Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue (Cornbread Nation: Best of Southern Food Writing) (26 page)

I would like to say it was divine inspiration that led me to Prayer Assembly
Church of God in Christ on East El Segundo Boulevard that Saturday afternoon, but the truth is that Roderick Phillips, Woody's thirty-two-year-old
son, led me there and then secured from me a promise to bring him back
some barbecued turkey necks. But it was divine inspiration that led the Rev.
Clevester Williams Sr. to add a barbecue stand to the reception hall, commercial kitchen, offices, and two sanctuaries that comprise his stucco-andstained-glass edifice. The reverend's office, which itself has a kitchenette and
complete bathroom attached, is testimony in part to the success of the barbecue business. "I started forty years ago because I had built a church downstairs, and I needed $1o,ooo to buy some pews," Rev. Williams told me. "I went
to bed that night and asked the Lord how I could get the money. And the Lord
revealed to me the barbecue, the spices, and the wood."

The reverend's barbecue vision had its doubters at first, but they have been
supplanted by the people who line up every Saturday at the take-out trailer
beside the church. As I took my place among them, I looked across the parking lot and saw two smoke-oozing pits tended by a man wearing a gas mask.
The mask, a practical accouterment, is neither attractive nor common. But if
the gas mask was in some small way responsible for the fine barbecue that was
packed on to my styrofoam take-out plate, then all pit masters should wear
them. In the case of the ribs, which had a wonderful smoky sweetness, the
simple seasonings had become one with the meat. That flavor didn't permeate
the sliced beef as thoroughly, however. The turkey necks were fall-off-thebone tender, but they lacked a deep smoke flavor, as if they had been partially
boiled or baked. The sauce, which was among the best in Los Angeles, was neither too thick nor too sweet. It was well spiced with chili powder and flecks of
red pepper.

For all the charms of Prayer Assembly barbecue, the pleasures of lining up
in the church parking lot on the hottest part of a Saturday afternoon are not
for everyone. A very different aesthetic awaits diners at The Pig, a yearling
restaurant that combines down-home inspiration and upscale sophistication.
Though Daly Thompson grew up eating barbecue in Memphis, he and his
wife Liz learned their trade at white-tablecloth places before opening up their
Los Angeles restaurant. He was a chef, she a pastry chef. The decor at The Pig
is 1950s diner chic, and the menu ranges from New Orleans chicken-wing appetizers to Memphis-style pulled pork to a South Carolina-style mustard barbecue sauce. "I wanted to bring some true Memphis-style barbecue here, but
also bring some other influences," Thompson said. His collage of inspirations
shows up in some unexpected ways. For example, though beef brisket is most famous as a Texas staple, Thompson smokes his beef with apple wood rather
than oak, mesquite, or hickory, as would be done in Texas. And he dresses it
with the mustard barbecue sauce rather than a traditional tomato-based
sauce. The combinations and juxtapositions are neither jarring nor inappropriate, except perhaps to people for whom the regional purity of barbecue is
sacred. I'm not that much of a purist, though the pecan pie was my favorite
item on the menu.

Far from the hip crowds on South La Brea, Gadberry's is an island of barbecue on South Broadway. The old neighborhood had been primarily African
American, but the residents these days are mostly Spanish-speaking immigrants whose appetite for barbecue is not so large. "I guess my best years are
behind me," said John Gadberry, whose father opened the business in 1953.
The elder Gadberry came to the barbecue business by way of the brickmason's
trade. Figuring that cooking barbecue would be easier on his aging body, he
built himself a pit and opened a restaurant. Although the Gadberrys hail from
Yazoo City, Mississippi, John Gadberry grew up in Los Angeles. "I don't know
if the barbecue is Mississippi style, but my father came up with his recipes and
his whole style by himself. He grew up in Mississippi, but I don't know if his
food is typical or not."

The typical California barbecue menu mirrors that of Louisiana and eastern Texas: baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, pork ribs, chicken and sliced
beef, and a sweet, tomato-based sauce. Californian menus are distinct in only
a few obvious ways. Almost invariably, they include beef ribs. And, with few
exceptions, they don't include the pork shoulder that is the staple of Memphis
and the Southeast. Despite the obvious ways in which barbecue could not
possibly be classified as health food, California restaurants make an ostensible
concession to health concerns by offering patrons the option of substituting
sliced, bland wheat bread for the usual sliced, bland white bread.

While most barbecue regions differentiate themselves based on their
sauces, there is no distinct California barbecue sauce. With relatively little
variation, the sauces in the typical barbecue restaurants in Los Angeles and
the Bay Area taste like versions of the thick, tomato-based sauces that are marketed commercially in supermarkets.

As barbecue has become more popular across the nation, sophisticated
restaurateurs are studying barbecue and creating menus designed not just for
homesick Texans and Tennesseans but rather for people whose loyalty is to
good food, not regional accuracy. The best such student I met in my California explorations was Bob Kantor, a New Yorker who opened Memphis Minnie's in San Francisco. It may well be the finest barbecue restaurant in the state. The restaurant is named not for the late blues singer but for Kantor's
mother, who grew up in Memphis before moving to New York. Though Jewish, she loved pork. Her concession to dietary orthodoxy was that she tried
not to fry any bacon when she knew the rabbi would be visiting.

While Kantor may not be a religious zealot, he preaches his philosophy of
barbecue with all the fury of a new convert. The first rule is that Kantor does
not serve sauce on his barbecue. Sauce is available on the tables if you want it.
"I'm just trying to get people to look at barbecue as something other than
sauce," he explains. "If barbecue is nothing but sauce, why do I spend sixteen
hours working on my brisket?"

While Kantor may not slather sauce on his finished product, part of his
technique includes putting his mustard-based sauce on the raw meat before
adding the dry seasonings. His brisket was without doubt the best I tasted in
the state. Like the pork shoulders, the brisket was fall-apart tender, crusted on
the outside with spices and slightly charred meat, and richly seasoned the rest
of the way through. Kantor accomplishes this in large part with longer cooking times than most California pit masters employ. He cooks his briskets and
shoulders at 19o degrees for about sixteen hours. His pork ribs cook four or
five hours.

Across the bay from Memphis Minnie's, the real standout was the pork ribs
from KC's Bar-B-Q. They were succulent, densely smoked, and mildly sweet.
KG'S is also impressive for the collection of antique furniture and fixtures that
give its dining room a feel somewhere between a restaurant and a secondhand
shop. The "KC" in the name refers to the home town of the original owner.
But in 1968, after two years in business, he decided to move back to Kansas
City and sell the restaurant to the father of the current owner, Patrick Davis.
"The Bay Area has quite a few different barbecue places," he tells me. "But the
style is all based out of the South."

Maintaining the taste of the South was a conscious effort on the part of
transplanted black Southerners, argues historian Shirley Ann Wilson Moore,
author of To Place Our Deeds, a history of the African Americans in the East
Bay. "They brought with them their expectations of advancement and a freer
life than in the Jim Crow South, but they didn't want to leave their cultural
traditions behind," she told me in an interview. I confessed to Moore that I
had been disappointed that there were so few good barbecue restaurants in
California.

I got the impression from our conversation that, just as the black exodus
from the South was linked to the politics of Jim Crow, the decline of Southern
culture in California can be linked to the emergence of more militant black politics in the i96os and 1970s. Younger people, born in California, no longer
felt a connection to the barbecued meats and blues music of their Southernborn parents. As they created a culture more reflective of their own experiences, the remnants of Southern culture that flourished in California in the
19405 and 50s lost much of their potency.

There are still plenty of places to get barbecue in the state but, just as the
South no longer holds the depth of cultural significance it once held, the
meaning of the food and the people that serve it has been chipped away by
time and circumstance. What we are left with are not the vestiges of Southern
barbecue, but the vestiges of the vestiges.

Who knows where a quest begins-or ends? Perhaps life is a series of overlapping beginnings, launching out, seeking, turning back, circling, maybe once in
a while arriving. So perhaps this all began with the birth of my son, Stephen,
when we traveled on a cold February evening in 1964 from Rogersville to
Knoxville, only to be told by the doctor that we should find a place to stay that
night, "This baby isn't ready to arrive yet. Maybe tomorrow." Time then for a
late snack at Bill's Drive-In on Kingston Pike of what I believed to be the finest
barbecue I had so far tasted, rivaled only by the fiery homemade concoction
served up at the Dixie Queen back in Rogersville.

Whatever magic existed in that long-ago sandwich on the eve of my son's
birth has surely haunted us down through the years, has marked our relationship, joined us in the common bond of barbecue brotherhood. As a boy
Stephen grew up on Buddy's Barbeque, back in the days when Buddy's was
take-out only, and you stood cramped in that tiny space on Kingston Pike
waiting for Buddy or Lamuriel to dish out the unmistakable savor of hickory
smoke. And from there to the days of Buddy's Pickin' and Grinnin' Friday and
Saturday shows, bluegrass and barbecue served up with a mix that suited an
array of tastes. Those lazy summer days we floated on Price's Pond, casting
plastic worms for bass, drifting in the little aluminum boat Stephen has christened Satisfied Mind, daydreaming of the ultimate feast of the gods. Heather,
our Shetland sheepdog, settled in the belly of the boat, lulled by the cool waters, was soon fast asleep.

We branched from Buddy's to discover other East Tennessee possibilitiesJohnson City, we found, had Firehouse Barbeque, a North Carolina vinegary
sauce much to our liking, and not far away, outside Bluff City, was Ridgewood, an East Tennessee tradition-if not the finest barbecue around then
certainly the best baked beans anywhere. Period. And judging from the girth
of those serving such fare, this was substantial food, the kind that would, according to my Uncle Dennie, put meat on your bones and lead in your pencil.

But it was in 1986 when I accepted a summer teaching appointment at the
Governor's School for the Humanities in Martin, Tennessee, that the real
quest began. We had long heard of Memphis barbecue, the true Tennessee
Mecca for all those seeking the most succulent pork this side of paradise. So
now I would be within a couple of hours of the city-plans could be made for
the two of us to make the journey. But true to the nature of the quest, this was
no straight line, Point A to Point B progression, for as I approached McKenzie, Tennessee, on my way to Martin, I caught a whiff of an unmistakable
aroma, the one that whets the appetite and twangs the old taste buds in a salivating frenzy of anticipation-yes, hickory smoke! And there perched on a
hillside along Highway 22 was a sign mounted on a twelve-foot metal pole
proclaiming, "od to go." In passing I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be
a shack, although shack is far too grand a word for that contraption of a building I saw. I made a mental note to return after I was settled in Martin for a
month-long stay at Governor's School.