Monk: Garren’s turning 40 in late June and throwing a heckuva party at Jon G’s! The Jon G’s Jubilee will bring in town Jake Wood of Lawrence Barbecue in Durham as well as the N. Sea Oyster Co from the Topsail Beach area. Charlotte’s Divine Barrel Brewing will provide the beer with ice cream from Wadesboro’s Brown Creek Creamery, who Jon G’s uses for cheeses in their sausages. Tickets will surely go fast for this so if interested, I’d recommend you act quickly.
Monk: A few highlights from this past weekend’s Southern Foodways Alliance Fall Symposium where the focus was on barbecue: “questions about what barbecue is, who makes it, and how the craft is changing. From sliced beef brisket to pulled pork, from tacos to fire-roasted vegetables, barbecue speaks to the past, present, and future of the South and to the stories of pitmasters—the places they work, the smoke they conjure, and the sauces they stir.”
Texas Monthly Taco Editor Gustavo Arellano was a day one speaker and compared southern barbecue to Mexican barbacoa:
George and David Barber of Fresh Air Barbecue in Jackson, Georgia were named this year’s recipient of the Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award
Jiyeon Lee and Cody Taylor of Atlanta’s Heirloom Market Bar-B-Que treated folks to a Korean-inspired barbecue dinner Friday night
On day two, Texas Monthly Barbecue Editor Daniel Vaughn explained why Texas-style barbecue is becoming the predominant style, both across the US and abroad
Food critic Hanna Raskin on the intersection of barbecue and alcohol
Soul Food Scholar Adrian Miller emceed the weekend with stories of black pitmasters
Finally, Helen Turner of Helen’s Bar-B-Q in Brownsville, TN was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award
Native News
The Lexington Barbecue Festival made a triumphant return after taking the last two years off
The Shepard Barbecue episode of Diners, Drive-In’s, and Dives will air on Friday, November 4 at 9pm ET on Food Network
Dampf Good Barbecue has opened for regular hours at Phillis Farm of Cary; they will be serving their Texas-style barbecue Thursdays through Saturdays from 11am-6pm
Non-Native News
The Southern Smoke festival raised a whopping $1.6M this past weekend
This May at Camp North End in Charlotte, Lewis Donald of Sweet Lew’s BBQ will be having a celebration of pork barbecue (or, just “barbecue” for those of us from NC) and we’re all invited. In addition to a fun looking event, this year’s inaugural Carolina BBQ Festival also has a chance to help put Charlotte on the barbecue map. It will be the first barbecue festival in Charlotte for quite a few years, it will bring together some of the best pitmasters in the southeast, and it will also spotlight the still growing Charlotte barbecue scene.
It’s been almost 8 years since Charlotte hosted a true barbecue festival. Part barbecue-competition, part street festival, the Q City Championship ran for a few years in uptown Charlotte during the fall and was initially sanctioned by the Memphis Barbecue Network before switching over to the short-lived NC BBQ Association for its last iteration in 2014. It closed off the streets of uptown Charlotte for competition teams to waft smoke all over uptown but since you couldn’t taste the teams’ barbecue it didn’t feel dissimilar to the annual Taste of Charlotte or Speed Street festivals.
Looking down South Tryon Street during the Q City Championship in 2014
The Carolina BBQ Festival, on the other hand, looks to be a whole different animal. First off, its focus is strictly on pork instead of the multiple proteins needed for a competition turn-in box. Patrons will be able to enjoy beer, wine, and cocktails with a background of funk, soul, and bluegrass but the focus of the festival will be celebrating the different styles of barbecue throughout the Carolinas – East, South, and West (or Piedmont or Lexington-style).
Not to mention the proceeds from the festival will go to three charities: the Piedmont Culinary Guild, Operation BBQ Relief, and World Central Kitchen.
Charlotte has hosted some great pitmasters over the years in infrequent, one-off events – Sam Jones at Midwood Smokehouse and the Free Range Pig Pickin’ and Ed Mitchell at Midwood Smokehouse come to mind – but the Carolina BBQ Festival is bringing together 6 acclaimed pitmasters with roots in North and South Carolina.
Charlotte-raised Bryan Furman of B’s Cracklin’ Barbecue and Tay Nelson of Bobby’s BBQ will represent the Palmetto state, smoking a whole hog and dressing it with a mustard-based sauce. Bryan Furman is looking for his next opportunity in Atlanta after the unfortunate burning down of his second restaurant some years ago but has been recently doing pop-ups in the Atlanta area. Tay Nelson has found success in Fountain Inn, SC (just outside of Greenville) after he famously opened up Bobby’s BBQ after doing extensive research on YouTube.
Nathan Monk, third generation owner of Lexington Barbecue, and Elliot Moss of Buxton Hall Barbecue in Asheville will represent the West, cooking Piedmont or Lexington-style shoulders. Loyal readers know this blog’s thoughts on Lexington Barbecue, and it will be fascinating to see Moss’ influence on Lexington-style barbecue where his focus has primarily been Pee Dee-style whole hog and brisket at his restaurant in Asheville.
Matthew Register of the fantastic Southern Smoke and Brandon Shepard of Shepard Barbecue in Emerald Isle will handle the eastern NC vinegar-pepper duties. I was a big fan of Southern Smoke when I visited in Summer 2020 and hope to be able to catch up with Matthew again while he’s in town. I haven’t yet had the chance to try Shepard Barbecue but between this and the Pinehurst Barbecue Festival, he’s got a busy summer coming up.
And Ronald Simmons of Master Blend Family Farms in Kenansville, NC will be providing all hogs and pork for the festival. He himself has been getting into barbecue after being a recipient of the Kingsford “Preserve the Pit” Fellowship in 2021.
Charlotte may not have experienced the same barbecue boom that Raleigh did (even if the ended up being to a lesser degree than expected due to the pandemic), but in Sweet Lew’s BBQ and Jon G’s Barbecue we have two places to be proud of when it comes to #cltbbq. Lewis and Garren and Kelly Kirkman won’t be cooking for the main festival; instead they are cooking for a VIP brunch the morning of the festival. While they’ve each gotten great media coverage up to this point, this event will surely open them up to new and different circles of influence in the southeastern food and barbecue scene.
Then there’s the fact of Charlotte hosting such an event in the first place. While anyone who pays attention to barbecue may not bat an eye at such a celebration of barbecue, it reminds me of something more along the lines of an event at the Charleston Wine + Food Festival or any number of similar events in Texas like the Texas Monthly BBQ Festival. These type of events don’t seem to happen in Charlotte. Not to get ahead of myself, but let’s hope this festival becomes a mainstay of the Charlotte food scene for years to come.
The inaugural Carolina BBQ Festival has a chance to put Charlotte barbecue on the map through its first-of-its-kind festival for Charlotte, its collection of talented pitmasters from the southeast, and its spotlight of the current Charlotte barbecue scene. The slogan of the festival is ‘Divided By Sauce, United By Coals’ and in that spirit I hope Charlotte shows out in unity for what is sure to be a fantastic afternoon of barbecue. I hope to see you there.
The Carolina Barbecue Festival takes place Sunday, May 21st from 12-4 at Camp North End in Charlotte. More information and tickets available on their website.
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.
Matthew Register’s first cookbook “Southern Smoke: Barbecue, Traditions, and Treasured Recipes Reimagined for Today” came out in May 2019 on the same day as books from both Sam Jones and Ed Randolph. While Sam Jones’ told the story of his family’s barbecue legacy (with some recipes) and Randolph’s book featured profiles on various pitmasters and barbecue personalities (with recipes), Southern Smoke is more of a traditional cookbook heavy on the recipes from a few specific regions of the South. And its not all about just barbecue.
Matthew Register’s barbecue star has been on the rise since this book was published last year, between features in Southern Living and Garden & Gun magazines as well as stops on the food festival circuit at Charleston Wine + Food as well as Atlanta Food & Wine. As for the Southern Smoke barbecue restaurant itself, it has been on my list for years to visit but between the fact that Garland is 3.5 hours away and the store is only open on Thursdays and Fridays (due to their catering business), so far a visit there has yet to come to fruition.
The first quarter of the book is dedicated to barbecue, starting off with the basics of smoking as well as traditional North Carolina barbecue and slaws (both eastern and Lexington). Nothing earth shattering there if you’ve read other barbecue books or have done any smoking yourself. From there, Register continues with non-barbecue North Carolina dishes such as collard chowder as well as several seafood dishes like Lenoir County fish stew and fried Spanish mackerel harp, reflecting his hometown of Garland’s position not far from the Atlantic Ocean beaches of NC. Register introduces each dish and his personal history with it and in many cases is able to provide some history on it.
Then, what really sets the book apart from the usual barbecue cookbook is the subsequent chapters featuring recipes from the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia as well as from Memphis and the Mississippi Delta. I don’t expect you would find recipes in other barbecue books for dishes such as Country Captain Chicken, James Island shrimp pie, delta tamales, or Kool Aid pickles.
Register finishes the book with a chapter on baking, as well as some supper menus (like “Low Country Boil” or “Surf and Turf Carolina Style”), a list of recommended pantry items, and a list of barbecue and southern cookbooks that Register recommends.
I’ll likely never attempt most of the recipes in “Southern Smoke” but its a wonderfully put together reference book that I’m happy to have sit on my shelf alongside some of my favorite barbecue history and recipe books.
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