Good News From Big Belly Q in Chapel Hill
Garret Fleming is at Big Belly Qu
Thomas Fleming
Thomas Fleming is president of the Fleming Foundation. He is the author of six books, including The Morality of Everyday Life and The Politics of Human Nature, as well as many articles and columns for newspapers, magazines,and learned journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Greek from the College of Charleston. He served as editor of Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture from 1984 to 2015 and president of The Rockford Institute from 1997-2014. In a previous life he taught classics at several colleges and served as a school headmaster in South Carolina
Stop! Stop! You’re killing me with the pictures already. One Dirty Bird Biscuit and I think I could die happily. I hereby swear off Chick-Fil-A (official foodstuff of Con-Inc Chuckleheads) for good.
One only hopes that, located in Chapel Hill, Chef Garret has received the imprimatur of His Smokiness John Shelton Reed, the Pope of Pulled Pork and Tar Heel Conspiracy Alumnus. Either way, show of hands! Who else is ready for a Carolina road trip. Aside from all the lefties to your right or left, Chapel Hill is a charming and worthy destination. Maybe best of all, at 6-7 hours distance, Atlantans never think of the place as a weekend destination. Now we have one more reason to go.
Dr Fleming, I think one day we were beginning to discuss why the Right can’t have any Chapel Hill’s (or Austin’s or Charlottesville’s etc.) when we were distracted by, possibly, the national drink of Wisconsin (brandy & soda). When Gramsci suggested the long march through the academies, he knew what he was doing. They not only got the culture, they got some of the best small towns in America, and, inevitably, the better restaurants. And now, apparently, barbecue. Et tu, Garret?
I just hope we can still go above the Cheese curtain for day visit now and then after President Kamala settles into the Oval Office.
I’ve experimented with a lot of different pulled pork recipes, but I keep coming back to a Carolina sauce. I’m convinced that is the way to do pulled pork. Most other types are too sweet for me. A little honey, a little mustard, Worcestershire, and lots of vinegar are the way to go. My wife and I had some truck stop barbecue years ago, down in Carolina. It was divine. That turned me on to the Carolina sauce, and we haven’t looked back…. That and a side of sweet potato fries would be my last meal.
Pulled pork has little to do with barbecue. I’m not sure it’s technically even food. I have been forced to put it in my mouth from time to time jus to be polite to hosts. I’m sure those little tastes took days if not months and years off my life. I don’t entirely disapprove of sauces applied at the end, but it is non-essential, even the vinegar oil and hot pepper of the Carolinas. If the meat is not a joy to eat without anything on it, it is a flop. I’ve been present when son Garret was asked about his “pulled pork.” the customer is lucky that what got pulled was not the Murray Carter neck knife. Next summer seminar, I’m going to try to arrange for the boy to be present to give a seminar on smoking meat.
I almost fired an editorial flunkey for binging his home-made ketchup sauce to a lecture event for which I had smoked pig all day long.
Every round of brandy and soda we drank in Wisconsin with Sam, Carl, Jim, and the rest, we roasted your name for not being there. Get yourself up here soon. We’ll be in Charleston in October.
When I started the whole pulled pork fiasco here, I hope you realize I only did it for the alliteration.
There is a buzz started for October in Charleston. The winds of Syracuse may even be pointing that way.
I thought it was on account of porcine illiteration, but apparently I was mistaken.
I know so little about BBQ, I didn’t even know “White Sauce” was what Alabama was famous for, and I grew up (mostly) in Alabama.
Lovely news. Prosper, Garret, prosper! BBQ is pretty scarce in the GWN. I hope to taste it, first-rate, some day before shifting this earthly coil.