The BBQ of Life
“O taste and see that the Lord is good.”
“I am the bread of life. ”
Boys are born with a dominant Barbeque gene. Girls I think with a recessive one, that can pair up to be dominant in some. But we guys. The quest and taste for BBQ is deep wired in our lizard brain. Most of us wax highly opinionated and authoritative about what makes for and constitutes 'good barbecue'. Like asking how to make a banana sandwich, answers are numerous, sometimes at odds with one another.
In my long owned, seldom consulted 4 volume Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, depending on what part of the South you are in, BBQ can default refer to beef, poultry, goat, certain game, and the correct answer, for me, pork. But citing pork only opens the discussion. There is the wood, smoke, method of cooking. Then the 'correct' way of cutting/tearing the meat AND the piece de la resistance, the saucing of such.
Years ago, as a first year seminary student at Vanderbilt, I became the weekend pastor of 100 member Gurley Methodist Church - or as my Uncle Bob Morgan at the time dubbed it First Church Gurley. Anyhow, realizing I was in BBQ deficit, I asked where I could get good BBQ. Quickly, I was told, at Gibson's in nearby Huntsville. The next Saturday, Dianne and I went to Gibson's, ordered BBQs and fries. I quickly called the waitress back. Mam, someone spilled slaw on this, and the meat is all torn up, and other than some vinegary taste, there is no sauce. She politely told me that's the way we make them here. She was not interested in the way we make them in Birmingham.
Which leads me to say that you can take the boy out of Birmingham, but your can't take the B'ham BBQ out of the boy. Deep in my roots, Saturdays with my dad. BBQ is sliced; chopped occasionally when not good enough to slice. Slaw is for ON the side not the BBQ. And the sauce is red. Not too thick or thin, the piquant (look it up) tomato based sauce is a nice tang mixing sweet with vinegary, both respecting, but not dominating the other. Notice the picture of the correct BBQ sandwich according to Birmingham Bill. (Though I concede, tomato vinegary a la Ollie's, of blessed memory for BBQ and pies NOT his politics.)
(Yes, going on too long as usual - get a blog Bill - which is coming soon.) Tangy, opinionated news columnist John Archibald (son and grandson of Methodist preachers) has been surveying Alabama BBQ this summer. He notes that people who can hardly talk with each other about their differences on politics, religion, and social issues can have great discussions about BBQ. Even amicably agree to disagree. Challenges that wind up at a table and plates, not outside and fists. BBQ like dogs can bring us together.
In the Bible, images of heaven, which is beyond our capacity to picture, nevertheless promise a table where people from all over, enemies no longer, can sit together, room for all... and there is food enough for everyone. We forget we live in a bubble of geography and time where people count and fret about calories. In a hungry world, our response is not guilt but repentance and sharing.
Still and meanwhile, food shared at table, restored and reconciled with close ones and distant ones, is a preview of heaven and our hope to be together forever with everyone we loved and who loved us.