Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue (Cornbread Nation: Best of Southern Food Writing) (21 page)

Barry Pelts says the most common question he is asked about his involvement in Corky's is, "What's a nice Jewish boy doing in the barbecue business?"
"Everybody kids around," says Barry, "that you either have to be black or Jewish to work at Corky's." Following in the footsteps of his father, Don Pelts, who
founded Corky's in 1984, Barry actively develops new products for the company. He recently developed a kosher barbecue sauce and is now selling kosher
barbecued beef, brisket, chicken, and smoked turkeys by special order and for
fund-raising events.

Corky's caters many events in the Jewish community, including Temple Israel's annual Chanukah party and its brotherhood dinners, which feature barbecued beef brisket and chicken. Providing a kosher product, however, is a
much larger challenge. When the restaurant first opened, it was criticized by
the Orthodox. "The rabbis talked about it in shul," said Pelts. The criticism
ceased over time. Fourth-generation members at Temple Israel, the Pelts fam ily contributes to Jewish causes throughout the city and donates Corky's nonpork mail-order barbecue for Jewish functions across the country.

When Orthodox leaders at Memphis Hebrew Academy called and asked
Corky's to cater their annual kosher fund-raising dinner, Barry Pelts and his
father Don agreed they would rise to the challenge. "Everybody that is Orthodox here in Memphis can't eat our food," said Barry, "but they hear about it."
Catering the fund-raising dinner gave the Pelts family an opportunity to share
Corky's flavor with the Orthodox community with the assurance that the
meal was certified kosher. After three months of planning with Rabbi Nathan
Greenblatt, who oversees the Memphis va'ad (a local organization of rabbis
and rashgiachs, Orthodox Jews who inspect and makes sure all laws of
kashrut are observed), Corky's team was ready. They purchased new utensils,
scorched the ovens, and thoroughly cleaned the production kitchens to kasher
them for the kosher barbecue. The rabbi met in Olive Branch, Mississippi, with
Corky's suppliers to ensure that all the ingredients were kosher. "It was the talk
of the town," said Barry. "It was the biggest fund-raiser they've ever had at Hebrew Academy.... The whole Orthodox community, they went nuts over it."

In the fall of 2002, Don and Barry Pelts again offered their services to the
school, which by then had changed its name to the Margolin Hebrew Academy. Having just purchased a new cooker, the Pelts realized that before the
equipment became tainted with pork would be an opportune time, as well as
a mitzvah (a good deed), to prepare one more round of kosher barbecue for
the school's fund-raiser. The exciting news was posted on the academy's website, proclaiming that kosher barbecue from Corky's was available "one time
only ... under strict supervision of Rabbi N. Greenblatt and the Vaad Ha-
Kehiloth of Memphis, Tennessee." A postcard advertising the glatt kosher barbecue was mailed to the Memphis Jewish community. It stated, "First it was
M & Ms, next it was Oreos ... and now the WORLD FAMOUS Memphis' own
#i barbecue goes KOSHER!" Corky's famous logo of a pig in a chef's hat was
temporarily replaced with a smiling cow. The card advertised various packages of kosher barbecue delicacies, like the "Ultimate Shabbos Special," which
included barbecue beef brisket, hickory-smoked barbecue beef spare ribs,
barbecue chicken "drummies," barbecue sauce, and barbecue beans. The
chefs at Corky's also prepared kosher, hickory-smoked turkeys for Thanksgiving, advertising them as "turkeys with ta'am [Hebrew for flavor]."

Barry Pelts was raised in Memphis and frequently ate both his mother's
beef brisket and pit barbecue from the restaurant Leonard's. Leonard Huebuerger is credited with inventing the Memphis pork-barbecue sandwich,
which features pulled or chopped shoulder meat flavored with a tomato based sauce, topped with coleslaw, and served on a bun. A frequent advertiser
in the Hebrew Watchman (a Jewish newspaper published in Memphis that
served the mid-South Jewish community), Leonard's promised "the best takehome sandwich pack in Dixie. Come in for a meal you'll really enjoy.... The
Old Reliable with the Know-How." And Jewish customers came ... after Sunday school at Temple Israel, on dates, and after the movies. Barbecue drew
Jews to other popular Memphis drive-ins and restaurants in the 19405 and
1950s. "We'd never go home without going by the Pig and Whistle," said Jack
Abraham of Memphis. "My parents knew I was going. They didn't know I was
eating barbecue. I'd tell them I had an order of French-fried potatoes, [and]
forget to mention the barbecue."

Jewish love of Memphis barbecue continues today and is particularly
strong among Jews who have moved to other regions of the country. Just like
the Southern Jews who buy Jewish "soul food" when they visit cities such as
New York, Jews who moved away from the South fill their suitcases with
Southern "soul food" when they come home to visit. "I never left Memphis to
return to my home in Philadelphia or D.C. without a stop-over at Corky's
window or Seessel's Grocery for ribs and shredded pork," said D. D. Eisenberg,
a Memphian who now lives in Potomac, Maryland. Even Jews who live in Mississippi, a state famous for its own delicious barbecue, view Memphis as the
"northern capital" of Mississippi and frequently visit the city for a taste of its
"Ique." During the summer of 2001, Macy Hart, a native of Winona, Mississippi, was honored in Jackson, Mississippi, for his thirty years of leadership in
the Jewish South as director of the Henry S. Jacobs Camp. Three hundred
guests attended the event and were, of course, served barbecue chicken and
beef from Corky's.

In Blytheville, Arkansas, a small town seventy-five miles north of Memphis,
congregants at Temple Israel come from towns located throughout northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri. The temple was most active in the
196os and 1970s, and members often made long drives home after services on
Friday night and after religious school on Sundays. A popular stop before they
headed back home was the Dixie Pig, Blytheville's renowned barbecue restaurant. Founded by the Halsell family in 1923, the Dixie Pig's specialty is hickorysmoked pork shoulder served chopped on a plate or on a bun with a side of
coleslaw. Dixie Pig's chopped barbecue is so beloved that when Blytheville residents die, locals bring a tray of barbecue, sauce, and buns to the home of bereaved relatives and friends. Huddy Cohen, a member of Blytheville's Temple
Israel adopted this custom and has delivered many a barbecue "shiva"
(mourning) meal to her Protestant friends and neighbors.

Although Memphis is the center of barbecue culture for Jewish Southerners, the relationship between Jews and barbecue is not limited to this region.
Examples abound throughout the South of Jewish cooks and kosher butchers
melding "Jewish" dishes with the cooking methods of barbecue, and of Jewish
customers devoted to their local barbecue restaurants. In practically every
Southern state, Jewish cooks take pride in their regional version of barbecued
brisket, a favorite dish for Shabbos dinners, synagogue potlucks, and other
community functions.

In the early i98os, Rachelle Saltzman collected oral histories for the Center
for Southern Folklore's "Lox and Grits" documentary project on Jewish life in
Memphis. Saltzman suggests that "Jews who live in Memphis consider themselves as Southern as their Gentile neighbors, but they also regard their community as being as Jewish as any in the Northeast." Her observation is confirmed time and again by individuals within the diverse congregations of the
city. While the members of Temple Israel, Baron Hirsch, Beth Sholom, and
Anshei Sphard-Beth El Emeth do not share the same styles of worship, food,
or social events, they do share a common identity as Southerners and as Jews.
Each congregation expresses their identity in ways that speak to the larger
Gentile community about their expectations for social acceptance and their
experiences of religious observance.

Perhaps one of the strongest symbols of Memphis food culture, barbecue
also links the Jews of Memphis. Regardless of their level of observance, Memphis Jews have made peace with barbecue and found ways to embrace its distinctive regional taste. In the words of the old Halpern's Delicatessen motto,
Southern Jews "say it with food." Some speak with barbecue, others with
kosher brisket, but all share a common culture by bridging their Jewish and
Southern heritage at the table.

Somewhere in the wistful nostalgia of years past, I can imagine writing an article on hash for newly transplanted South Carolinians. Residents from Iowa
or Nebraska-one of the states that always looked really big and square on the
wall map. Folks that needed an introduction to the enigmatic South Carolina
dish called hash. Reality bemoans the fact that things have changed in South
Carolina. I am painfully aware of this because my "Got Hash?" bumper sticker
causes less Pavlovian lip licking than eyebrow raising. Even some in local law
enforcement, known for their attraction to culinary lures, eye me with keen
suspicion.

Dismaying as it is, many suffer from an unfamiliarity with hash that now
runs several generations deep. Hash carries with it a significant amount of
baggage and a sense of unsettling intrigue. Unlike Brunswick stew, the darling
of two neighboring states, hash has the distinction of containing unrecognizable ingredients. Not being able to identify individual ingredients tends to be
a cause for alarm. In the words of at least one North Carolinian, "It's prechewed, made for people with no teeth." While hash has come a long way, it is
still synonymous with random hog parts-you know, all that stuff. Traveling
through the state, I am frequently left with the impression that many look
upon hash with the same sense of pity and puzzlement as they do the lone
shoe spending its final hours on the shoulder of a highway. Where exactly is
the other shoe? Are there really snouts in your pot of hash? Fortunately, this
stew ignorance has led to a renewed sense of importance for many Carolina
hash makers.

The South has no shortage of fine local barbecue houses. Not a soul with
any amount of unforgiving girth in the waistline would argue. Most of these
community-based gems operate without obese marketing budgets or brightly
coiffured mascots. Despite the reality presented by restaurants poised like perky teenage flirts off exit ramps from Hardeeville to Dillon, the Palmetto
State can still boast a dynamic hash tradition.

The stories surrounding these establishments are as colorful as they are
varied. In spite of the wanton consumption of the collective petri dish of
mass-produced food, most local barbecue joints have a firm grip on their
agricultural roots. While many have phased out such traditional delicacies as
souse, liver pudding, and hogshead hash, they maintain a clear vision of
whence they came. Symbolism runs high-PawPaw's cast-iron kettle, Dad's
heralded sauce recipe, Auntie's special coleslaw.

One commonality among regional food traditions -whether crawfish boils
in Louisiana, clambakes in Massachusetts, or burgoo in western Kentucky- is
an emphasis on individual variation. This surge of individualistic pride
among hash makers is an anathema to the incessant standardization of corporate food. Variation in preparation (and consumption) involves relationships between numerous factors, one being the dynamic and powerful influence of folk belief. One of the most widely circulated folk beliefs associated
with hash involves the most beneficial time to prepare the stew. Cooking by
the light of the full moon is acknowledged by many to be the best scenario,
though very few restrict their cooking to this particular time.

Mister Hawg's Bar-B-Q is one of the exceptions. Owners Marion and Davis
Robinson produce hash and barbecue on a schedule dictated by traditional
moon lore. Nestled deep in the heart of Fairfield County, the barbecue pit my
wife now considers my second home proudly proclaims to have "Fairfield's
finest butts and ribs." The area is dominated by pine forest that thrives in shallow, rolling pastureland. One hundred years ago it looked much the same.