Food Feature: Where there’s smoke

Looking for traditional barbecue in an uprooted society

Barbecue is one of those fundamental foods, like collard greens and cornbread, to which native Southerners are genetically predisposed. It’s also one of the easiest for outsiders to quickly come to love: Who but a staunch vegetarian can resist a sandwich of smoky, juicy meat anointed with a complex, palate-tingling sauce? Or a rack of succulent, slow-cooked ribs so irresistible that you drift from conversation and look up moments later to find you’ve polished off a plateful in a matter of minutes?

Yet honest, traditional barbecue seems to be more and more difficult to find across the South, and it’s certainly a challenge in Atlanta. When was the last time you had barbecue so sublime that you sighed with pleasure as your mouth made contact? Most of us, I fear, are slowly being seduced by the Dark Side of the Barbecue Force: The majority of Americans look to chain restaurants and their pallid imitations for their ‘cue fix. American commercialization strikes again.

I became a born-again barbecue seeker last October when I, along with 200 others, converged on Oxford, Miss., to attend “Barbecue: Smoke, Sauce and History,” a four-day symposium sponsored by the Southern Foodways Alliance. The conference, as much a blissful gorge-fest as an academic think-tank, was the fifth and largest annual gathering of the Alliance, whose stalwart mission is, in its own words, “to celebrate, preserve, promote and nurture the traditional and developing food cultures of the American South.”

For those who may as yet only know the bastardized concepts of ‘cue, a quick primer: True barbecue achieves its haunting, smoky taste and buttery texture through indirect heat.

Definitive styles of barbecue predominantly originate from the Carolinas (pork) and Texas (beef). Other meat variations (goat, mutton, chicken) are found elsewhere in the South. The meat is placed near but not directly over the fire, and the temperature is intentionally kept low: One pit master who spoke at the symposium wisely intoned, “Cool fire is really what you’re after.” Wood (hickory and oak are common) and charcoal are the fuels of choice, since it’s the smoke they produce that imbue the meat with its distinctive flavor. It takes a knowledgeable, almost intuitive hand to command the process, which can take eight hours or longer for large cuts of meat.

And that’s just the bare bones. Appropriate side dishes for barbecue (coleslaw and Brunswick stew are almost universally acceptable, french fries and mac-and-cheese are debatable) are a matter worthy of their own conference. Geography plays an essential roll in the copious and distinct variations on this elemental, deeply Southern cooking process. “Styles of barbecue change every 50 miles,” noted Times Picayune columnist Lolis Eric Elie, who was the opening speaker at the symposium. Discussions around barbecue topography during the four days in Oxford ranged from the origins of the regionally characteristic sauces (the vinegar and tomato-based sauces from North Carolina, the mustard-based variant from South Carolina, and even a mayonnaise-based concoction for chicken from Alabama) to the naming of those towns that inarguably excel in barbecue, and those that flat out do not.

It was the latter topic one afternoon that roused me from my post-lunch food coma: I imagine few will be surprised to learn that Atlanta did not fare well in the barbecue category. One wry speaker, noted sociologist John Shelton Reed, took particular aim. He referred to Atlanta as a “quiche town,” and in reference to its cultural and culinary standing declared, “When I look at Atlanta, I see what a quarter-million Confederate soldiers died to prevent.”

And though there was a note of good-natured ribbing in his tone, I could sense from the crowd (predominately Southerners) that he was far from alone in his sentiments.

When I left Oxford, Reed’s comments stuck in my otherwise satiated craw. Why isn’t Atlanta more connected to the South’s rich barbecue culture? The city’s history offers initial clues, of course: Atlanta is a town of transplants and has long held its focus more on industry and urbanization, which seems antithetical to the traditionally rural background from which barbecue hails. But what about Memphis, Kansas City and Chicago? Each of those cities offers outstanding, distinctive barbecue.

Striking out on a barbecue-eating binge only confirmed Reed’s observations. After feasting on superior examples of sublime barbecue in Oxford (including an awe-inspiring, whole-hog ‘cue with peppery vinegar sauce from Mitchell’s in Wilson, N.C., perhaps the best I’ve ever had), I have a fairly exacting idea of what I’m after, and I haven’t found much of it in Atlanta. Most of the intown joints, many of which have been around for years and provide the kind of low-rent ambience that is meant to signify well-cooked barbecue, offer inconsistently cooked meat, served with a cloying tomato-based sauce akin to the oversweet concoctions used in rapacious chains. Maybe they’re simply pandering to popular tastes, but it sure doesn’t arouse admiration or incite late-night cravings.

To my mind, the best barbecue in the metro area can be found at The Swallow at the Hollow in Roswell, and Pig-N-Chik in Sandy Springs. I’m particularly enamored with the Swallow’s chopped pork. Moist and perfumed with smoke, it’s delicious even without any sauce — the true test of barbecue. (Barbecue purists in Georgia are suspicious of meat that’s served with sauce already added.) But the pulled pork sandwich at Pig-N-Chik is a mighty close second. The option for sauce here is a light, North Carolina-style vinegar-based version.

I feel somewhat sacrilegious reporting this, however. Both the Swallow and the Pig-N-Chik are recent entries in the Atlanta barbecue arena, and both veer from established custom. The Swallow places three kinds of sauce on the table, and Pig-N-Chik offers barbecued salmon. These occurrences would be deemed heresy by barbecue traditionalists. Can such modern takes, however delicious, be deemed as worthy of praise as the time-honored, tradition-steeped barbecue joints outside Atlanta?

Talking with John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and a prominent scholar on the South’s food culture, provided balm for my concerns. “Southern cuisine isn’t something that stopped evolving during antebellum times, or during the Civil Rights Movement,” he reminds me. “Barbecue changes when it becomes urban, the way the blues changed when it came to the city. Maybe it’s all right to embrace that, rather than wish it differently.”

In that spirit, I stand by my choices. Take good ‘cue where you may, ‘cause it ain’t easy to find nowadays. In a city that is in many ways divorced from its cultural roots, it’s vital to seek out barbecue served in establishments like the Swallow and Pig-N-Chik, whose hearts are in the right place. I’m learning that’s one of the secrets to great barbecue.

bill.addison@creativeloafing.com

This is the first of an occasional series titled In Search of Southern.






Restaurants
International
Food Events