Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue (Cornbread Nation: Best of Southern Food Writing) (8 page)

It is, however, in the meats that the virtue of the barbecue lies. The consistency of them, after they have gone through the barbecuing process, is of that
rare degree described only in the old-time phrase "They melt in your mouth,"
and the seasoning that comes through the basting process adds the aroma and
taste that make you its slave forever.

To be initiated into the mysteries of barbecue methods is the desire of
everybody who has enjoyed communion with the product.

To the back of the eating-house, there, we follow the massive Sheriff, until
we come to the great roasting pit. The Colonel (every Georgian is a Colonel)
folds his arms with the pride of Alexander after his conquest of the world.

"That's the way we cook 'em,' he says.

The scene is quite unique and picturesque. Above the pit is a box of dried
leaves that, with the fragrance of the hickory bark beneath the carcasses, mingles an aromatic odor with the smoke from the roasting meat. At the head of
the pit is a great brick oven with three tremendous pots as were used for boiling the bacon and cabbage for the field hands in slavery days. Two of these
pots are filled with water for cleaning and scalding the meat and in the other
is that barbecue stew for which every barbecue boss has his own receipt.

"How is it made?" we ask the tall, black Negro boy who stands stirring the
concoction with a long hickory pole.

He grins from ear to ear, and then begins to elucidate the matter, leaving us
not much wiser than at first.

"Well, yer see, yer jest takes de meat, de hog's head, an' der libbers, an' all
sorts er little nice parts, an' yer chops it up wid corn an' permattures an' injuns
an' green pepper, an' yer stews an' stews tell hit all gits erlike, an' yer kain't tell
what hits made uv."

"Turn dat pig over, an' put er little mo' fire under his back," says a big fat
Negro behind us, who, like the Georgia Colonel, looks as if he had been fed for
a lifetime on barbecue.

Two men take hold of the clean hickory poles that are run through the crisp
carcass, give them a turn, and the pig's back begins to frizzle.

"Lor' chile, hit makes me hungry ter see dat meat!" says a fat old Negro
cook as she stands watching the performance with her arms akimbo. "Hit
seems like pig an' possum is jest made fur fat niggers," and she gives a laugh as
olly and jolly as her round black face.

In a big pot to one side of the pit, a half-grown Negro boy is ladling out the
gravy to the waiters who come with plates full of carved meat. He is the thorough type of that regular country darky who in his childhood wears one shirt
all summer and supplements it in winter with a pair of trousers and one suspender. He croons a song to the measure of his dips into the gravy:

The darkies, gnawing barbecued bones on the outside, smack their lips in approbation of the refrain.

The singer of the company is the great brawny black man whose duty it is to
keep the fires burning in the coal-pit and to replenish the coals in the roastingpit.

"He de leader in de singing on de boss's plantation," says the gravy-boy.

And one well might believe it, for like the notes of a great ebony organ
arises his deep resonant voice, and so religious and solemn are his refrains that
as he lifts the great logs into the pit one might fancy him some barbaric high
priest feeding sacrificial fires:

This is the curious refrain set to such splendid music. And after its solemn
cadences comes something lively in a regular jig-time, and all the helpers, the
roasters and stewers and gravy-makers, and even the bone-gnawers on the
outer circle, put aside their occupation to pat their feet and hands and join the
melody:

This bright scintillant atmosphere grows jubilant with the melody, until
one can fancy that every microbe is having more than his measure of fun in
witnessing the rout of the devil.

Yes, the picture is one well worthy to keep within the memory, for the
Georgia barbecue is one of the few remaining feasts of antebellum days left to
the present generation-a feast typical, indeed, of that lavishness not elegant
perhaps, often barbaric, indeed, but proffered with the generosity and magnificence of monarchs.

The Georgia Sheriff will tell you all about how he begins and completes the
preparation for his day's roast.

The roasting-pit is filled with live coals at daybreak, for just as the sun kindles a light in the sky do these black children of light and heat begin to kindle
the fires for their feast. By seven o'clock the ground is hot through for several
feet; then more coals are put on, and the carcasses are pierced through with
clean hickory poles and laid across the pit. Their cooking refutes the old
phrase that a watched pot never boils, because the meats are carefully tended
during the entire time; for to make them crisp and tender without burning
they must be turned every fifteen or twenty minutes.

All sorts of game are roasted over the pit-partridges, young wild turkeys,
ducks, squirrels, and rabbits; and now that the winter season has come, the
darkies have a possum supper for themselves every Saturday night. They stand
greedily around and watch the roasting of the animal, which is sweeter to
them than any other that lives. In the ashes they roast their sweet potatoes,
and when it is all done and they sit there jabbering amid their crude surroundings, the firelight falling athwart their black faces and gay garments, a
visitor to the exposition might well fancy himself at the feast of an African
king.

By each mid-July the great wrath of summer's heat has enveloped the state of
Georgia. Clouds of gnats and mosquitoes arise with steam from the mossdraped swamps near the coast. Farther inland the area of wire grass, palmettos, and towering pine trees cooks under a terrible sun that cracks the paint
from buildings, boils the sap out of lumber, and causes asphalt highways to
swim beneath waves of heat. Northward, in the clay-hill country, the red dust
becomes shoe-top deep, as hot as new ashes; in the distance the low, gently
sweeping outline of the Blue Ridge seems to quiver in the smiting atmosphere
of noontide.

As a gastronomic influence, this is weather that inclines most people toward cooling drinks and light meals of chilled fruits and raw vegetables. But
in Georgia it signals the arrival of the season of barbecues-Gargantuan feasts
alfresco, held by the hundreds as come-ons for all sorts of political, religious,
social, and family occasions. Literally tons of hot pork are served up with a
tongue-searing sauce and accompanied by Brunswick stew, a highly seasoned,
rich conglomeration of meats, vegetables, and sauces simmered many hours
in big iron pots over outdoor fires. In size, barbecues range from a big one the
Ku Klux Klan gave several years ago in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, where 20,000
or more Knights of the Invisible Empire did away with 16,ooo pounds of meat,
on down to rustic soirees of half a dozen or so backcountry families. People
may gather in the woods to cook a shoat simply because they are lonely for
company and tired of their regular menu-grits, greens, and sowbelly. Some
groups go at the meat with their hands and get grease in their ears. In more
polite circles the crooked little finger, held elegantly beneath a deftly manipulated fork handle, is not unknown, and there is frequent, delicate use of paper
napkins.