THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503070050
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
Folks in the Creeds Ruritan Club don't have a recipe for the baked beans they'll be serving at their annual barbecue Saturday.
But this will be the 19th year that folks have come back for more of the bacon and molasses flavored beans and for homemade hush puppies, coleslaw and whole hog barbecue cooked up by local farmers from local hogs.
``We don't have a recipe,'' said chief bean baker Don Horsley. ``We keep dumping in and tasting until it tastes good and then we quit.''
Ruritans will quit tasting long about 11:30 a.m. and start serving plates heaping full of beans and barbecue until 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the defunct Rainbow Gardens site, just south of the Back Bay Post Office on Princess Anne Road. Tickets are $6.
``We serve big plates,'' said barbecue ``boss'' Ralph Frost. ``We get more complaints about too much than not enough.''
Frost is planning for 1,500 barbecue lovers this year. That translates into 15 hogs at 100 pounds of barbecue per hog, he said. I figured that meant those plates are really big, each having the potential of holding up to a pound of barbecue!
Frost, Horsley and Earl McClain had gathered at Rainbow Gardens to erect barbecue signs along Princess Anne Road. The three have been working on the barbecue since it began 19 years ago. Frost can't even remember when he started serving as barbecue boss.
``It's been the last right many years,'' he said.
That's one of the secrets of the barbecue's longstanding reputation. Along with fresh ingredients, the cooks' taste buds have stood the test of time.
Since the beginning Horsley has been working with Steve Barnes, who's no longer a Ruritan member but still comes back to cook beans, make coleslaw and mix barbecue sauce every year. Jim Clark makes the hush puppies, following in the footsteps of his dad who made them for the first decade. And all the Ruritans pitch in to chop and serve.
Same folks, same menu, same add-and-taste recipes. About the only changes in food preparation over the years have been in the process. Now the Ruritans chop barbecue with electric knives instead of meat cleavers, Horsley said.
``And I'll never forget that first one,'' he went on. ``We spent all night sleeping at the Creeds Fire Station. We built a pit out of cinder blocks and started cooking at 8 Friday night.''
Now they cook the barbecue the day before in cookers on gas grills.
``The only thing that's changed is we've gotten smarter,'' Horsley said, ``and older and wiser.''
``Weaker and wiser,'' cracked McClain, whom Horsley calls the mayor of Blackwater.
The one big break in tradition this year is the move from the Creeds Fire Station to Rainbow Gardens. Frost hopes the new site will offer more parking and more room.
``It's the only time of the year that Creeds has a traffic jam,'' Horsley joked.
Frost also hopes with more room, people will spend more time socializing. The barbecue is the last big event before farmers get busy in the fields. Come the first of April, they'll be planting corn and there will be no more time for beans and barbecue.
IF YOU DO HEAD DOWN TO THE BARBECUE, here are a few ways to make a day of it if you choose. Drive on down Princess Anne Road to the Knotts Island Causeway and see if the snow geese are still feeding on the far south side. If the geese are still there, wish them farewell because they'll be leaving any time now for their long migration to the Arctic.
Stop for a pound of country sausage at Ansell's market which is next door to Rainbow Gardens.
Turn from Princess Anne Road onto Pungo Ferry Road and drive across the high Pungo Ferry Bridge to see a view of the North Landing River you'd never see except from an airplane. If you keep on going you can explore Blackwater and see what McClain is ``mayor'' of.
When you reach Blackwater Road, take a left and drive over Blackwater Creek. Stop on the far side for a visit at the Blackwater Trading Post, one of the few original country stores still remaining in Virginia Beach.
To head home, go back the same way on Blackwater Road and you will cross the swampy Pocaty River where barges used to carry Blackwater farmers' produce to market. Blackwater Road will lead to Pleasant Ridge Road in Chesapeake. Take a right on Pleasant Ridge and you'll end up crossing back over the North Landing River where you'll be on North Landing Road, just below the Municipal Center.
P.S. Computers in Farming Workshops for beginners will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and for intermediate users from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, both at the old Courthouse Elementary School.
Call 427-4769 for information.
TIDEWATER VIGNETTES, paintings by members of the Chesapeake Bay Watercolorists, will be on display through March 26 at the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia. Call 422-1587. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
Earl McClain, left, and Ralph Frost set up signs along Princess Anne
Road. They are planning for 1,500 barbecue lovers this year at
Rainbow Gardens.
by CNB