Good Ole Rocky Top

Well, since Amy brought it up.....

Amy grew up in Henderson, Tennessee - yup, home of Freed-Hardeman University. It's a VERY small town and we went with her to visit one time. I remember it being beautiful (was it the fall or spring?) and her parent's house was fun, too. There was still a poster that Amy had made in the 3rd (?) grade on the stairwell going upstairs. (It was something about household safety - be sure to read the comments to see what Amy tells us it said.) There was a great upstairs and Amy's room had eaves - I loved it! Maybe it even rained - very romantic.

Being a small town, Amy's dad knew everybody, including the guy who owned one of the BBQ restaurants. Restaurants is a nice word, in this instance, for joint. Us twentysomething girls walk into a place that the Health Department forgot and are welcomed into the kitchen. Mr. Clifford wants us to see how they cook the pork BBQ. Apparently, in East Tennessee, it has to be pulled pork. More to come... Now, in the south PORK is the only kind of BBQ there is! Jim was the first person I had ever seen eat beef BBQ! YUCK! Dry and, well, just dry. Back home we chose inside or outside meat - sliced or chopped and it ALL had BBQ sauce. Even now I don't understand how people eat it without BBQ sauce.

Ya know, the secret's in the sauce...

But anyway, off we went into the kitchen and then through the kitchen! We went outside to the little shed where they actually cooked the pork! I had never seen this before. Where the meat gets cooked! Wellllll...... There were two long wire racks about two feet off the floor that ran the length of the shed - maybe 6 feet. They were on either side of the shed at a 90* angle. Laid out on the racks - more like grates - were two halves of one pig. Like the big guy had been sliced lengthwise and laid out! Alright then.....

But wait, there's more. More than a big pig cooking, you ask! Yep, there's a big guy, that didn't graduate from high school and had eaten more that his share of pork, pulling meat off the pig in strings! I think it was off his shoulder - the pig's, I mean. This young man was working and sweating in that little shed so all the residents of Henderson could have BBQ that day. Oh yeah, he was sweating. It was dropping off the end of his nose onto the pig! Big drops adding salt to the mix. I can still see it. It was disgusting to say the least.

Mr. Clifford was nice enough to buy a quart for us to have at home. Just in case we needed a snack.

We abstained.