THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509280043
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BROWN H. CARPENTER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 157 lines
IT'S A SIMPLE dish, but it generates persistent arguments. Barbecue, peculiar to the South and rural Midwest, is as varied as the accents of the people who cook it over hickory wood, charcoal or oak.
The purveyors of barbecue can't even agree on the spelling - or the ingredients. In some places it's pork, in others it's beef.
``Barbecue'' is the preferred spelling in Webster's New World Dictionary, but many restaurants label it ``bar-b-q'' or ``barbeque.''
Still, from Texas to Virginia, from Kansas City, Mo., to Jacksonville, Fla., when hungry folks yearn for barbecue, be it pork or beef, they most often want it cooked over a smoky flame till it drops off the bone, then served on a hamburger bun with a pungent sauce and generous helping of coleslaw.
The side dishes are usually french fries, baked beans and hush puppies.
In the Southeast, pork (shoulders, Boston butts or whole hog) is the preferred conduit. In Texas and the Midwest, barbecue generally means beef.
The meat may be minced, chopped, pulled or sliced. The sauce may be a simple vinegar mixture - maybe boiled, maybe not - or a ketchup and brown sugar (or perhaps molasses) blend. South Carolinians use mustard.
The sauce can be slathered on during the cooking, just before serving or by the customer before eating. It all depends on what neck of the woods you're in. Or the idiosyncrasies of the chef.
Dan Johnson, owner and pit boss of Johnson's Bar-B-Que at 1903 S. Military Highway in Chesapeake, has won a slew of national barbecue prizes for his longtime recipe. His restaurant is filled with trophies.
``I grew up smelling barbecue,'' the Arkansas native boasts. ``I didn't know the impact it was having until I went to places without barbecue.''
Johnson says his recipe is from his father, who once served barbecue to Gen. George S. Patton Jr. The younger Johnson continued the family tradition after a career as an Army officer.
His concoction is chopped pork so tender you ``don't need teeth to eat it,'' served with a sweet, ketchup-based sauce that delivers a cayenne kick just as you're about to swallow. Johnson says the recipe transcends the vinegar-based North Carolina and thicker Southern styles of sauce.
For the adventurous, he also offers ``thermonuclear sauce,'' a fiery mixture that he jokes will explode under certain conditions.
``Barbecue is coming into its own again,'' Johnson says. ``We've got more restaurants now than I've ever seen in this area.''
In the past five years, barbecue restaurants have proliferated in Hampton Roads. Here, it is possible to sample most any style of the regional favorite. LOW OVERHEAD
Barbecue restaurants typically aren't big on decor. Most require only cinderblock walls, a roof and a chimney for the hickory smoke to escape.
Consider the Bar B Que Grill at Hilltop West shopping center in Virginia Beach. A small lunch counter, bar stools, a few tables and rodeo posters create the atmosphere.
Service is fast-food style - barbecuers had the process down long before McDonald's and other modern quickie eateries. Prices are comparable, too. At the Bar B Que Grill, for example, a sandwich costs $3.25 to $3.75, depending on whether the pork is chopped or pulled, a price typical in most local restaurants. A pound-to-go is $6 for chopped, $6.50 for pulled.
Dan Wommack, Grill proprietor, didn't pick up his skills at the Cordon Bleu. ``I'm a grill fanatic,'' he says in a fine Georgia drawl. ``I used to run a produce stand on Virginia Beach Boulevard. Then (about four years ago) I decided to do something serious.''
His chunks of tender pork are cooked with minimal sauce. You apply the sweetly piquant formula. Wommack says the cayenne-vinegar recipe originated with his in-laws in Miami.
On North Landing Road just south of the Virginia Beach municipal complex, the North Landing General Grocery conjures images of the boondock South, where well-done pork flourishes.
Grocer/pit boss Pam Beasley says among her customers are tourists heading for the Outer Banks, construction workers, city workers and teachers from nearby schools.
The Grocery serves up two types of barbecue: Carolina-style, with a vinegar sauce, and Hog Heaven, with a thick, sweet sauce. They're about 50-50 in sales, Beasley says.
You can smell the rich aroma right in the parking lot, where a big smoker is at work. Grab a seat, a soft drink or an Evian, order a sandwich, and enjoy. ON THE PERIPHERY
Hampton Roads also is a lure for pit bosses just outside its borders.
Pierce's, for almost 25 years a mecca for the hungry at Lightfoot, off Interstate 64 just west of Williamsburg, also operates a stand at Norfolk's Waterside.
For those who like classification, the sauce is a ketchup-based, eastern Tennessee recipe. It's a balance between zesty and sweet.
Pierce's barbecue is so popular, many motorists exit I-64 and negotiate tricky Rochambeau Drive to get to it. (Take Exit 234 eastbound and 238 westbound if you're going toward Richmond.)
On the Eastern Shore, Jim Formyduval, a North Carolina native who moved here from Georgia five years ago, operates Formy's Pit Barbecue in Painter. ``I came up here and caught some fish,'' he says, ``and decided I'd stay.''
In April, he opened a second Formy's at 5785 Northampton Blvd. in Virginia Beach.
``We have what we call pulled barbecue,'' he says, ``cooked so long it really won't slice. It falls off the bone. I like chunks of meat. The sauce recipe is indigenous to middle Georgia.''
He adds a smidgen of sauce while cooking. Customers may season their sandwiches with hot or mild sauce, or sprinkle from the bottles of vinegar and hot peppers.
Recently, Formyduval began selling beef barbecue, too. Johnson, Basely and Wommack also sell beef, as does Harry's Famous Barbecue in downtown Norfolk.
But beef arrived in Hampton Roads in a big way when the Beach Bully lighted its grill about a decade ago on Baltic Avenue near Laskin Road in Virginia Beach.
``Beef is our trademark,'' says co-owner Chris Merrill. ``It's something others do on the side. It's the only place to eat rare roast beef.''
Patrons can try a zingy horseradish sauce instead of the vinegar or ketchup mixtures that are doused on pork.
Although it's just off the resort strip, the Bully is more popular with locals than with tourists, Merrill says.
The Bully recently added pork to its menu, served chunky with a vinegar-based sauce. OLD-TIMERS
The area's two oldest barbecue establishments may be Doumar's at 20th Street and Monticello Avenue in Norfolk - it's been in business for 90 years - and the Bar-B-Que Barn in the Deep Creek section of Chesapeake, which has been around since the 1950s.
Doumar's offers pork barbecue with lettuce, tomato and cheese. But, according to the menu, most customers shun these blasphemies for minced pork with a topping of slaw.
At the Barn, owner Herby Dorsett fixes North Carolina-style pork, chopped or sliced. He tried beef but now offers it only at lunch because it wasn't a big seller.
Among the newest barbecue grills is Growbelly's, named and owned by Mike and David Sandler. The brothers recently arrived from Memphis, where they operated a sports bar.
Their restaurant at Bayside Shopping Center on Pleasure House Road in Virginia Beach first specialized in ribs, but customers demanded a sandwich, the brothers say.
``It's a Southern-style sandwich,'' says Mike Sandler. ``Strips of pork with a homemade red sauce made from molasses, brown sugar, tomato paste, herbs and spices. We try to be different.'' ILLUSTRATION: MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff color photos
Cassandara Jefferson waits for her takeout order at the Bar B Que
Grill in Virginia Beach, where customers can add a sweetly piquant
sauce to their pork.
North Landing General Grocery in Virginia Beach serves
Carolina-style barbecue, with a vinegar sauce, and Hog Heaven, with
a thick, sweet sauce.
Anne Mallory works up to her sandwich at Rodman's Bones & Buddys
Barbecue in Portsmouth.
by CNB