Eastern Carolina Barbeque Refuses to Fade Away

Allen & Son Barbeque
6203 Millhouse Rd.
Chapel Hill, NC

Like flip phones, fax machines and virgins on the UNC Chapel Hill campus, it’s getting harder and harder to find authentic Eastern Carolina barbeque.

That’s because it’s a pain in the butt (no pun intended).

Who the heck has time to chop up hickory logs, tend to a smoldering fire around the clock and smoke a whole hog slowly over the embers for the better part of a day?

And then carefully pick the meat off the animal by hand and concoct your own vinegar sauce?

Forget it.

That’s why God invented gas smokers. Once legendary barbeque shacks all over Eastern North Carolina have shifted to this much more efficient means of ‘que making.

It’s better for the environment too.

As soon as Obama gets done forcing us all to buy electric cars from Government Motors, I’m pretty sure he’s moving to ban authentic barbeque next.

Call it the “BBQ individual mandate.” As a condition of eating in this country, every citizen must cook their meat over a gas smoker.

There’s just one problem. If you are a true barbeque connoisseur, you know that ain’t real barbeque.

But I’m happy to report there is one place tucked up here in the woods north of Chapel Hill where you can still enjoy the real deal.

Keith Allen, the “son” in Allen & Son still delivers North Carolina hickory logs to his restaurant and then saws, splits and chops it himself before burning it in a pit he fires up every 30 minutes. Just like his dad used to do going back to 1968.

There are no short cuts here. And you can taste the authenticity in every bite of the smoke-infused meat.

A textural kaleidoscope of pig parts from various orifices of the swine, Allen & Son’s barbeque offers you a different experience in every bite.

Soft pillowy white pork mixed together with darker strands of meat produces an orgy of smoky flavors and textures in your mouth.

Even a few “burnt” scraps of bark from the fire-charred outside of the pig can be found now and then, adding an intense yet satisfying bitter bite to the meat.

There is comfort in the evidence splayed before you on your hard plastic plate that you are eating pure unadulterated classic Eastern Carolina barbeque.

As per tradition here in the eastern half of North Carolina, the sauce isn’t really a sauce. It’s nothing more than a jar of salty, peppery vinegar.

When you squirt some on your meat, it immediately disappears, escaping into the nooks and crannies of the chopped up pig parts.

You might not be able to see it, but there is no doubt you can taste it.

Eastern Carolina “sauce” adds a bitter tangy zip that enhances the smoky flavor of the pig.

Legend holds that the colonial settlers in these parts, who invented this form of barbeque, were convinced that tomatoes were poisonous and thus obsessively shunned the sweet vegetables.

Personally, I enjoy tomato based sauces, but when in Rome, you don’t argue with the Romans.

If you really need your tomato fix, get a side of Brunswick Stew, as I did. Here at Allen & Son it is a delicious concoction of vegetables and shredded pork in a thin tomato-based sauce.

Other staples of authentic Eastern Carolina barbeque feats are cole slaw, hush puppies and sweet tea.

No one leaves Allen & Son hungry.

The hush puppies arrived at the table in an overflowing basket. Over a dozen of the best puppies you’ll ever taste!

Crispy on the outside, soft and warm on the inside, these sweet doughy spheres were addictive. I had to physically tie my hand to the plastic checkerboard tablecloth to keep from eating the entire basket.

By the time I pushed my wooden chair back from the table, I felt relieved. And stuffed.

Stuffed because I just consumed the better part of a hog and a month’s worth of deep fried carbs.

But relieved just know that a place like Allen & Son still exists. We live in a society where speed, efficiency and parsimony too often crowd out quality.

As Texas songwriter Pat Green once wistfully sang, “All the good things fade away.”

Many of the legends of this centuries-old American tradition that is Eastern Carolina barbeque may be switching from hickory wood to gas. But folks still flock to this wooded intersection of country roads in Orange County to enjoy the real thing.

No need to worry.

Unlike the weathered sign above the front door, Allen & Son won’t be fading away any time soon.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

Pig Out!

The Georgia Pig
2712 U.S. 17 South
Brunswick, GA





If I were ever to get around to compiling a Suit757 Top Ten List of Barbeque joints across America, The Georgia Pig would be on it.

Yeah. This place is THAT good.

The Georgia Pig is everything a great barbeque place should be.

It’s a muddy-parking-lot roadside shack under the towering Georgia pines. A dilapidated log cabin with a warped floorboard front porch.

Once you push in the creaky wooden door, you enter a haze of hickory smoke so thick you can barely see the assortment of Elvis posters and dancing pigs on the far wall.

The moment the perfume of slowly melting pig fat and hardwood meets your nostrils, your stomach will commence an impatient growl.

The chop, chop, chop of the pit master’s cleaver rendering the tender pig meat is the only soundtrack you will hear.

Yep. The Georgia Pig looks, smells and sounds like an old Southern BBQ shack right out of central casting. This place is THAT good.

Better yet, it tastes that good too.

The pork is smoked right there behind the sauce jar-laden counter. Generous hunks of tender pork are then chopped into bite sized pieces right before your eyes, placed on a fresh sesame seed bun and spritzed with a splash of that famous Georgia Pig sauce.

But wait a minute. You’re not ready yet.

Just when you think your growling stomach can’t stand another second of anticipation, your barbeque sandwich undergoes one more crucial step.

The pit master places the sandwich on a well worn “sandwich press” that warms it up a bit, flattens it to manageable thickness and toasts the bun. Both top and bottom toast to a perfect crisp that combined with the soft pork and runny sauce, produces one of this world’s (or the next) most exquisite culinary textures.

Warm toasty bun. Soft smoky meat. Sweet moist sauce.

Yeah. This place is THAT good.

The Georgia Pig sauce is a bit of a departure for this corner of the Southeast coastline. Most BBQ shacks in these parts serve a peppery version of a South Carolina mustard-based sauce.

But at The Georgia Pig, you get a sweet tomato based sauce. Not too thick. Just thin enough to permeate the pig meat.

It’s good stuff. I bought a jar of it on the way out, still warm from the vat they were brewing in the kitchen.

The baked beans are four star too, loaded with even more pork. (Beans always earn an extra star for meat, in Suit757’s book.)

Of course the most intriguing side dish is Brunswick’s namesake – Brunswick Stew.

When in Rome, you know?

Of course what if there was more than one Rome? Do as WHICH Romans do???

Brunswick, Georgia and Brunswick, Virginia have had centuries running dispute over which Brunswick originated the famous dish.

Suit757 hasn’t been around long enough to settle the argument.

However, I have to admit that Virginia has a more compelling story involving a group of politicians, a hunting expedition, a few unlucky rabbits and a creative-minded slave.

Interestingly, the Georgia Pig’s stew is closer to the Virginia version than most of the Georgia stews I’ve had.

Thinner than the mish mashed hash served at other Georgia BBQ shacks, the Pig’s version has a wide variety of vegetables to compliment the shredded pork. Lima beans, carrots, tomato, corn and peas, it was like vegetable soup with barbeque mixed in.

The only knock on The Georgia Pig I can see is the glum attitude of the staff.

Besides “The King” and some fiddling pigs, the rest of the décor consists of hand-scrawled signs barking orders to the customers about what not to do. No dogs, no sauce outside, no standing by the counter, no pictures (oops, as Rick Perry might say).

The cleaver guy is a bit surly. The lady at the cash register is all business – and a bit impatient with those pesky I-95 tourists who pass through her restaurant.

So, okay. This isn’t the Whistle Stop Café. If it is faux Southern hospitality you are after, try the Cracker Barrel up the road.

But if you can appreciate barbeque that breaks into Suit757’s all time Top Ten, you’ll feel right at home at The Georgia Pig.

Yeah. This place is THAT good.

Rating: Bought the Shirt!

BBQ To Put A Smile On Your Face

Fresh Air Barbecue
1164 Highway 42 South
Jackson, GA
Visited October 20, 2010

Beer selection: None.

Food: As real as barbeque gets.

I have a theory about eating barbecue: sure, some barbecue is better than others, but there’s no such thing as BAD barbecue.

Come to think of it, that can be said about several of my other favorite activities too.

But I’m not going to let my uncharacteristic open mindedness about barbecue slow me down in my search for better or best!

As you come upon Fresh Air Barbecue on this two-lane road in rural Georgia somewhere between Jackson and Flovilla, you can’t help but notice this place is going to be one of the best.

Right off the bat, the sign says “Since 1929”. Fresh Air has been smoking pigs at this road side pit for 81 years. That just doesn’t happen if you don’t know what you are doing.

The lumber yard-sized piles of huge hickory and oak logs and the smoke billowing out the roof-top brick stack are more sure signs this is the real deal.

And you just can’t fake that sweet smell of the convergence of pig and hickory smoke that hits you as soon as you open the rental car door.

Yes, sir. Fresh Air has the look, smell and feel of a legendary backwoods barbecue pit.

My only complaint about my deluxe pork platter isn’t really a complaint. My pork, Brunswick stew and coleslaw were all delicious. It’s more a matter of personal preference.

Even us Suits can’t seem to agree on BBQ sauce. We’ve been know to have coat-tossing, tie-tearing, pants-splitting wrestling matches over this issue.

Georgia seems to me to have a BBQ sauce identity crisis.

Down in Brunswick, at the Georgia pig, they serve the most delicious barbecue sandwich on earth under a layer of lip smacking sweet tomato based sauce.

Other places out on the coast in Savannah and Woodbine serve barbecue with a mustard-based sauce, like they do up in Columbia, South Carolina.

At Harold’s smack dab in the middle of “Hotlanta”, they squirt their pork with a thin but sweet peppery concoction.

The Fresh Air sauce is none of those.

It’s a mostly vinegar sauce with just a touch of tomato, a lot like the Western Carolina sauces you find up around Lexington.

It was good, but my ideal sauce has more of a balance between the sweetness of tomato and the tang of vinegar. Virginians get it just right at Pierce’s Pitt BBQ in Williamsburg or out of a Sauer’s bottle in Richmond.

But like I said, that’s just Suit757 personal preference.

By any objective standard, Fresh Air’s pulled pork is excellent, no matter what kind of sauce you squirt on.

The green colored coleslaw was among the best I’ve ever had, refreshing, sweet and finely chopped, a perfect compliment to the vinegary tang of the pork.

The Brunswick stew was also top notch. No surprise, they serve the Georgia version here of mish-mashed meat and corn that packs powerful BBQ flavor.

So do I rate Fresh Air Barbecue the best ever, as others have?

No.

But like I said, that’s what is so fun about eating great barbeque. Even if it it’s not the best ever, you can’t help but put a big smile on your face look forward to doing it again.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.