Shockingly, LA Times gets barbecue

This reverent appreciation of Allen and Son, one of the absolute temples of Eastern North Carolina barbecue gastronomy, was sent to me today by *three* different enrevanche readers, only two of whom have websites. ;-)

Blackwood Station, N.C. — The moon was high over the loblolly pines when Keith Allen arrived for work at 2 a.m. He built a fire of hickory logs, and a plume of rich blue smoke creased the black night sky.

When the fire had produced glowing red coals, Allen shoveled them into a pit below two dozen hog shoulders on a metal rack. For the next nine hours, he shoveled more coals, stoked the fire, and turned the shoulders as they cooked a ruddy, smoky brown.

Long after first light, he was still at it. With a cleaver in one hand and a knife in the other, he chopped the pork with a rhythmic whump, whump, whump. Then he plunged two gloved hands into the steaming meat to mix in a homemade sauce of vinegar, salt and red pepper.

And that, for purists, is the long, hard, wearying way of making genuine pit-cooked Eastern North Carolina chopped barbecue.

Barbecue done in rare form (Los Angeles Times, Jan 31, 2007)

A tip of the enrevanche John Deere cap to John, Greg, and anonymous.