bark and smoke. We were best known for smoked sausages and pulled pork, the latter dressed with what we called Tennessee Mop. It’s a blend of cider vinegar and a little sugar, mustard, lots of black and red pepper, and some onion. It’s based off of a recipe from Joseph Dabney’s amazing book Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking, which should be required reading for every lover of Southern food. 

In it, legendary Carolina chef Bill Neal and Tennessee cookbook author, Martha McCullough Williams, give their family mop recipes one after the other. While they originate from different sides of the mountain, the foundations are essentially the same, mainly the idea of bringing vinegar and lots of black pepper and spicy red pepper to balance the fatty richness of slow smoked pork. On the Carolina side, sugar and water were used to balance the mops’ sharp acidity. On the Tennessee side, it was lard. While ours kind of ended up being a mash up of the two, we claimed it, in honor of my family roots, for the state of Tennessee. 

Regardless of region, cut of meat, sauce, or rig, barbecue is still one of the best ways to gather family and friends. There is usually plenty of beer and good music, debates over recipes and techniques, reunions with loved ones you don’t see that much, and remembrances of ones who are gone. 

Good barbecues become memories we never lose. And even if the cook doesn’t go as planned, even if the rig catches fire and everything is burned and dry, I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a bad one.