A Barbecue Story-Searching for the Whole Hog

Flovilla, Georgia, between Atlanta and Macon, is home to Georgia's heralded barbecue restaurant.Photo byDown South Today

“Where can I find good barbecue?” That’s a simple question and the response merits a high degree of integrity. You just don’t send someone off to eat this staple in a place you haven’t been or would not return.

Barbecue is a favorite food in America. Has it been so reinterpreted that it’s evolved into something strange and alien? I admit that I’m not very keen on “new ‘Cue.” It hints of higher prices, and recipe tampering. Sally Wisenhut, a heralded cook and home entertainer reports that recently she went to a barbecue restaurant “a little north of Atlanta,” with relatives, and ordered a pork dinner. “The menu didn’t have a barbecue sandwich,” she revealed.

“The plate had sliced pork instead of pulled,” she said, “covered in a strange fruit sauce with sides of steamed kale and bland mashed potatoes.” She added that “it came with a hard roll and a price of $23 bucks.”

Sally, who left hungry, says she’s never going back.

She would not have experienced that disappointment at Fresh Air Barbecue in Flovilla, Georgia. They've been serving barbecue firmly rooted in “the whole hog” philosophy since 1929. It’s rustic, way off the beaten path and authentic. What you get is simply delicious. Their Brunswick Stew is the real deal. “Not a butter bean or sweet pea in it,” observed the late Atlanta criminal defense lawyer Tommy Chason who understood the “whole hog” mystique.

"The Backyard Griller." Original painting by Georgia's Olivia Thomason.Photo byBig O Studio, Stone Mountain, Ga.

Good barbecue comes from literally thousands of skilled back yard grillers. However, finding a joint ( a polite word for a barbecue restaurant) can be daunting. I have a few I’m familiar with and admire. Martin’s Bab-B-Que in Nashville, Big Bob Gibson’s in Decatur, Alabama, Dreamland in Birmingham, Prater’s BBQ in Morristown, Tennessee, Crazy Ron’s in Stone Mountain, Georgia and Ubon’s, located “down in a hollow” off Jerry Clower Boulevard in Yazoo City, Mississippi.

The complete list is long, of course. It includes many in Texas where delicious brisket is king, and the Carolinas where distinctive sauces are hallmarks.

Barbecue, a treasured tradition, is almost instinctively protected. Lewis Grizzard, the great Southern humorist, told the story about a stranger in a pickup truck with a North Carolina tag who, lured by the aromas from a hog cooking low and slow over coals in a backyard pit stopped by, asking if he could buy a sandwich. One of the family cooks took two slices of white bread, placed some sizzling pork in between and added homemade sauce. “Would you put some slaw on it?” the stranger asked. “My uncle pulled a knife on him and he fled in his truck.”

"Heavenly Pig." Original painting by folk artist Olivia Thomason, Stone Mountain, Ga.Photo byOlivia Thomason

Silky O’Sullivan, a colorful Memphis Beale Street restauranteur and club owner, served alongside me and many others like “Famous Dave” Anderson and Hall of Fame Coach Johnny Majors as judges for many editions of the Jack Daniel’s International Barbecue Competition each October in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Silky, as he preferred to be addressed, said that he had introduced American barbecue in faraway places like Thailand, Ireland and Cuba.

Hie told me that his proudest moment was “serving barbecued reindeer in Moscow for Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.”

“The last time I saw him,” he added, “he was licking his fingers.”

"Jack Daniel's International Barbecue Competition," original painting by Olivia Thomason.Photo byDown South Today