Post #9: Barbecue (n.): smoked pork

Scott's BBQ, Hemingway, S.C.

If you’re still reading this blog, you know me well enough to know I am a self-proclaimed barbecue know-it-all. Some of you would probably leave out that “barbecue” part, but for the purposes of this post, let’s leave it in there. South Carolina is world famous for our barbecue and we have been since the days of our earliest settlers who brought barbecoa from Spain.

Our barbecue tastes today are still influenced by our ancestors. Take mustard-based ‘cue in the Midlands as an example. The area was once called “Saxe Gotha,” founded by German settlers, who have a strong loyalty to mustard. Think of German foods, and while beers and brats come to mind, mustard is the condiment that accompanies it. So it was the German settlers of present-day Lexington, Newberry and parts of Richland County who have given us mustard-based ‘cue.

While many barbecue novices enjoy mustard sauce, I find it only edible on ribs or chicken. Chicken doesn’t hold a smoke flavor the way pork does, and ribs are good in damn near any form. The reason I refuse to eat mustard-based pork is simple though: if the pork is cooked right, you don’t want to cover up the flavor of the meat.

When it comes to mustard itself, you have very strong flavors, strong enough to cover the taste of hickory, apple or pecan smoked meat. So my opinion has always been that one doesn’t like mustard-based barbecue, they like mustard sauce… they may as well drink the stuff, and nine times out of ten, they’re just going to use Maurice’s straight off the shelf.

So let’s talk about real barbecue. The type of barbecue that takes skill to cook and a refined palette to appreciate: red pepper and vinegar-based. Some call it “Lowcountry style,” others call it “Eastern North Carolina,” I simply call it the best.

Sandwich from Scott's BBQ, Hemingway, S.C.

From the West Indies came spices to the Carolina coastal regions (already, you’re comparing German food to Caribbean… no contest!). Over open pits, the early settlers of the region would cook whole hogs over open pits, use vinegar to keep the meat moist, with salt and pepper added for flavor, then have large gatherings (now called a “pickin’”) to eat their slaughter. Over the centuries, the process has become refined, although in some parts of the state you can still find people who will cook hogs over an open pit dug out of the ground. However, in most cases these days, cooks will use raised pits, often times made out of cinder blocks, or they will use steel smokers. (I could go into the details of the many different ways to smoke a pig, and the benefits of using a dry rub, but there are certain tricks that some people don’t like to share… I’m one of those people.)

So, when I think about good barbecue in South Carolina, a certain region comes to my mind. Though I have had great barbecue from New Ellenton, Holly Hill and Walterboro, one region is a barbecue kingdom: the Pee Dee (most precisely, Florence and Williamsburg Counties). The reigning monarch of that BBQ Kingdom is Rodney Scott, of Scott’s B.B.Q. in Hemingway, and the Jack of all trades is Cooper’s Store in Salters (with sausage, bacon, and country ham to die for).

The Scotts and the Coopers have been in the barbecue business for generations, and it shows. You can taste the smoke, just before a little heat from the pepper creeps in. Some people (Brown’s BBQ in Kingstree) will kill the flavor by too much vinegar, but these two families get it just right. In the last few years, Scott’s has generated a cult-like following, with features in Esquire, Garden & Gun, The New York Times, The London Times, and other widely circulated newspapers. Cooper’s is known more regionally, but they too have seen their profile in Garden & Gun.

Cooper's Country Store, Salters, S.C.

Let’s leave it at this: some BBQ joints are known for racist politics, others are known for their food. I’ll let you figure out which is mustard and which is pepper-vinegar. (And for the hillbillies in the Upstate, your tomato-based sauce is not worth mentioning.)