When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson

31 January 2007

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.

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