South Carolina, the home of barbecue, is redefining itself with the help of pulled pork
London has a growing fascination with the foods of the American South. In recent years we’ve seen an explosion of Blues kitchens, artisanal fried chicken joints and barbecue boutiques. It’s like restaurateurs made a collective decision some time around 2010 that any new restaurant, anywhere in the city, must offer piles of sweet, tangy pulled pork.
But while it’s still a relative novelty to Londoners, this cuisine has a rich history in the American South, and, perhaps, a small but important part to play in its future. I set off to learn more about the area’s famous food and how it plays into the idea of a more prosperous, less culturally divided “New South”.
Barbecue as we know it was, according to some, invented on the Sea Islands off the South Carolina coast, when around 500 years ago Spanish explorers introduced pigs to an indigenous population who had already mastered the art of pit cooking. So it was here that I chose to gorge myself on enough pork to topple a lesser man, basing myself in Greenville, the largest town in the north-western region nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
After decades of stagnation, South Carolina is growing richer, more diverse, and – tentatively – more culturally liberal. But it’s also become a focal-point for the deep-seated problems facing vast swathes of the country; the Charleston shooting earlier this year, in which nine black church-goers were murdered by a white supremacist, appalled the world and has led to much soul-searching among North Americans.
Greenville, part of the area known as “The Upstate”, was established as a mill town, built on cotton and textiles, but by the 1970s it was in seemingly terminal decline, rife with social problems and still under the shadow of segregation. Enter Max Heller, an Austrian-Jewish refugee who had settled in Greenville prior to World War II and became its mayor in 1971. He desegregated all city departments and commissions, and was instrumental in reviving the moribund downtown area, cleaning it up and attracting significant business, including Michelin – producer of tyres and fine dining guides – which based its US headquarters here (alas, Michelin hasn’t yet given one of its coveted stars to a Greenville restaurant). There’s a statue of Heller – standing at street-level – that showed none of the signs of the vandalism you might expect on a similar civic memorial in Britain. He wasn’t even wearing a traffic cone as a hat. The only sign of interaction from the public was a shiny forefinger, which pointed towards the future; in this instance the Hyatt Downtown.
Today the old textile factories of Greenville’s past are increasingly put to use housing local businesses. This is where I found Mike and Jeff’s, a relatively low-key barbecue shack on the edge of a tract of housing that used to be tied to a long-closed mill. Nearby Henry’s is a more commercial affair, brewing ice tea by the bucket and presenting its pulled pork in a comic grotesque fashion, piled amid head and trotters with a pineapple-top for a tail, like a Cockaignian fantasy of a pig that wants to be eaten. But Bucky’s Bar-B-Q, of which there are four dotted across Greenville, gets my vote for Best Ribs. Bucky himself (real name Wayne) has an inspirational story about how, thanks to his pastor and a series of actual, honest-to-goodness miracles, he went from penniless to barbecue mogul. It sounded more like he’s a man with generous friends and an uncanny talent for smoking pigs, but I must admit his pulled pork was about as close as I’ve come to a religious experience.
My trip coincided with two major events in Greenville: the Euphoria festival of food, drink and music, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this September, and a Republican presidential policy forum, in which the frontrunners in the contest to become the party’s candidate in next year’s presidential race are given the chance to put forward their position on a range of topics, moderated by the Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley. I passed the latter to get to the former, and there were protesters in abundance, waving placards and a variety of Confederate flags. Some of the more committed were dressed in Civil War uniforms.
The Old Cigar Factory in South Carolina – one of many reclaimed industrial spaces
Although they had gathered for a range of reasons, a common thread was a demand for the restoration of the Confederate flag that had been taken down from the State House in the aftermath of the Charleston murders. One handed me a bumper-sticker featuring the white-starred blue saltire on a red background above the words, “I Support Confederate History Month”. A pickup truck bunny-hopped past me, the battle flag fluttering over the cab and, as an empty beer can flung from the window clattered by my feet, I stifled the impulse to shout, “Yay! Stereotypes!”
It inspired me to indulge in a bit of stereotyping of my own, filing the protestors under different headings. There were history enthusiasts, who simply didn’t want to let go of their past; the ethno-subnationalists, who feared this was an attack on white Southern culture; the state’s rights activists, who worried that this was an erosion of South Carolina’s independence; the paranoids, who whispered of socialist conspiracies or the machinations of the UN; and millenarians who would start out discussing political or social issues, before swerving off to explain that this is a fallen world, that soon it will be the end times, and that they are living for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Having the protests so close to the Euphoria festival was an unfortunate juxtaposition; certainly not the image of South Carolina the city wants to present to national and international tourists. The festival is designed to show off the very best of Southern culture, including tasting events, cooking demonstrations and wine seminars, as well as multi-course dinners and live music (profits are funnelled back into the charity Local Boys Do Good). The food is eclectic, ranging from southern staples like devilled eggs, to classics with a contemporary twist, like braised beef short ribs on creamy grits.
Many of the events are held in the relics of Greenville’s manufacturing past, a personal favourite being the Wyche Pavillion, a brutally attractive brick structure, with high ceilings and unglazed arched windows. It was built in 1904 as a paint shop for a company making horse-drawn carriages, but that business was overtaken by the automobile, so in 1925 it became the first factory producing Duke’s Mayonnaise, which is currently the third largest mayo brand in the US, and an essential for Southern favourites such as coleslaw and potato salad. Empty since 1958, the building has now been reinvented as an events venue. Another is the Old Cigar Warehouse, all exposed brick and wide-open spaces, which played host to a late-night party called Lambs and Clams, the event premised on the obvious truth that things that rhyme with one another taste delicious together. The star creation was Shepherds’ Brittle; a crunchy beer and bourbon-based toffee, packed with pecans and glacé lamb.
I spoke to some locals about the Confederate flag protesters, and by a happy quirk of vexillology, one of my drinking companions turned out to be a descendant of Christopher Gadsden, designer of the War of Independence-era “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, whose coiled rattlesnake on a yellow field has more recently been flown by members of the Tea Party movement. They were generally positive about the extent and direction of change that South Carolina has undergone in recent decades, and, looking out over the clean modern buildings of downtown Greenville, it’s easy to be positive.
The next day I wrangled an invite to a state dinner, at which a group of “chef ambassadors” for the area cooked a classic of Low Country (coastal) South Carolinian cuisine: Frogmore Stew Chowder. This dish, consisting of shrimps and corn, is named for a tiny unincorporated community on the Sea Island of St Helena, and is also known as Low Country boil or Beaufort Stew. Similar dishes are common throughout the American south-east, and the recipe couldn’t be simpler: two-thirds fill a very large pot with water, bring to the boil over a medium heat with salt, Old Bay Seasoning (bay leaf, celery seed, black pepper and paprika), and the juice of a lemon. Add small, waxy redskin potatoes, and when they are getting close to cooked, throw in thick slices of a firm, spicy cooked sausage, such as a kielbasa. After a few minutes more add shucked, halved corn on the cob, then wait five minutes before adding the de-veined shrimp. After three to five minutes on a roiling boil, drain the cooking liquid from the pot, and tip what remains onto a picnic table well covered with newspaper.
We were served a slightly refined version, pulled together by a creamy, lightly smoky, deeply flavourful velouté. Tradition with a twist. Delicious gentrification on a plate. A fellow guest at the banquet was none other than Nikki Haley, the aforementioned governor. She spoke movingly about the Charleston massacre, the flag that she’d successfully pushed to be removed from the State House (it’s now in a museum) and how proud she was that South Carolina had re-elected its first minority governor, and its first woman governor. It took me a second to realise that she was referring to herself in the third person (her parents were Sikhs, who migrated from India before she was born). It’s easy to see why she’s often mentioned as a possible Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2016: young, female, Southern, photogenic, from a minority background, not obviously crazy… It’s hard not to admire her equanimity, her positive vision for the state and her ability to articulate it. Coming from her, you can believe her vision for the New South can be achieved.
In the South Carolina State House, now devoid of its controversial flag, six holes were shot in the wall when it came under cannon fire from General Sherman’s Union Army in 1865. “We marked them with bronze stars,” explains a guide. “Because if we ever repaired them, we’d have to stop talking about it.” That one statement provides the perfect pop-psychological explanation for everything I’d seen during my visit. Having a close attachment to the past, and a need to keep it alive, explains the flag protesters, but it also explains the commitment to a food culture centuries in the making, about which people are just as passionate.