Haute barbecue can exist comfortably side by side with folk and mass barbecue because it is not competing for the same clientele. Patrons of haute barbecue are for the most part people who wouldn’t otherwise eat barbecue. But the relation between folk and mass barbecue is more troubling.
A parable: In England, the homely native red squirrel is being driven out by the aggressive and invasive North American gray variety. Peter Coates writes that grays are the Red Delicious apples of the squirrel world; red squirrels are like endangered old-time local varieties with “peculiar names like Polly Whitehair and Bloody Ploughman.” What’s true of apples and squirrels is also true of barbecue. An ecologist would say that we’re seeing decreasing biodiversity, increasingly uniform ecosystems. Mass barbecue is the invasive species, and its progress seems to be relentless.
I have a problem with that. For one thing, if the climax stage of the barbecue landscape leaves no room for folk barbecue it will mean the end of the community barbecue tradition. Purveyors of mass barbecue may claim that they offer something for everyone, but it’s not really for everyone. Lawyers and construction workers, cops and college students, cowboys and hippies, preachers and sinners, rich and poor, black and white—all kinds of people used to gather in folk barbecue places like Stamey’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, to eat $4.00 barbecue sandwiches for lunch, but at the International House of Barbecue the prices are higher and the “ambience” is thoroughly middle-class. (The old tools and patent medicine signs on the walls probably came from a decorator.) A guy with his name stitched over his pocket would be out of place.
Moreover, the triumph of mass barbecue will mean that you can’t tell where you are by what you’re eating, and that will be a shame. Peter Coates writes that concern for the red squirrel “entails the same commitment to the survival of local heritage, community identity and the ethos of diversity that invests the championing of local cheeses and apples against the tasteless universalism of international agribusiness.” Well, some of us feel that way about local barbecue traditions. I’ve lived in North Carolina for 60 years, but I love Texas barbecue—in Texas. I love Memphis barbecue in Memphis, Kansas City barbecue in Kansas City, and even mustard-sauced South Carolina barbecue, in South Carolina. Barbecue helps to put the there there. Places that try to serve barbecue from everywhere are really serving barbecue from nowhere, for people from nowhere, and I say to hell with it.
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8 hours ago
The Christmas Tree is up at Northwest District Park🎄 and you are invited to join Chatham County Parks and Recreation at Holiday in the Park for the tree lighting ceremony on Friday, December 8 from 5pm-8pm. The ceremony will kick off the event at 5:15pm followed by a hayride, pictures with Santa, and other winter activities!
If you can’t make it to Holiday in the Park, don’t worry, the tree will be up until after the new year! Park gates will remain open until 7 PM so you can view the lights in the dark. ... See MoreSee Less
9 hours ago
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9 hours ago
Kickstart your weekend Pittsboro with Chef Sera’s Korean sticky pork ribs with mashed ginger sweet potatoes, sautéed greens and pickled plums! Full menu at caferootcellarmenu.com ... See MoreSee Less
9 hours ago