The Jargon Society

Barbecue is extremely serious stuff in North Carolina. Herbert O’Keef, a former editor of the Raleigh Times, once said: “No man has ever been elected Governor of North Carolina without eating more barbecue than was good for him.” It is just possible that the only thing in the world that Jesse Helms gets right is knowing good barbecue from bad barbecue.

Arguments about what makes good barbecue are endless. Most people think using hardwood is the way to do the cooking and smoking, and they prefer hickory over oak. (Parker’s, of Wilson, North Carolina, has gone over to gas for heating the pits and most of its customers still seem well satisfied.) Some like it lean, some fat. “Gimme a fat sa’mich, honey,” yells an old farmer. That’s it, just bread and fat. Some insist on shoulder or ham, some want to use the whole pig. Some chop it, some slice it, some pull it and shred it. In eastern NC the sauce is vinegar based. In western NC, it’s got ketchup, salt, sugar, red and black pepper added to the vinegar. Lexington is considered mecca to many, and my favorite place is “Lexington Barbecue #1,” off Highway 29-70, operated by Mr. D. Wayne Monk and his brother Tom. Craig Claiborne, in the New York Times, so extolled “The Monk” that D. Wayne found himself in Williamsburg making barbecue for the Reagan/Mitterand Summit. Roger Manley, a connoisseur who has eaten more barbecue than you have ever dreamed of, disagrees completely. He likes “Speedy’s,” a little north of town on Highway 52. I just don’t understand it. I want to go to Memphis one day with Roger and see how we feel about Gridley’s versus Charlie Vergos’s Rendezvous. Of course, the truth is the ribs are delicious in both places. Very dry at Charlie Vergos’s, almost more Middle-Eastern than Middle-Western in flavor. At Gridley’s everything’s wet and juicy, and you might just drown from delight.

There is one place about which Roger and I are in complete agreement. We are not the only ones. In their book, Roadfood, Jane and Michael Stern say: “We have found perfection, and its name is the Ridgewood Restaurant.” The sad thing is that the Ridgewood is tucked away in the wilds of eastern Tennessee and that means a long journey from almost anywhere. I try to combine a visit with Georgia Blizzard, the potter, in Glade Spring, Virginia, with a stop at Grace Proffitt’s wonderful eatery. The Ridgewood is north of Elizabethton, Tennessee, at the crest of a low gap in the hills, on Highway 19-E. A few miles to the north is Bluff City. And further north, the city of Bristol. It’s about 11 miles on back roads, south from Interstate-81 at Bristol, using Exit 69. The best thing to do is telephone for directions from wherever: 423.538.7543.

Grace has been presiding at her restaurant since 1948 and everything seems about as good as it can get. Making the trip to the Ridgewood whets the appetite and puts one in reverential mood, like a first visit to Chartres, or the anticipation of a meal with Louis Outhier or the Brothers Haeberlin at the Auberge de l’Ill in Alsace. Our last visit to the Ridgewood, two local businessman were entertaining two Japanese visitors. They were properly entranced. Such tastes required no translation. A hand-written testimonial from General William Westmoreland on a wall of the restaurant assured us all that it was the best barbecue anywhere on earth. If Jesse Helms can be right about barbecue, so can the General.

Because I love the accuracy of his writing, let me quote John Egerton from his book, Southern Food (Knopf, NYC, 1987), on how it’s done at the Ridgewood. Grace Proffitt’s way is not for traditional purists: “They start with fresh hams, not shoulders. The meat cooks and smokes for about ten hours over hickory coals. Then it is chilled in a cooler, sliced cold, and reheated on a hamburger grill at high temperature. While it sizzles, it is doused generously with a spicy-sweet and mildly hot tomato-based sauce. The mound of moist and piping-hot meat is then troweled onto a toasted bun and served with slaw and French fries, both freshly made and of the highest quality.” Another side dish to order is a little crock of Mrs. Proffitt’s barbecued beans. C’est sublime, as they’d say in France if they had barbecue this good. Sweetened iced tea tends to be the beverage of choice. Beer is seldom to be found in barbecue restaurants, for whatever sociological reasons. Classic Coke suits me.

Neither Roger nor I has ever been able to eat more than one of the ample sandwiches (think it was all of $2.75 in 1988) at the Ridgewood, so we don’t know about the pies and cakes. We observed most customers picking up a little wrapped confection (made in Nashville) known as a “Goo-Goo Cluster,” as they paid their bill at the counter. One wonders.

When we paid Mrs. Proffitt and thanked her sincerely for such culinary art, I bought three pints of her secret-formula barbecue sauce, of which she makes about 15 gallons early every morning. Said Grace: “Boys, I hope you like that sauce. Hit’s got a whang to it!”

Jonathan Williams

(North Carolina Literary Review, Number 5, 1996)

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