The Southern Foodways Alliance presents a barbecue sides bracket for their contribution to this year’s March Madness. Vote now as we’re already in the Final Four, with the Championship tomorrow and the winner announced Friday.
Native News
If true, not a good look for Noble Smoke
The business is Good Life at Enderly Park owned by Robbie McNair, who's also the creator of the new Babe Cave you've heard so much about. https://t.co/zmgIBYSSje
D.G. Martin seeks input from readers on NC eateries off interstate highways for the next edition of “North Carolina Roadside Eateries”
COLUMN: D.G. Martin's updated revision of "North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries" will feature some big changes, largely due to the pandemic. 🍽 https://t.co/wCIL8wslzo
BBQ Fest on the Neuse wants to know: are you team slaw or not?
Non-Native News
Archibald’s BBQ is celebrating 60 years open this year
Since opening in 1962, Archibald’s BBQ has weathered three generations, a fire and the COVID-19 pandemic to retain its place as Alabama culinary royalty. https://t.co/AIP5alYqBZ
Adrian Miller on the dearly departed Boney’s Smokehouse in Denver
“Order anything but brisket”; Arthur Bryant’s pleads customers to not order their most popular cut due to rising beef prices
Franklin Barbecue’s new sauce is Spicy
Hot off the line and hitting the shelves of @HEB this week — have a gander at our newest BBQ sauce made from red hot chili peppers. (Red jalapenos, arbol, ancho and habanero to be spice-ific) It’s called Spicy for a reason, y’all. pic.twitter.com/cvGOg0VaKB
Kevin’s BBQ Joints out here again doing yeoman’s work. This time, he reached out to 158 restaurants (4 were added since this Tweet) across the country to get what a best first order would look like. From North Carolina, Black Powder Smokehouse in Jamestown, Lawrence Barbecue in Raleigh, Longleaf Swine in Raleigh, Noble Smoke in Charlotte, Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge in Shelby, Southern Smoke in Garland. Naturally, Texas represents a large portion of the list and a separate “Texas-only” list is located here.
NEW: I talked to 154 BBQ spots across the nation to see what they would recommend a '1st Time Visitor' order to best experience their restaurant. The responses were as diverse as they are. Note this list will continue to grow as more responses come in. https://t.co/fc6mZ0TGCUpic.twitter.com/2FlQX1IaRY
Wilber Shirley is celebrated on the UNC Press Blog by reposting his interview with John Shelton Reed and his late wife Dale Volberg Reed from “Holy Smoke: The Big Book of NC Barbecue”
Adrian Miller @soulfoodscholar's third UNC Press book, "Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue," is available for preorder and officially on sale 4/27/21 wherever ebooks and books are sold.https://t.co/4KZr3xQGlT
John Tanner gets a dispatch on Salvage Barbecue from his “Senior South Portland (Maine) Correspondents”
Smoked wings are a big hit in Columbia
Utilizing barbecue’s defining cooking process and an ample dusting of in-house dry-rubs, an increasing number of restaurants have found a dedicated audience for this preparation of drums and flats. https://t.co/hMOhFfhOxW
— Post and Courier Columbia (@PCColumbia) April 13, 2021
The Riverdale Park, MD-based 2Fifty Texas BBQ is opening up a D.C. location
Not that we’re anywhere close to being qualified enough to evaluate books but more so as a public service announcement we will periodically discuss barbecue and barbecue-related books.
Monk: For whatever reason, several of the books I’ve been checking out during quarantine are of a similar ilk. That is, books compiling profiles of different classic eateries – some North Carolina and some not, some barbecue and some not – accompanied by personal anecdotes from the author. These books can serve as guidebooks for older places that should be celebrated and visited and are usually pretty quick and interesting reads.
Which leads me to “North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries: A Traveler’s Guide to Local Restaurants, Diners, and Barbecue Joints” by North Carolina author D.G. Martin. During his travels as a lawyer and politician, he had the good fortune to visit many a classic restaurant across the state of North Carolina. Originally published in 2016, an update has been put on hold due to the coronavirus calling into questions the status of many of the restaurants featured in the book. Regardless, its still a good document of the times even if it grows more and more outdated by the day.
Smartly, Martin organizes his chapters by the interstate highways that crisscross North Carolina (i.e. Interstates 26, 40, 85, 77, etc.). From there, he profiles restaurants that are easy stops off the highway and that he has personally visited, oftentimes name dropping politicians and friends along the way.
Of the 120 or so restaurants profiled, roughly 50 are barbecue joints. Predictably the chapter on Interstate 85 is heavy on barbecue, followed by 40 and 95. The usual suspects are there, but Martin covers the undercelebrated ones such as Backyard BBQ Pit in Durham, Hursey’s Bar-B-Q in Alamance County, the recently shuttered Hill’s Lexington Barbecue in Winston-Salem, and Fuller’s Old Fashion Bar-B-Q in Lumberton and Fayetteville.
After this book from D.G. Martin and similar ones from Bob Garner, the Tar Heel Traveler Scott Mason, and John T. Edge (in a future book club entry), I am looking forward to a different perspective from “Soul Food Scholar” Adrian Miller in his forthcoming book “Black Smoke.” That book will focus on the contributions of black pitmasters and is scheduled to come out next year from UNC Press, the same publisher as this book. Regardless, “North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries” is worth checking out and even sticking in your glovebox for future roadtrips.
Some of the founders and mainstays of my favorite barbecue restaurants and comfort food eateries died recently. So I have to insert “the late” beside their names when I describe their lifetimes’ great accomplishments, the eateries they made into an icons.
Say it ain’t so, Subway (it is so)
How is Subway marketing its new brisket sandwich? By using the image of Ramon Gonzales, a longtime employee of its brisket supplier (and referring to him only as “Pitmaster Ramone”). @bbqsnob investigates: https://t.co/RLfIEQsGrK
Charlotte’s Midwood Smokehouse got inspired by Valentina’s Tex Mex on a recent research and development trip to Texas; here’s hoping this becomes a more regular thing
We fell in love with these breakfast tacos from @valentinastexmexbbq during our R+D trip this week, so we’re popping up for just TWO hours on Saturday at @residentculture to do our versions of them for only a $1. The way only professional pit masters know how. pic.twitter.com/JnhyEEkM2g
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